Life is full of hard stuff.
My heart has been so heavy lately. I gave a glimpse of my own personal struggles in my last post, which are quickly put into perspective for me when I open my eyes and ears to everything that's going on around me.
I wept on my knees this week for a family that faced the tragedy of losing a father and husband. It was a family I've never met 'in real life,' but rather one I know through the blog world. A family that I felt connected to because of similiarities. A young couple who had struggled with infertility for two years (what originally connected me to the blog) experienced the birth of their miracle baby just a few short weeks after Cale was born. After a tragic car accident this family of three is now just a family of two, mother and young daughter. You can read about their story
here. Obviously my heart hurt so much for this young mother. Then, Satan entered my thoughts and I began thinking things like, "What if something happened to Alan?" "I couldn't live in this world without him." And of course, these thoughts turned my weeping into bitter, ugly sobbing. I. could. not. imagine.
Anytime I read blogs, log-on to Facebook, or visit with friends, I hear of heart-wrenching stories. Tragic loss of family members, babies taken from their parents 'too soon,' chronic debilitating illnesses, infertility, accidents, etc. These are things that happen in this world that are completely out of our control. As a Christian, when I hear these terrible stories my first instinct is to ask, "Why, God?" As I've gotten older I've learned to accept the fact that I won't get the answers to all my questions in my time on this earth. That's ok. I've chosen to trust God.
In all things. Even in through the
hard stuff.
In my head I strore up quotes commonly heard in the church, and in times like these things come to mind such as: "God never promised us as Christians that life would be easy," "Everything happens for a reason," and "God won't give you anything you can't handle with Him by your side." But when the going gets tough these slip through the cracks, and I begin to question God instead of sitting silently before Him, trusting Him.
Life isn't easy. These circumstances aren't going to go away.
I've really thought about this the past few nights as I rocked my sweet baby boy to bed. More often than not, in my prayers, I ask God to put a 'hedge of protection' around him. I pray that he doesn't have to face anything terrible in his lifetime. I pray that God would bless him abundantly and that he would have minimal hardships.
Several weeks ago, in a post on
Kelly's Korner, she wrote about changing the way we pray for our children. When I read it, I thought it made perfect sense but, still, I was not going to pray for hardship for my baby boy. I pray that Cale would run passionately after God, I pray that Cale would continuously seek the face of the Father, I pray that Cale would let his little light shine in everything he do in his life.
Then, I started thinking about the
hard stuff in life. Although the hard stuff I've experienced in my life is nowhere near the magnitude some face, the hard stuff I've gone through has always, ALWAYS, drawn me closer to God. It's always been the hard stuff that makes me passionately run after the Father. It's during the hard stuff that I seek His face persistently. It's during the hard stuff that I see the character of God as a true testament to the way He's described in my Bible. He is who he says He is, and He will do what He says he'll do. He's proven that to me over and over.
So tonight while praying over my son before bedtime, I asked God to put obsticles in Cale's life that would ultimately make him more like Jesus. Trials that would ignite Cale's fire to pursue a passionate relationship with his Maker. Circumstances that would draw Cale on his knees before the throne.
As much as I would like to see everything wicked wiped from the world, I don't want to stop seeing God work miracles through these
hard things. The underdog stories are my favorite! God can take the 'least of these' and turn them into something GREAT. He is faithful.
I am thankful that my heart is still a work in progress. I'm thankful that God continues to reveal His character to me.
Sweet friends, I'm praying for you and all your
hard things. Cling to the Father.
