Sunday, November 30, 2014

What I learned today

Today, everything finally made sense.

I decided to go to church, even though I wasn’t feeling like it.  I woke up and immediately everything seemed to be going wrong.  I wanted to just get back in bed and stay there.  But instead, I got up and went to church.

Totally God’s urging.

I was grumpy the whole walk there.  But God has a way of getting us where we need to be, when we need to be there.  Today was one of those days.   He knew I needed to be at church, and that’s where I ended up.

I don’t think I have ever heard a message that was more fitting, or more directed at me, than I did today.

And it all finally makes sense.

Not in the sense that I will ever understand why my sweet Ibra isn’t here, because I can never understand that, but I finally get that I am not alone.  I was so angry at God for letting it happen.  I was so angry that we live in a country where we can’t get good medical care.  I was so angry that I had to feel this pain.  I thought that I should be spared from it, like there was some suffering exemption that I had earned.  I was just angry.  For me.  For the rest of my boys, because they had already suffered and lost enough in life, they didn’t need to lose a brother too.

I thought no one could understand how I was feeling.  No one had ever felt the pain I was feeling.  And I was so angry at God for letting it happen.  I felt alone.  I felt like He had left us. 

But I was so wrong.

It is so easy to say all of these things that you’re supposed to say when it isn’t you suffering.  I am sure I have said them to someone.  I am sure I have encouraged people not to lose faith when life really sucks and they are wondering how a good God could let it happen.   When people were saying them to me, they seemed so empty.  I just wanted to tell them to shut up.  I wanted to tell them that they couldn’t possibly understand my pain and anger, so they should just stop trying to make me feel better because I wasn’t going to.  Ever.

But today, I learned an important truth.

I learned there is someone that understands exactly how I felt.  And when it finally sank in, it hit me like a brick and I almost completely lost it in the middle of a really big church making a huge spectacle.

Thank God, He is good and so gracious, not to mention forgiving.  Here I was blaming Him, telling Him He left me and didn’t care.  But I learned He IS the only one that understands my pain.  And even more so, I understood that His pain was far greater than any pain I am feeling.  I lost my son far too soon, yes, but He willingly gave His son up for my benefit.  GAVE.  HIM.  UP.  Like willingly choose to endure this pain.

And here I am, like a jerk, telling Him He left me when He understands the pain and loss I am feeling, like no one else.  And not only that, He willing choose it.  So I could be saved.  

I am so grateful today for a gracious God that is always with me and forgives me when I am a jerk.  I am so thankful for a knowing Savior that has experienced every single hardship I could ever face.  He is, and always will be, the only one that can ever begin to understand my pain.  But not only does He understand, He has felt it.  God sent Jesus to be with us, to experience life as we do, just for a time such as these. 

Now, I know when I cry out to God about the immense sadness I feel, I can hear Him say, “I know.  I felt it too.  I am here for you.  Don’t lose hope.” 


And from Him, those words don’t seem so empty.