His Love

    Believing in God's love seems at times almost laughable.  Lest you think me being sacrilegious, keep reading.  Chalk up, add up, all the evil in this world and blame it on God.  Go ahead He has big shoulders and if He really cared, bad things would never happen, especially to good people.  To add insult to injury, if He really was good, then we would see Him in action, righting wrongs and putting out fires.  Where is He anyway?  And if His love is so great, why does this world revolve with senseless injustice?

   These questions burn in the hearts of the best of us, and choosing to trust in a God who seems to care little about the affairs of men seems insane.  We do not, and cannot understand God's love, even after we come to Christ.  Unfortunately our view of love and truth will forever be skewed by our humanity.   Did you have a perfect father?  Have you had a perfect life?  Then you are blessed with a life that is foreign to the majority of the rest of the world.

    Our world is severely broken, and so are we.  We demanded our independence from God, and He gave it to us all those years ago in Eden.  We remain forever angry with God for loving us enough to give it to us.  That's what happened when Israel wanted a king, He warned them of the consequences, in detail, yet they persisted.  And everything He said would happen- did.  So our own actions, and the actions of others taint our view of love, of God's love.  We wrestle with life and grapple with things beyond our comprehension.  The questions are difficult, but the truth even more so.

    Believing the truth requires faith and simplicity like a child, and who of us want to go there? It is way too vulnerable.  It is extremely hard to rescue someone unless they are willing to trust you.  Like a drowning person, they are out of their minds in panic mode and they could drown their would be rescuer in their effort to maintain control.  All God asks of us, "Let me rescue you, let me love you".  I have no true understanding of God's love, my view of God is so tainted and twisted by my experiences and humanity.  To believe that God loves me, and would do anything for me, yes has done everything for me, is incomprehensible. I have been on a quest my entire life to understand His love, and still cannot.  I long for the perfection of heaven, where " I will know even as I am known."
I long for my friends and family to see, feel and believe His love.  I long for them to know that I believe. God is love.  He is more than a question, He is the answer where there is no answer.  He is above and beyond.  He is Light and Health, He is Hope and Healing.  He is strength and peace.  He is everything.  He is...... love

     So please do not discourage this heart that swells with love and respect for Him.  He has a love that has never let me go!  Please search for Him, seek Him and cry out to Him.  Until you have given your all to find Him and have had faith like a child, until you have looked fully to Him.....please do not tell me that true love is impossible!

I leave you with these thoughts:

God is a verb.

 

An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children.

He does not distribute Himself so that each may have a part,

 but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.

A. W. Tozer

 

It's not ALL bad

     The interesting thing about life is it moves on.  While that may seem like a no brainer to you, it is interesting to me.  In the days and weeks preceding and following Karagen's death I felt like life was cruel to just keep going, whether I was ready or not.  Yet here I am 2 1/2 months away from that day and I realize that time moving forward is the very thing that brings healing and gently nudges us to move forward too.  The passing of time brings healing and....it does get easier, but only because we get stronger.  We find healing in the broken places.

  Here are some favorite photos that capture some moments of pure joy for me in the last few months.

 

I am so thankful for a full, rich life.  I am blessed!

Grief Speaks 3

          Tightness and pain in the back of my throat.  My heart hurting physically.  Like I'd been crying all night yet without the relief of real tears.  Silent sobs racked my body while my mind dreamed and my heart broke again.  Then....it was time to get up and face a new day, another day without her.  Another day to desperately long for her smile, her laughter, her presence.  Another day spent trying to escape the sadness yet wanting to remember her so badly. Making the decision to remember and bear the consequence of pain for doing so.

     Grief catches me again and I am helpless.  My tears never extinguish the fire of this pain that rages through my soul.  And like my addiction to oxygen I go down under, then come up for more.  It will never be ok that she is gone, ripped from my arms by a cruel thief, the lowest of the low, cancer.  I hiss the word in disgust.  I rage at my helplessness to change the truth.  I look in the mirror and starring back at me is a woman who has aged, her eyes shadowed by sadness.  Bringing my thoughts full circle to my loss, I always end in the same spot.....where loss meets denial and they look each other square in the eye.

      I'm there again, next to her, watching helplessly while her life ebbs away.  Powerless to stop it.  I would give my life..... my health..... anything to stop it, to stop death from taking her.  But I can't.  I can only watch as she struggles to breath....to live.  And I can't stop it, it keeps taking her, no matter how tight I hold her hand she keeps slipping away.  I scream inside NOOOOO!!! While I whisper soothing words, and tell her I love her, over and over.... for the last time.

   I am Rachel who refuses to be comforted, for her child is not.  I am sadness, denial and rage.  There aren't enough words to describe the loss, it fills my heart, rules my thoughts and controls the floodgates of my tears....which flow, violently purging the pain and confusion leaving behind the desolate truth.  She is gone. 

     Here I am another step ahead in the healing process.  My tears produce honesty and force me to face the truth.  Working through grief is like hopping on stones scattered across a raging river.  I gingerly attempt to hop from stone to stone, trying not to get wet, or worse, fall in and drown.  Grief has the power to sweep me away, off my feet, to be ground along the bottom, bruised and battered by the rocks and the current.  I slip and fall and am lost in complete abandon of grief, yet I must come up.  Gasping for air, squinting in the sun.  I begin again.....the journey of grief, and try not to fall in.

Favorite Christmas Card

 

Christmas Day was actually easy.  I wasn't surprised.  But the day after....when everyone went home and the hustle and bustle was gone and the quiet seeped in....that's when it was hard. 

 

Why didn't they call us?

 

Why didn't they come here?

