A friend of mine from high school just lost her sweet four year old baby girl. She had a bacterial infection that turned septic and is now in the arms of Jesus.
I found out last Friday night and was so shocked and dumb founded. I was breezing through Facebook and I saw her post and thought it was going to say her daughter was having a birthday or was getting a new sibling or something…anything but that.
Having a sweet little four year old myself, it hit me pretty hard…as most things dealing with death or mommies and babies often do. I sat weeping in my chair for a good ten minutes, crying out to the Lord on their behalf. How incredibly, ridiculously unfair…
One of my biggest fears is to lose my babies…especially too soon. How soon is too soon? Would there EVER be a good enough amount of time that it would be ok for them to go? No. Not yet, Lord. Not yet.
I often feel like I’ve led a decently charmed life. I grew up in a home with two parents, even if their love and marriage wasn’t perfect. We never wanted for much and my parents did everything in their power to make sure that we were more than provided for. They were never sick or seriously injured, nor was my brother or I; we didn’t face any catastrophic childhood diseases or lose a parent before we were married. I wasn’t bullied, nor did I struggle in school with making friends or with academics or with extracurricular success. I married a man that is so much more than I ever dreamed or imagined. We’re out of debt, have 2.6 beautiful, healthy, happy children. We don’t want for much and are blessed more than we even deserve. We haven’t experienced a devastating loss or blow or catastrophe…
When you hear stories about kiddos dying or you turn on the news or venture out past your own front porch…you start to wonder…when is it gonna be my time? When will I be the one holding the cards of doom? When will it be my family that’s going through the agonizing pain of loss? Because, isn’t it due me???
Do you ever feel that way? The defense system in me rises up to be prepared and to take all the steps necessary so THAT doesn’t happen…but that’s not even remotely possible. How do we shield ourselves and our family from every kind of evil or every bacteria or virus or every freak accident or every decision of everyone around us? We can’t. We’d be exhausted. We’d be spent. We’d be dry and weary and empty. Don’t ask me how I know…
These precious people I get to call my family are just far better than I ever imagined they’d be. In my wildest of dreams, I couldn’t have designed a better group of people to share my days with; they are just something else…and the thought of losing any or all of them makes me physically ill.
I am continually dragging myself back to the foot of the cross, laying my family down again and again and again. I KNOW He loves them more than I do (so hard to really grasp that, isn’t it??) and I have to trust that He will protect them better than I ever could…or believe that I could. It’s a process. And it’s going to continue to be a process for me.
Part of the “laying down” is going to have to involve more than just my family, more than just “my arrows.” It’s a laying down of what I think my life should look like. If I truly believe He is sovereign and good and that His ways are best, I have to choose to believe that whatever story gets written for me is good and best. I’m not quite there yet, I’ll be honest. How in the world can losing your little girl be His best for someone?? For anyone??
I don’t want to find out. And that’s the crazy part, isn’t it?? That His best might involve loss, yet we hold on so tightly because we don’t want to have to walk through the bouts of sometimes agonizing pain that are sure to come just to see the other side. Is it worth it? I don’t even think I want to know…
And not that His best always includes THAT kind of loss…but there’s always a loss of something; something we have to lay down for our own good…for His best. That’s part of following Christ, isn’t it? We can’t keep holding onto the same old sinful things and expect life to be different. To live your life you’ve got to lose it…
I ran across this post from a friend of a friend who has struggled through more than her fair share of loss in the past two years. Her strength and resiliency and faith have moved me and astounded me more than I can put into words. She wrote this on January 1st of this year; the timing of her writing and my reading was not lost on me. Maybe it’s time for something new…
It was appropriately titled – Lay It Down. (Full credit to Lindsey Dennis of vaporandmist.wordpress.com…my hyperlink button isn’t working)
My rights to how my family may form
My rights to watch a little baby grow up
My rights to what my life “should” look like
Lay it down
he says
Lay it down…
lose your life and you will find it. – Matthew 10:39
It is often not until the expectations of your life come to a crashing halt
disappointment ensues
that you realize you had any expectations at all,
that you were holding on to your life.
It is the privilege, the blessing of the sufferers,
the disappointed
the broken hearted
to learn to lay it down-
to wrestle in the laying down-
to know HIM in the laying down.
And the laying down gives us room –
Room to dream.
Room to breath.
Room to hope,
to hope in the one who is the author of hope
to hope that all will not be as expected,
it will be far greater
it will be true living
when we lay it down.
To know that he knows the way we take. -Job 23:10
He directs our steps. -Proverbs 16:9
And He knows, He Knows, He KNOWS…
The why of the blessing that has come in a form you never thought would be the way he would ask you to take…
The blessed to be a blessing.
We were blessed with two daughters in the past two years, but for a moment.
To be a blessing both now and to come.
And I’m laying down the “to come”
Because just as this year I anticipated a different path to joy our lives would take,
a baby in our arms, in our home…
I could never have written what unfolded.
It was and is broken and beautiful.
And still the grace that has been given in the broken pieces is finding a way to feed our souls,
To direct our steps
To be multiplied into the lives of others.
I want to plan this next year,
anticipate,
hope
for the blessings I think best.
Lay it down
he says
and
I will give you ALL.
The blessing has been Him. ALL him. Always him.
We just sometimes can’t see it or want it to be different or think that the fullness of joy can’t really come from simply just His presence.
“No good thing does he withhold from him whose walk is blameless”
-Psalm 84:11
The goodness is Jesus, redemption, rescue, grace.
Jesus in the pain. Jesus in the joy.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
“I count all as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
-Philippians 3:8
That’s how good it is to know him.
I see it more in the loss,
in the laying down.
“And suffering produces endurance
and endurance produces character
and character produces hope.
And hope does not disappoint.“
-Romans 8:3-5
The kind of hope that comes from the love of God
poured down
poured in
poured through
poured out.
Lay it down.
It’s the only way to love, to hope, to joy…
the kind we really want,
the kind we really need.
the kind that will pour out blessing upon blessing,
not the material kind-
the eternal kind.
The blessings that matter.
Lay down your rights,
your dreams,
your hopes,
your expectations
To the one who Loves. Who is LOVE. Who pours Love out and in and through and around…
and covers us with his love in more ways then we could imagine. -Ephesians 3:20
And let him rebuild
renew
restore
with dreams far greater
hopes unexpected
JOY found in the most unlikely of places.
It comes in the suffering
the trials
the broken pieces
the mundane places
This is where we either lay it down, or clench our fists.
This is where we learn to hope or walk the bitter path.
It is a constant, daily, moment by moment surrender.
It is a life of laying down our lives… to the one who laid down his life for us.
It is a life where beauty is found in the surrender.
Oh Lord, let this be a year of laying it down.
Of counting all as loss compared to knowing you.
That I would know more deeply what the Psalmist says:
“In your presence there is fullness of Joy.” -Psalm 16:11
It is you Jesus. Always you.
And tomorrow when I forget,
and I clench my fists and hold on to my dreams,
remind me to lay it down.
That YOU are where life is found.
I’m trying, Lord….