Keep pressing on

I haven’t written in awhile.  A whole 11 days.  I don’t know what to say, except “God help me, I hurt. I hurt so bad.”

That probably sounds very strange- I was writing almost every day the first couple of months, and ideas would come to me, things to write about, things that I felt like should be said…

Then the pain just got too much.  The sting prevented me from writing.  Grief is a strange strange animal.  I have found it to get more real, more potent, more like a barbed wire strangling my heart.

I still don’t even want to believe it.  I can’t wrap my mind around it.  Its been three months since my baby died.  I will never, ever wrap my mind around it.  You might as well tell me the earth is flat.  The fact that he is never again walking this earth is inconceivable to me.

I am still consumed by thoughts of that day, the horrific-ness of it all, unable to get past images and feelings and terror.

I have learned what it is to suffer.  To really suffer. It has changed my whole life.  To learn to live with suffering.

I have learned to feel closer to Jesus through suffering.  I think about his life on earth and all the horror that he went through.  I think of the world and all the pain and hunger and loneliness and grief- our fallen world that Jesus just wants to wrap his arms around and redeem.  I realize I am part of that plan.

That is the key- I am part of that plan.  Every tear that falls from my eyes and every day I wake up with my stomach filled with knots and my heart so, so heavy I am part of that big picture.  I can wake up just wanting to GIVE UP because its TOO MUCH and I can’t. I can’t give up. He tells me about His plans.

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

I am listening to God.  I am trying to listening as hard as I can through the noise and cacophony of the world and what I hear is “do what Lucas would do.  Do what you know his heart would want. Carry out his legacy.  I made him and I know his beautiful heart and it was meant to change people.”

It is a pretty powerful thing to feel God giving you a purpose.  I am so thankful for others who have helped me carry out Random Act of Kindness Day and Teacher appreciation day, who have donated to the Lucas Van, who continue to pray for us and our mission.

Suffering is a powerful thing.  It brings us closer to God. It humbles us.  It makes us realize how very little the things of the world matter.  Suffering makes us realize that our time on earth is but a grain of sand on a beach, our human life is so infinitesimally  small compared to the glory we will experience in heaven.  I will admit, yes I feel like heaven cannot come fast enough.  We feel like our earthly life is dragging so slowly when life is hard.

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14

The suffering can be endured…because there is hope, there is a plan, and there is a prize. press forward


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