I have been trying to think how to summarize the last few weeks...months...and there are just no words. The only word I can come up with is "hard". Our family has had struggles in pretty much every area...finances...check, health...check, house issues...check, family problems...check...car trouble...check...well...you get the idea. It has just been a really really hard year for us. To help put it in perspective a little, I will tell you tonight part of the journey we have walked...and what I am learning from it.
In July of 2013, our 16 year old daughter went to Epilepsy camp. After discussing it, we decided that her seizure awareness dog should stay behind so as not to get to hot in the horrible Oklahoma heat...so she left him. While she was at camp, he died. It was a horrific tragedy and one that cut me to the core. I will be honest...when he died, I completely lost it. I mourned not only his death, but I mourned peace that I had since he came...I hadn't slept in months because I was constantly getting up through the night to check on Kari, fearing that she had a seizure in her sleep and died...and this dog took that fear away. He would alert us. So I could sleep. I mourned how deeply this would affect Kari, how it would hurt her heart. I felt she had been through enough in her life...I wanted things to be good for her. I mourned how he died and wondered why God allowed it. It was something that even to this day brings tears to my eyes. We picked Kari up at the end of camp and had to tell her what happened...and she was broken.
Before we had time to recover we found out that one of our daughters had been dealing with stuff that no parent ever wants to find out about. Now for those of you who are curious...this blog tonight is not about details of certain events...it is about healing. When we found out this news, I felt the ground slip from beneath my feet and I did not think I would survive. I mourned many many things that involved this...and my heart just kept breaking...into smaller and smaller pieces. I cried out with everything in my soul to my King...I begged for answers, wisdom, guidance...I begged for the why in the situation.
Before we had time to recover, my mom and I were walking down our road and we noticed something out of place...we thought perhaps it was a deer that had been hurt. We walked forward to see...and realized that it was a woman. My heart stopped beating for just a minute...and then began to cry out again as I realized that it was a woman that had been brutally murdered. My mom was calling 911 and I was trying to see if there was anyway possible that she was still alive. Those images are burned inside my head. Many times I will feel like maybe I have moved past it, only for a sound, a sight of something red, or a show on tv to bring instantly to mind those images...and I mourned. I mourned the safety that I had lost, I mourned the life of this girl, I mourned the decisions that the man who murdered her had made....I mourned. I cried out with everything in my again...why?
Before we had time to recover, our daughter began having psychotic rages. These were fierce and brutal rages that began to get more and more violent towards my husband and I. We began searching desperately for answers...and then she ran away. My heart stopped. I couldn't breathe...I cried out with everything in me to my King...would He protect her? We found her and she was safe in our arms again...just to go into another fierce rage on Thanksgiving day. This one was so bad that she tried hurting herself...we had to take her to the hospital where she was put inpatient an hour and a half away from us. I mourned. I mourned like there are no words. I mourned the decisions her birth parents had made that cost her so much, I mourned how lost she felt, I mourned the dreams and plans we had for her that needed to be changed. I just mourned. My heart ached and I could not understand why?...I would sit up throughout the night and talk to God. At times I would praise Him for His plans, more times I would question His Lordship...I mean, if He is God...why allow this? Why not stop it? I questioned His love more than anything...maybe I wasn't good enough...maybe our family was just to screwed up for even Him...at times I asked Him if He was happy...was I just His puppet on a string...did He sit up there on the throne and get joy out of seeing how far He could push me? Was He somehow delighting in watching me break?...All of these things went through my heart...and I feel very led to share as honestly as possible my talks with Him. My thoughts and feelings. But most importantly I want to share His answers to me...
Let me preface this by saying that all of the above may seem beyond what some could handle, but my entire life has been like this...bouncing from one tragedy to another, one crisis to the next....so I have learned how to "cope" with alot of "issues" in life that many would cringe at. This was not the first time in my life that I had dealt with sickness, this was not the first time I had seen a dead person, this was not the first time that I had dealt with someone who had mental instabilities...and that is why I couldn't understand why it was bothering me so much. Was it all just catching up to me? Had I just had enough and my body and mind were just crashing from it all?...why couldn't I believe that God wanted good, why couldn't I trust that He was still sovereign? I thought and thought and prayed and prayed. I poured over His word looking for answers...and I couldn't find any...until one day when I was again crying out to Him...I quit talking. I just sat there in silence, tears pouring down, just listening. I began to see how foolish I was at times. I had drawn a line in the sand. I have loved Jesus since I was 6 years old. I have longed to serve and honor Him my whole life. I have lived every day in ways that I prayed would bring Him honor. But I had not given Him my EVERYTHING. My heart...absolutely. My past...of course. My extended family...done. But my EVERYTHING?...Ummmm....no. You see...I have six amazing and beautiful girls that fill my heart with joy every day. Four of those have been adopted and each of them have their own horror story to tell from before they came into our home. I felt it was on me to make sure that their life was completely beautiful from the point they walked into our home until forever...no problems. No struggles.
