U-turns ARE legal

At least when it comes to God.

If you could see me now, I would annoy you.  I'm kinda giddy.  I had an amazing, life changing afternoon.

While I was cleaning.

Now, not many things happen GOOD while I'm cleaning.  Generally, I find moldy, hidden food or half-full of milk sippy cups, the random "other sock" that I thought the dryer ate, or any number of other unpleasant things. That being said, you can imagine my surprise when in the middle of vacuuming up the carcasses of goldfish crackers I had a girnormous God-moment.

I normally just work in silence, but had chosen to clean while listening to my iPod today and had it on Kutless' "It Is Well" album.  (You'll hear a few of the songs here on my page now.)  I have not been able to listen to the song "What Faith Can Do" since Kaidi died, or even before then without significant anger or just flat out changing the song.  If you've not heard the song, at least look up the lyrics.  The reminder of what faith can do in our lives knowing that my daughter was not going to live was not what I wanted to hear.  For some reason today though, when I heard the song start and finish through the first verse, I stopped what I was doing, restarted the song and stood and just REALLY listened.  The whole point of the song hit me and God broke down the walls I'd put up.  The song has never been about what faith could do in a current situation, but rather AFTER the storm.

"Everybody falls sometimes, you gotta find the strength to rise from the ashes and make a new beginning"

It's about running to God, and exercising your faith when the smoke has cleared and you look around you and can only see rubble left where the life you have built around you used to be.  It's about not falling to your knees in anguish, despair or anger, shaking your fist at God and yelling at Him, "WHY?  WHERE ARE YOU?", but rather knowing that He's standing just inches away with His arms wide open waiting to cradle you until you are strong enough to stand up on your own again.

"Anyone can feel the ache you think it's more than you can take, but your stronger, stronger than you know"

I HATE the phrase, "God won't give you more than you can handle" and I almost always fire back with, "Well then He trusts me WAY too much".  Really though, it's not a true statement unless it's finished out with, "God won't give you more than you can handle THROUGH HIM."  If I try to go through ANY trial or heartache without God's strength, I'm almost guaranteed a failure.  The whole point is that I should IMMEDIATELY lean on Him, not just as a last resort.

I said all that to say, I was broken before God.  I cried, but this time tears of absolute joy.  I didn't even know what I was joyful ABOUT, but I can tell you it had to be that the presence of God was in that room.  I told Jeff I was "so peaceful it was annoying", and I wish I could put into words HOW I feel different.

It's like...having been in EXTREME dark for a very long time.  The kind of dark that is SO dark you can feel it pushing in on you then seeing a ray of light.  One so small that if you closed one eye and held up a quarter, it would block out the light.  But you know the light is THERE and that light means that you are close to getting out of the dark.  That's kind of what yesterday was for me when I had the realization about the cactus.  (Read my previous post if that last sentence made no sense whatsoever to you.)  Then...today was like getting to where you have enough light coming in that you can see the path in front of you and you know that the oppressive darkness is all behind you - there's now more light than dark and you can walk faster.  In fact, you can run.  And you DO run.  You run and you laugh because you are finally free and you can see the colors of the life around you that has evaded you for SO long.  The greens of the trees are greener.  The songs the birds sing is a bit sweeter.  The heat of the sun hitting your skin is like being wrapped up in a warm blanket, but instead it's the great big, loving arms of your Heavenly Father.

He's always been there loving you, hurting for you, and just waiting for you to say, "Okay God, you know what?  I absolutely cannot do this on my own and I am sick and tired of feeling the way I feel and living like I'm living.  I'm tired of living like I am the one who died and that You abandoned me.  I know in my heart that feeling that way is a lie from hell and that you NEVER have left me and never would.  Daddy, hold me."  And just like we would our own children if they asked us to do so, He scoops us up, wipes the tears off of our cheeks and squeezes us so hard we could just about melt into Him.  And that's what we should do.  That's what I did today.  And I am free.  I don't expect every day to be rosy and easy - that's not reality after a loss.  But I do expect to be able to find comfort in the little things and to always remember and know that God is there, holding my hand, or resting His hand on my shoulder, reminding me that He'll never leave me or depart from me - He's got my back.

Lord let it be that I melt into you when the pain is too great to bear on my own.  Let my life be so entwined with Yours that people can't see where You end and I begin.  Let me never forget the darkness I came through, but let me never return there.  Let my life and what we've lived through speak to the lives of others in however small a way to turn them to you.  Thank you for never letting go, never giving up, and never giving me more than I can handle THROUGH YOU!