God And The Elephant

Although I've made reference to God in some of my previous posts, I thought it might be time to be really honest about where I am with Him right now.  I can't imagine that any death occurs without questions about and for God from those left behind.  I think we like to ignore our mortality to some extent, but death is the elephant in the room that tramples us into the awareness that we don't live forever.  I also think it's nice to feel like we have God all figured out and it's unsettling to realize we don't necessarily know Him as completely as we thought we did - even more unsettling (especially for us Type A types) when we realize we can never understand Him fully in this life.  It has a way of exposing the deepest recesses of our souls to bare what we truly believe and sheds light on inconsistencies in what we say we believe vs. what we believe when our world seems to be falling apart.  Sorry...I'm not trying to get all philosophical on you...I'll let you have your own questions (or not have any) and I'll just stick to where I am.  I have to start by saying that I don't believe that God has changed or moved away from me or punished me in any way in all of this.  I believe that God is good, all the time.  I still believe God is in control.  I still believe He loves me and my kids and has a plan for us.  I believe that because I am human and fallible that I can't be good enough on my own to have a relationship with God, but that Christ made that possible when He died on the cross in my place and for my sin - that's God's grace.  I believe that God can and will use this for our good.  I believe God sees, feels and understands my heartache in losing Dan and that He holds every tear I have cried and continues to hold me.  I believe that God's ways and thoughts are higher (way, WAY higher) than mine and that although I don't understand why He allowed Dan to die when and how He did, He can be trusted.  God illustrated this for me recently with a memory of one of my children from several years ago.  One of my twin boys was pretty sickly at birth.  They came about 6 weeks early and this little guy only weighed 2 lbs., 8 oz.  Feeding was a major challenge for him and he could not seem to gain weight despite Herculean efforts.  This struggle continued his first two years of life (which seemed like an eternity!) to the point where he was considered malnourished and needed some pretty drastic intervention.  It was then decided that he would have surgery to place a device called a g-button in his belly so that we could tube feed him and not depend on his ability or willingness to eat for his growth and health.  Although this basically saved his life, it was a painful ordeal for him and a challenge for all of us.  I won't go into detail here, but suffice it to say that kid went through so much - he's a fighter.  He had that feeding tube in for  t-w-o  l-o-n-g  y-e-a-r-s.  God brought the memory of all of this to my mind recently to illustrate, for my limited brain, the inability I have to fully understand all of the WHYs.  My child experienced a lot of pain which, ultimately, made him healthier - probably saved his life - it was for his good.  During all of it, his perspective was not what mine was.  I could have tried to make him grasp the big picture until I was blue in the face, but he was only two years old and although he trusted us to take care of him, he would not, with his limited perspective, have chosen that path for himself.  I might as well be a two year old when it comes to understanding why God let Dan die.  It hurts and I don't like it or understand it.  But I believe that His love for me is immense and that He can see the big picture.  Let me be very clear that I struggle often, even though I trust Him.  For weeks and even months after Dan died I felt so hurt by God and confused by what He was doing.  I didn't even pray.  Not because I was mad at God, but I had no idea what to say to Him. I felt like what was done was done and what could I say at that point? I was in spiritual shock.  I never stopped believing in God or that He was sovereign, but I felt so hurt.  I still struggle with prayer sometimes - understanding what God wants from me in prayer and what He does when I pray.  One thing I know is that I am supposed to pray.  Period.  So I do pray and I will keep on praying and searching for answers and for as much of God as I can comprehend while He has me here.  I want to have it all figured out because I am a prideful, imperfect perfectionist, but that's not how it works.  I will resign myself to being a child, striving to be childlike in my faith and obedience...childish and immature at times, but still a child. His child.

When I'm 64

In a few days, it will be 6 months since we saw Dan for the last time on this side of Heaven.  I started writing this when it had been 5 months, but summer consumed all of us around here with enough activities to suspend reality temporarily.  6 months is not a very long time in the grand scheme of things, but it can feel like an eternity.  I always think of it terms of if he were alive - before all of this, if Dan had said he would be gone for 6 months and we could have absolutely no contact with him....it would be excruciating...and, at times, it is.  Late spring and summer were full of those dreaded 'firsts' without him...Mother's Day, my daughter's 15th birthday, Father's Day, Dan's birthday, our youngest son's 9th birthday...all within the span of about 6 weeks.  We also took a trip to Colorado that Dan would've loved.   As one of our excursions, we somehow managed to get 12 people (that's counting friends and family who were part of our group) up and down what seemed like Mt. Everest.  It was actually only a small portion of a beautiful mountain in Colorado, but the round trip was over 6 miles (mountain miles!)  Let me tell you that it was not an easy hike, especially with my 4 kids.  They were troopers, though, and I know Dan would have been so proud to see them accomplish such a feat.  Here's my secret about the trip....I had brought Dan's ashes to Colorado with the intent to spread them on our hike at a place called Blue Lake.  It was the endpoint of our hike up the mountain and my friends who are familiar with the area and have visited several times said it was like a postcard. After seeing it, I'd have to agree.  I had been trying to decide what to do with his ashes and thought that taking them to a beautiful place that he would've loved would be a fitting tribute.  The day before the hike, my sister and I were riding in the car, listening to a mix CD that Dan had made.  The song 'When I'm 64' by the Beatles came on and I lost it.  It made me miss Dan so much and it reminded me that we will not grow older together.  He will always be 40.  My sister wisely suggested that maybe it just wasn't time yet to say goodbye in that way.  I was not ready even though I thought I was.  The longer he's gone, the tighter I want to hold on.  It might be hard for some to understand, but I think when the one you love is suffering and dies, among all of the initial emotions is a tiny bit of relief that their pain is over.  For me, that feeling is being incrementally replaced with wishing he was still here, realizing more and more what he will not be here for.  However, even as I write that, I'm reminded that none of us knows what we will be here for.  I think my task is to be right here, right now, right where God has me.  I'll figure out,in time, what to do with these ashes and these memories and these feelings.  God knows what I'll be doing when I'm 64....