When grief is crippling. Deep. Unending. How do we respond? Go on? Live a normal life again? When nothing ends up the way you want or plan or expect? When even the worst case scenario makers are thrown off, surprised, silenced.
What do we do now? How do we go on in life when life has gone on without us? When our friends have moved on and life just goes on and you shut down?
Death and loss and sorrow and sadness. Unmet expectations. Dissolved dreams. Shattered hearts. Lonely in a crowded room. No place to belong.
Yet here we are, still among the living when part of our hearts died with the dead. Here we are, again, living in the in between. Heaven and earth. Grief and joy. Life and death.
Here we are again. Watching from the outside. It should have been me. Me, with the kid at homecoming and drivers ed, camps and youth group and friends. It should have been….or not?
How can I reconcile this with the Sovereignty of God? How can I know full well that the Lord is good and He loves me and He loves Thao and He is for me yet, I struggle with the what ifs and what nows and was this really supposed to happen? And why? Why? Why?
How can we make sense of the mess we live in? With wars and hunger and orphans and death?
How can we not, though? Because He is a good God and He has a rescue plan.
And He wants to rescue us. Savior. I lament. I wonder. I wander. I land. Or I fall. Right back into the Savior arms. Because He’s the only thing that really makes sense. He’s the only thing that is stable and steadfast and sure. And He is the promise. Of Good and Hope and Heaven. He is the only.
So I get back up. Off my knees, off the floor. Out of bed each morning. I fix the food and wash the dishes and rock the babies. I pray for the lonely, the sorrow-filled ones. I long for redemption, restoration, a cure. It’s here and it’s not. It’s the space between. The already and not yet and living here is a lot.
Because there is so much hurting, we are ready for Jesus to come.
Because there is so much hurting, we are longing for heaven more.
Because there is so much hurting, we ask for a little more time, for more people to know and realize and cling to that love, Love.
So I live here. In this mess. Of dishes and diapers, of hope and longing. And I wait. And I wait. And I wait.
Come Lord, Jesus, come.
But first, call your Beloveds Home. But first, draw them to Yourself. But first, oh Lord, Your will be done.