Mercy was the daughter I prayed for over 5 years before I had her. She was the one God gave me after a miscarriage...it was on me to make sure she lived a beautiful and protected life. Gracie our youngest was the one that God gave me after I nearly miscarried her. She was the one I wasn't suppose to have...six years after Mercy. That is why they bear the names they do...I was given Mercy and Grace to be allowed to carry them and give birth to them, and it was my job from that point on to make sure they lived a beautiful perfect life...do you see my line? I would take it from here God...thanks for giving me these children...now I got it. I think there was something in me that had just not given over control to Christ in my EVERYTHING. I still felt it was on me to make life perfect for them. I didn't want God to mess with them. I didn't want them tested or tempted...I just wanted them left alone. I was foolish.
All of these things have taken me on a very spiritual journey. I have realized that I am a very foolish daughter at times...and a bit of a control freak when it comes to my children:) Oh, it may stem from a heart that wants to protect, but what it crosses over into, is a heart that doesn't yield to my King. I am seeing things very differently as I am growing and learning more about the heart of God...the power of the Holy Spirit, and the relationship that Jesus longs for with me.When we give up our control...our everything...we open ourselves up. And that is what we fear. But the very thing the enemy uses to bring fear to us, is the very thing that draws us closer to the heart of God. Satan wants me to fear losing control, but friends, this summer I have had NO control over anything in my life. And I have never learned more about the heart of God than I have this summer.
Trust. Complete trust. The fall backwards knowing you will be caught kinda trust. This is what I am learning. We sing about how sweet it is to trust in Jesus...but do we really? Do we trust Him when we lose our job, our home, our safety...how about when our children lose their way, their innocence? When our marriage falls apart? Trust in not about sitting in a chair you can see...it is about taking a step off of a cliff KNOWING that there is a rock there that you do not see. It is about reading God's Word and taking it for exactly what He says. It is about being confident even in the midst of the storm that He will work it out for your good.
I have felt like I am in the middle of a tornado alot lately...everything whipping around me, one thing crashing into the next...and I have had this blanket of peace settle on my shoulders. I can feel it the same I do my coat when it is cold outside. I see everything whipping around, but there is no fear anymore. This peace that surpasses understanding has covered me in ways that I am not able to express. I just KNOW that God is working beauty from these ashes of my life. I just KNOW that His plans for my children are far greater than mine could ever be. I have thought about Joseph alot lately...studied him through Max Lucado's book," You'll get through this". When Joseph was sold into slavery, betrayed by his family, his dad had no idea that God was working beauty from those ashes. His dad sat at home mourning many days and refused to be comforted.( Genesis 37:34-35). I think we can be alot like that sometimes, I know I can. When the plan doesn't go the way I think should, I mourn. I don't understand why MY way wasn't good enough. I am reminded of Job when God asked him," Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!"(Job 38:4-5). We serve a mighty and amazing God! A God who keeps the ground under my feet every day, the breath in my lungs, the sun in the sky. Who am I? I will tell you...I am a daughter of the King. A daughter who at times is disobedient to her Father. A daughter who makes silly decisions at times. A daughter who needs correcting many times...a daughter who is loved. A daughter who is fought for. A daughter who is worth laying down His life for....a daughter who is still learning.
I know this was long but am learning that when the Holy Spirit leads...follow. Write. Go. So I encourage you my friends who are struggling...don't give up the fight! You do not fight alone. You are surrounded by an army of angels fighting on your behalf...you are surrounded by your brothers and sisters in Him praying on your behalf! Pick up your sword...the beautiful Words of the Father...and trust. I have so much I want to learn about His heart and His ways...and I know I will spend my entire life finding out there is more to find out! There will be days when I am tired and overwhelmed...but that peace...that beautiful peace...is always there. His love for us and for our children and for our marriages...we are not capable of understanding it. So my dear friends...trust. Breathe Deep. cry out. Remember, He created us. He knows how we are wired...he created those wires. He doesn't want a bunch of perfect robots walking around...He wants a relationship with His children. He wants to teach us and show us and grow us and stretch us...and love us with such passionate love that our hearts cannot contain it! I ask that each of you make a commitment to read His word. That is His heart...search it out.
Thank you for reading these pages of my heart...