 

Why did this have to happen?

 

The battle against anger and bitterness.

 

The bad dream that will not end, the truth that continues to sting, the child that will be forever missed.

 

The comfort of Jesus who reaches us....and fills our every longing.

 

God WITH us.

 

This is the promise we cling to, this is the promise of Christmas!

 

Grief Speaks 1

It's unpredictable as weather, only with more variations.

I can laugh, smile and cry at the same time.

I can hold a child while longing for another.

"You haven't combed your hair in how many days?"

Christmas music makes me cry.

Kindness makes me cry.

As a pastor and wife we are supposed to be reaching out....but we have so. little. energy.

I want to forget (or at least not think about it for awhile) yet I desperately want to remember! 
Every...little....detail.

I am so blessed, but I still want her back.

"How long will I hurt?" Oh...... it's only been 6 weeks.

Who's counting?  I am!!!!!

He has wiped every tear from her eyes, taken her pain away FOREVER.....
but I still hurt, and cry.

This is MY pain.

"No it's OUR pain"-God

You didn't heal her!!!!  "Yes I did...and unlike the miracles, the healing's in the Bible, I healed her permanently!"

Grief is the gift that keeps on giving...pain.

There is no such thing as good grief! 

Life is sweet, so bitter sweet.  I have learned it's ok to be angry, angry at God..... at life.  You can be angry with God but still trust Him.  He is my Abba Father.... my Daddy God.  I express my feelings to Him and He doesn't turn away.  I see His arms open in compassion and His eyes fill with tears....for me....for my pain. 

Rest assured your heart is broken and will break again.

My heart has been breaking one piece at a time since Karagen's diagnoses April 4, 2012.  That day will forever live in infamy.

There is a Savior,

What joys expressed,

His eyes of mercy,

 His word is rest,

For each tomorrow, for yesterday,

There is a Savior who lights our way

     While grief has no known route, and the road of it twists and turns unpredictably, God is helping guide us through this journey.  I feel like this journey has no "map", only a faithful ever present guide, the Savior who promised "I will be with you!"  Grief is a dark place....yet it does not consume.  Its darkness is lit by trust and hope, in our God who will never leave or forsake.  "When I could not come.... to where He was, He came to me!"

Perspective

       Right now living .... I mean LIVING (not just going through the motions) takes perspective.  I think of the post I wrote the night before Karagen died, about the grass being green on both sides of the fence, but on my side (the side without her, the side of loss) the grass is beautiful and green, but shadowed.....dimmer.  My greiving words to Jonathan 2 weeks ago:  "My life was so perfect, 6 beautiful children....Karagen's life blessing mine, and now she's gone, life will never be perfect again."  When I said those words I meant them, but it's been 4 weeks since Karagen died and my grief isn't as raw, my perspective has changed. 

      I choose what my perspectives will be.  I am and forever will be a mother who lost her precious daughter to cancer.  Rather than dwelling on that brutal truth, I choose to look at ALL the other blessings in my life.  For me good, rock solid, perspective builds a wall of strength with grattitude.  My thanks before were heart felt, sincere and honest....but like feathers in weight.  My thanks now, laden with gratefulness I can FEEL are like stones, I have to heave and concentrate to give them, to build a wall of thanks.....but this wall is strong, oh so strong.  It's foundation is sheer determination and faith to trust the God who gives....and takes away.  The God who is GOOD all the time.

    I can't help but feel that all my lists of thanks before Karagen's illness and eventual death were different.  I meant them, but I still took things for granted.  We all do, we can't help it.  Most of us are welcomed each day with unumerable comforts and things in life that make our lives easier.  From washers and dryers, vehicles, warm beds with pillows, to grocery stores not far away and abundance of food.  Most of us in America have everything we need, a roof over our heads, shoes on our feet and food in our bellies.   Our families are safe, our children are fairly healthy, we ourselves can get up every day and do our thing all over again. We all take these things for granted..... every day. I enjoy my life and appreciate so much everything I have, but I see it differently now, I feel it differently now.  My grattitude was spoken before, today it is felt.

   I give thanks today, for renewed perspective. 

 I am building a wall of faith and trust with grattitude. 

The thanks I give this Thanksgiving is different. 

 

 

 

This year it's more than Thanksgiving.....it's Thanksmeaning. 

 

 I give thanks, and I mean every word!

 

 

Sifting....

 

Sifting through memories, through thoughts, through time. 

 

9 years.  Over. Gone. Done.

 

Have you ever tried to hold on to sand?  No matter how tight you squeeze, the tiny grains keep slipping out.

 

To hold time, close and intimate and as tight as I can, yet it keeps slipping away.

 

There is no more time.

 

There is no more hugs, kisses or carresses. No more looking at her sweet face, no more stroking her soft fuzzy head, no more holding her hand.  No more smiles and laughter, or reassurances...for her ....and for me.  No more conversations, no sound of her voice.

 

Silence.

 

And yet I tighten my grip....but they keep slipping through.  Those tiny, ever so tiny grains of sand.

And they fall, unable to be re-taken or grasped again.  They fall in with the other thousands of grains of sand.  I can't distinguish them from the others anymore, they all blend together in a blurr.....

 

Then I realize it's my tears, it's my heart with the ache that will not stop.

 

They fall and they fall, never easing the ache.  While looking at the pile of sand I try to grasp the truth that I will never see her again....here.  The small mound that was her life.... it's there but it's gone. 

 

So I cry, not for her, but for me. 

 

 I cry because I don't have her, I can't see her, hear her, touch her, feel her. 

 

What do I miss the most?

 

The answer is simple.

 

Everything.