We do believe...

We have had the kind of year that has pretty well shaken us down. Dear husband has been handed numerous medical moments that have been beyond challenging. I have found myself doing everything possible to lift this to no avail. I have been feeling  overwhelmed and grieved by so many things, most especially the role of watching and being unable to take it away. We are so painfully aware of how little control ultimately we have over important things, like our health and the time we are here.  We weigh this along with our desire to love our kids and raise them. We know and teach them they need to make good choices. Yet even if you choose the wisest diets, and do your best to exercise and avoid bodily abuse, there are no guarantees. The stress of things beyond one's control like one's profession being intensely stressful and years of sleep deprivation can take its toll. These things beyond my scope or choosing have hurt the one I love. I honestly can't fix it.

Life is precious and short, and being sick or having a family member sick reminds us of this.  So we have found ourselves emotionally and physically in the boxing ring handling body blows without warning. We try to understand and do our best to address it. We  were dropped in the ring without preparation, feeling unable to endure this. We have honestly felt leveled-completely flattened, and wiped out recently.  I have felt so empty from the fight that I have been tempted recently to discard everything I believe. This now seems really stupid, really silly, and futile. But I learned a few things.

 I found when you are in darkness-there are no answers. Big questions pierced me- like why when we are faithful to the extent we know how, does our loving Father give us challenges that seem beyond our capacity? Was our faithfulness for nothing? Does He not love us? Does He truly want to leave us in misery with challenges beyond our strength? Does He wish to allow harm to us so were are unable to do the good we desire and we know He desires? Were all our dreams and beliefs misguided fancy built on nothing...Did we really believe in a dream that was empty vapor and life was really the pain we were feeling? I was really deeply disappointed and frustrated and I decided in my moment to go there. So I charted the map and found the road to disbelief goes only to dark empty places, where everything seems purposeless and we are disabled from being and doing all that matters, all we were made for. I spent a short while in this place, and found it is a country I don't want to visit. If I stopped believing in love, I couldn't believe in myself and everything I live for is futile. Truly, everything is mundane, and life is a series of half empty glasses. That's a place I can't go. I wasn't remotely at peace or happy for the short time there. I do however have more compassion for those who live there. It is a land without natural resources, a place of poverty on every level.

I know we are made in love, for love, and everything else is a waste. So I returned for good. I dusted off the ashes around us, and decided to grasp the hands reaching down for me in the pit. We have dear friends who reach out and pray and say kind things, things we don't deserve. They reminded me not to stay in the empty, sad place too long.  It is much better to bask in the loving rays of God's mercy and kindness, and all that is good, than sit for any amount of time shaking our head and wishing things were different. Tears are fine and necessary sometimes. We have lost children, lost dreams, had our hearts broken. But the what ifs, and time spent begging that the difficulties and challenges life brings weren't here are futile. What we have is real, even when it's hard, and we cannot wish it away or pretend it away. We can however embrace it with the help of love. These trials are sent for a purpose, and I must trust that one day,  we will be grateful for every one of them. Maybe not completely soon even, but one day. We aren't simply formed by the moments of joy, and ease, and success which we desire, but by the trials that purify us, the painful times we are flattened and we are reminded in our smallness of what truly matters. Love, trust, hope, everything that comes from He who knows all and only sends that which we have grace to handle is what matters. I don't want to block the grace for me or my family. I want to trust in it. I want to run to it. I want to believe in it.

So I had to get back in the ring and put on the gloves of our creed, and I pounded against the emptiness. I had to remind myself, over and again this week, that I believe in His love. His is the awesome, amazing love, that brings souls together and allows them to welcome children and teach them their precious value. His is the love that forms families and builds all that is good around us. He is the one who sustains us, and heals us, and carries us.  He is the one who will help us, even through the grave to the other side. I believe in grace, tons of it, but not from my weak self. I believe in God's love and that life is His. He has a permissive will that allows things which are awful,  hard, and unbelievable to occur. Evil exists, and rears it's head. Yet he shows us how He brings goodness out of the dark and empty trials that really can only be described as nightmares. I have no idea how He will care for us through this, or the challenges we see others going through, or even what else He will send our way. But I know I never want to doubt again that His loving kindness is there in our midst. It will be there later too, and it is bigger than the pain.  He will somehow give us the strength to love when we are weak, and heal when we seem broken. He will provide we we don't see how, and in the meantime, we will trust, no matter what. That's who we are, and that's what I want my kids to know without a doubt. The land of believing is the place of peace, and this is our home.