Good Lord...

Oh, I'm tired. But glad. Sad, but today the sadness doesn't go from front to back. It's light-- it's so weird.

There is no end to what I am learning this season. And it's so hard to put it down in words, but I am compelled to do it.

So often, I wonder if I'm feeling the "right" thing: on days when I go hours without thinking about my son, I wonder if that's okay-- if I'm alright, if I'm in denial, if it's too soon to sort of be... okay... again. On days that I come home and collapse on the bed, angry and irritable and exhausted and pissed off with sadness, I wonder if I'm like a wound that has healed wrong, with infected tunneling and cavities and pockets of disease, needing to be broken open, cleaned out and set right again.

Sometimes I feel like the only thing that will make it all feel better is thrashing around on the bed and holding tight to this little teddy bear my friends sent me while I was still in the hospital. I wonder if the pain is too much, to be this many weeks out from his loss. He would be three and a half months, I think, and double over with a new wave of pain.

And I'll tell you the truth: my God is good. And patient. Because the anger that seemed to stay so at bay before has come knocking with a big, arthritic fist, pounding against my heart. And in my mind, my Father sits beside me on the bed, while I groan with weeping because I have run out of words, and am tired of saying the same ones, and He loves me.

Here is my heart's cry: He is good. Oh friend, everything can fall away and break to pieces on the floor, but call every man a murderer and a liar and evil, and God alone is good. I do not understand this thing-- and it's NOTHING compared to losses others have sustained, but here is the message I am getting from him, through the darkness that would overwhelm my heart and mind:

He alone is good. He alone is holy. His love does not waver when our faith does. He loves he loves he loves he loves he loves. Even when He is quiet, he grieves with me. I know it. I know it-- and that is just His spirit in me. The very fact that I can know that He loves me, even after this and in the face of what the world would tell me is evidence to the contrary, I KNOW that my redeemer a) lives and b) loves me.

So here is my challenge to us: Can we love Him back, in this fallen and sometimes cruel world? Oh God, here is my ugly, under-construction prayer-- that I will offer all of this pain to you, new waves of it daily, and tell you that I will love you and I will look for your goodness and I will not listen to the enemy of my soul. I will not go down the path that leads me toward blame and anger toward you. I will not shake my fist at you.

Only hold me, Lord. Oh, God, that you would make yourself felt in a way that we have never felt you before. What I had of you before is not enough for today. Let the world accuse you of being unjust-- as for me and my house, we will serve you. Only hold me and let me hear you and feel you in a way that I have never experienced. New depth, new truth. Do something new, Lord, and make yourself the center of my attention. Not my loss. Not my sadness. I give it all to you. Only hold me.

Be glorified in all of this mess. Pull my heart up out of this valley of death. Only you are good and worthy of being praised. I command my heart, worship Him.

Let us tell our souls, Bless the Lord. Let us command our hearts, Look at Him and wonder at his goodness. Let us set our eyes on the things above.

Ah, Sabbath.

Go here to hear some powerful worship music. The musician is one of my best and oldest friends. This man is living what he's singing. Kenny and I have been there and back together and I am so blessed to be listening to Him worship our God... Kenny Peavy