endurance

Facebook. Blessed, cursed, facebook.

I so often open it to find encouragement, hope, a little support for the day.

Today I made the mistake of opening it right before I went to pick up my daughter from camp- an hr and 10 minute drive, all by myself.

I have never had facebook do a “timehop” for me although I have seen others posting theirs.  I opened it to a picture of a smiling glowing 11 year old Lucas.  It was the one year anniversary of him recovering from MRSA.  I had written something to the effect of, “one year ago today was the darkest scariest day of our lives, when Lucas’ life hung in the balance.  We didn’t know if he would survive.  Today he is healthy, happy, and thriving. Praise God.”  It was June 20 2011.

Oh God.  I cried out. Oh God the pain.  Why did you save him only to have us bury him five months ago.  The agony, the utter raw ocean of pain that washed over me.  It was something I hadn’t felt so raw, sharp and deep in the recent months.  As the reality sunk in deeper and deeper I was already on the road, late as usual, needing to get my Brenna.  I needed to pick her up so she wasn’t scared and wondering.  Where’s Mom.

I think today was the hardest I have grieved in a one hour period.  The hardest times are by myself, often driving, anyways.  I often moan and shriek and wail in the car.  No one can hear me.  I can let out the ugliest cries I want.

I called my husband and he told me to pull over.  He told me stop thinking about him.  To stop thinking about him, stop aching over him, stop grieving him is like telling me to stop breathing.

I kept driving.  For one hour and ten minutes I cried out to God, “how could you do this to me.  Don’t you know I love him? Don’t you know I can’t live without him? Why didn’t you stop this? How could you let him die? How could you let him be hurt? How could you take this amazing and intricate creation of yours, this loving, caring, gentle, intelligent, compassionate boy and allowed him to be crushed? How could you leave a mother with constant flash backs of  her boy crumpled by the side of the road, fatally injured??”

I don’t hear an answer.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know if God has this amazing ultimate plan that involved a horrific accident killing my child or if this was just a result of the planet earth that God set to spin thousands of years ago and the human race just plods along its path- whatever happens happens. Or maybe…something in between.  Theology doesn’t really matter when all you have to deal with is the reality of death.  I have to fight so hard to fight bitterness and anger because I don’t know and I don’t understand.  I have to fight it because all I have to cling to is His love and the way I have seen him work since the day my son went to heaven.

I know there is a God.  Do you know why? Because I can get out of bed. Because I have a mission.  Because I want to have a non-profit, and I want to help people, and I want to inspire people the way Lucas inspires me.  Every single day.  If there was no God I would have died right along with him.  There have been 1,000 things, to make a low estimate, that he has sent to comfort me, to help me, to guide me, to inspire me and to show me His Face.

I see it every day.  Every single day.

But I still hurt.  So. So. So. So. Bad.

I wanted to go to an open house of a former piano student, one that I LOVED so much.  I was planning to go.  Then at the last minute I crumpled.  I am not sure if I will ever go to a graduation open house again.  My precious boy will not graduate.  He will not get a drivers license.  He will not go to prom, he will not play on the high school baseball team.  He will not get married or have children.  He will not graduate from college and become a doctor.

I have to live with that every single day.  Every day.  I may not be able to share in others joys because of my pain.  Every day I have to get up because of four little faces.  I look at them, stare deep into each of their eyes, and tell myself, I will not leave you.  I will NOT leave you and make you endure the pain of losing a brother and a Mother.

I have to be here.  I simply have to be.  I am not going to just be I want to be a do-er.  I have to push past the pain and be a do-er.  I am going to Guatemala in less than a month.  I am going to hammer and saw and sand the living you-know-what out of those houses and I may be bawling like a baby the entire time.

I saw a quote the other day somewhere, “people will remember you when you die by what you love.”

I remember Lucas because he loved God and his family and people.  He just loved everyone.  He showed them respect.  He showed them kindness.

I want to be known the same way.  If I can accomplish anything in this life it would be for people to remember me the same way.

2 Corinthians 9:8 – “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
sailboat


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