God With Us...

"When death invades our lives, there is a war for our hearts that surrounds us. It’s a battle to believe what is true about who God is in our broken world. God did not protect me from experiencing the loss of a child. We are not immune to suffering and loss in this life, but we have a God who will not let the darkness swallow us whole. We have a God who comes for us and meets us in our pain, just as He came for David, and He is fighting off the flaming missiles of the evil one in unseen ways." -Hope Mommies

Been chewing alot lately on what "God WITH us means." "If You had only been here..." is a Bible story, until it becomes real to you. Until you're faced with grief so heavy it changes you. Who is God when it's more than just a warm message on a Sunday morning? Do you find Him on a Thursday morning, when you wake up to a million missed calls of "Where were you?! Dad died last night." Do you find Him when it feels like every bit of you crumbles, followed by a strong wind that comes & blows the pieces to places you feel can never be recovered? "Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the Bible. It was His gut-check reaction to the pain of people He deeply loved when told, "If You had only been here..." I can't claim that this makes me feel warm & better inside. The reality is, I lost someone. It was traumatic. It still hurts. Like heck. But I've never found Him in places I never thought to look before, like I have now. When I'm a crumpled mess on the couch, & all I can do is weep. When I forgot how to function. When I felt so judged by people around me who couldn't see that I was dying a little bit inside each passing day. They just wanted me to be happy. But I couldn't. When I felt so broken, like nothing would work the same again. When my responses became harsh, & I became bitter. When I looked back at old pictures, & felt like I was staring at a stranger. Who was that girl again? Death & pain change you. They do. I believe it's because we were never intended to experience it, so it feels so completely foreign. But I also believe it's why God didn't stay on a throne, ruling from a distance & tell His creation to just "be happy". But this is what we believe, because it is what we feel. The truth, hard as it is to grasp, is this is WHY Jesus had to die so incredibly painfully. WHY the mocking. WHY the beating. WHY the torment. SO THAT He could unequivocally say, "I understand." Hard stop. We've always been taught that "By His stripes we've been healed" & it's prayed every time someone is sick or dying. But what IF the healing being referred to here is not merely just the physical healing that we've been taught to believe for, but something much deeper? What IF? What I've found to be the most healing is not when someone says the right words to make it better. It would have been wonderful if my Dad had simply just been healed. But it was when they just sat with me. Wept with me. Prayed for me when I felt so volatile inside that touch was difficult. They were with me. And I believe this is what Jesus does. He still does. Because out of anyone, He understands death in a way we haven't yet. I trust that as I lean into Him, death becomes overcome. Grief becomes overcome. Pain becomes overcome. And healing comes a little bit at a time. Bitterness is not the end of the story with Him.