Wednesday, June 11, 2014

The promise

Suffering sucks. It's not nice or fun. It hurts.

A wise man helped me this week to understand that Jonathan is my first real tragedy. There have been other troubles in my life, hard times, but his life is the one that has rocked me to the core. I've been resting for the past 9 months, and that has been so good. As I keep living though, there was the realization that there is work that needs to be done. There is discontentment with the outcome that changes the relationship. This friend talked about the grief wall, hitting that place that rocks our core. The choice we make about whether we process and walk through it, or back away from it, affects our lives forever.

As I'm processing this morning I thought about how we're promised suffering in the Bible. God doesn't ever paint a world for us that doesn't involve suffering. He's straightforward with us. What I find so lovely though is the end of the sentence.

"I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Learning how to trust again means going back to His truth. It means looking at the black and white that I knew and figuring out what it looks like in the midst of gray. It's not a place of clear cut answers. It's a place of wrestling. I'm thankful that God is ok with my wrestling, probably really likes it actually because it means time with Him and that's really what He's excited about.

Are you wrestling? Do you know someone who's wrestling? I encourage you to be real, to be honest, to question things, and to respect the answers of those you don't agree with. We can't be afraid of open discourse where we might end up at different places.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Honest wrestling

I've struggled with knowing how to pray for a while now. I've come to this new understanding of the Lord, and it's pretty great because his love has been magnified. I get him now more than ever in my life. That changes the way I pray because I know that I'm His daughter and He wants my best more than I do.

So today I'm journaling (read processing and/or praying) and thinking about how we're not content and don't have these things we desire and wondering about how to pray for them. That's when I realize that part of why I don't know how to pray anymore is because as much as I know this God of mine and His amazing goodness, I may not actually trust Him as much as I used to. There's this whole problem with my son dying that I have to come to terms with.

We prayed for his healing, for all the defects in his little body to be complete and whole. But it didn't happen. The weirdest part is that I don't blame God because I know the truth about living in a fallen world and I believe that God wanted Jonathan with us more than we did. But more than ever before I realize how it has affected my faith and my prayer life. I don't trust Him to answer like I used to.

I have been blessed with the gift of faith, but I'm not sure where it's at right now. So that affects how I pray, what I ask for, or whether I ask at all. I'm able to say thank you but there's a lack of faith that I'm not sure how to fix right now.

Funny enough, I'd rather be in this place of wrestling to figure it out than without Him. I can't deny Him. He's still rooted deep within my soul, but this is an effect I haven't dealt with yet.

I can only encourage you to be real about your faith and your questions. It may not be fun, but I'm believing that it's worth it.