I hope, not in my own ability to make things good, but in God’s ability to do so.
The other day I just did not want to go on. I just wanted to stop in my tracks and quit. It seemed that on that day everything was just too hard, and I did not want to continue the whole struggle of the everyday.
And I have been thinking about the everyday for some time now. The everyday is the routine of life – the things that we are so used to that we have stopped feeling in awe of those things. The everyday is the waking up in the morning without any surprises and going about your day int eh same way you have gone about your day every day from the beginning until now.
It seems – for those of us like me who are lucky enough never to have been surprised by a terrible thing on a particular day – that the routine of the everyday can become overwhelming. And then, as I was thinking about the everyday, I suddenly recalled a day when my everyday was interrupted by something terrible… It was the day that my little boy went to heaven before he was even born.
In the morning, I woke up to the everyday – expecting the same routine as always – and feeling a sort of secret wonder that I would be lucky enough to have another child. And that evening, I fell asleep in my bed, broken hearted from grief, and nothing was or ever could be the same again – because a piece of me was in Heaven and not on Earth here with me. And it never was the same – I never had another child, nor can I ever have another child. There was not happy ending or magical saving. There was no prince charming to make all the bad stuff go away. There was only heart break and loss and terrible terrible grief – a grief of unrequited love for that child that will never go away in this lifetime.
And I have been thinking about that today. You see, it took me many years – and an actual conversion, where through Grace and no merit of my own, the Holy Spirit came into my soul one day and showed me that my child was saved and that God had taken nothing from me, but rather, that God had given me a Saint… And in the time that has passed since, the grief is no less terrible, and the pain of a love that can never be adequately expressed in this lifetime is no less heart breaking, but there is something else with it… A hope that transcends the physical constraints of this world.
And that is the same hope that keeps me from quitting on the long hard mornings. It is the same hope that allows me to understand that what I am experiencing today is fleeting – even if it feels like it is years long. It is the hope to continue on. Because it is hope not in my own ability to make things good, but in God’s ability to do so. And when I think about that, quitting simply is not an option…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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