Today was the meeting at church called, "MOMS" (Mothers of Many Seasons), and once again, Nathan did not make it in nursery. This was his first graduation, to the crawler room, and maybe all the mobile kids were just too much. Or maybe he was just pitifully tired. Or maybe he missed his security blanket (a.k.a. Mommy). In any case, when they came and got me, I found him and another girl feeding off each other, wailing, and doing the shaky sobs when I picked him up. After he calmed down, he sat in my lap in the Bible study room with the ladies just fine. He even started to sing, his version anyway, which amused the tables around us. He crashed on the 5 minute ride home, and hardly stirred when I took off his coat and hat and put him into bed. Yesss!
So that leaves me some time to ponder. I've found another blog recently, http://patriceandmattwilliams.blogspot.com/2010/02/please-help-us-get-word-out.html. I cried and cried over their story and their son's disease. They are having an auction, and I think in a few days this website will post the items. http://jonahsebauction.blogspot.com/2010/01/about-jonah.html
After I read about Jonah, and EB, I snuck upstairs and stood over Nathan's crib and watched him sleep. He is so healthy, and so easily he could have not been born healthy. While I stood there, he suddenly popped his head up and looked at the door where Mommy always "appears." He didn't see me right there, out of his line of sight, watching him. He looked for a bit, but didn't cry. He just put his head back down and fell asleep. I waited a few minutes before I felt safe to sneak back out.
There is a question I've been avoiding revisiting lately. "God is good" - what does that mean anyway? If being good means allowing young brothers to die, or babies getting incurable diseases, then good doesn't mean what I think of is good. Ditto for "love." But it is still all I have to cling to. I'm reading a book by Randy Alcorn called, "If God Is Good." I've only read the first two chapters, so I don't have the answer, and may never be satisfied with one. A quote that is sticking with me is,
"If my suffering would one day justify denying God, then I should deny him now in light of other people's suffering."Until that year when tragedy struck, I just believed that God was good, love and sovereign, but I did this without any life experience to test that. And when it happened, I sure DID NOT want to look back and say, "Wow, I hated it at the time,but I see what God did, and now I wouldn't change it." I did not want to learn anything, be better for the death of my brothers. So now what?
At MOMS one verse jumped out at me that I feel like I've never read before. "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints." Ps 116:15. Is that the answer? What I think of as heartbreaking and tragic God finds wonderful?
A big part of my brain is asking me to just believe it, accept this, and not deal with it anymore. Someone told me recently, "Don't question why."
He has hemmed me in behind and before, and thrown what appears to be crap at me while I'm in there, and I'm not sure what to do with it, but I'm not really going anywhere. Not sure if it is comforting yet.
Meanwhile, these pictures will bring a smile back to your face after reading such a depressing blog post. :-)
It's not a depressing post Kristina...it's good you're thinking it all through. It took me nearly 9 years after Madison's death to truly believe that God was good again. I had always just believed it, and didn't have any really awful experiences to test that either. I had difficult times, but none like the death of a child, that rocked me for all I was worth. I literally CRINGED when Romans 8:28 was read in my hearing...I didn't understand it. Not sure I do completely yet, but I'm getting there.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear that you're "not going anywhere". I did...I ran FAR from God. I put on a good show, kept going to church, still participated in the service, but my heart was not there. It was full of anger, hurt, grief, unBELIEVABLE pain, and deep sin. THANKFULLY, after 9 years, God got a hold of me, and I have gradually come back, little by little. I still had to process everything, but this time through God's lens. It doesn't mean that I have to like what He allowed, and I don't. But I can believe that He WILL bring something good out of what we went through. I don't know when, I don't know how. But He will...you just keep thinking through it. It's ok to question, it's ok to be angry that this has happened. I still am, on the days that I'd give anything to cuddle that third kid. But I'm at a place now where I don't act on it. I can feel what I need to feel, and then go back to the fact that I know God is good, and what satan would LOVE for me to be destroyed by, God is now using for my good, and His glory.
LOVE on that little boy..and just keep processing all of this. God will reveal different things to you as time goes by.
I have also heard people talk about their trials from the past by saying something like, "I wouldn't want to change it now." Like you, I don't want to get to the point of saying that. I know it is what the Lord planned for them and for us, and I can't change that. That phrase just seems like I would be embracing it to a degree that is very undesirable to me.
ReplyDeleteAfter the accident I did think about the "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" verse and it was comforting at first. Then the thought hit me that it seemed unkind and even sadistic of God to feel that way. In answer to that someone suggest that perhaps it refers to God's anticipation and welcoming of us to heaven. Oh... that was a different perspective. When you couple that with Jesus' prayer in John 17, "I desire that they will be with Me and see Your glory" we see a deeper and richer thinking on the whole subject. The "precious" verse becomes a comfort again as well.
About questioning why: I think--I am confident--those questions are acceptable. Jesus even asked on the cross, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" He asked a why question. We might get a few hints at an answer to those kinds of questions here, but more of that will be disclosed "on the other side." We should never demand an answer to "why" from God, just as we cannot demand anything of our Creator, but asking is OK. Sometimes, though, it becomes wearying and we start to lean toward the demanding area if we continue with those questions. At some point, for our own sanity and godliness, we just have to stop and agree with Ps 46, "Cease striving and know that I am God."
Love,
Mom