Last night I was able to facetime with Sharon and Jane and Anna, then burnt the midnight oil with Shelley, and then today in His Word and sunshine, and this evening a last few hours with Elisa, and I'm realizing just a few things through time with precious, wise friends and the Father.
Can I share?
I am realizing that what pains me most was the total lack of of our family having resolution and conclusion together in Haiti...and the knowledge that we will never get that back. It was not being able to have my last class...my last chapel...my last lunches and dinners with friends. For 13 years we poured into and lived life alongside a beautiful and complicated and blessed group of many people, staff and students and co-workers and friends, all six of us, and we did not get to say good-bye, or to tell stories, or to cry together. We didn't get one-last anything, and the students we cherish so and love we didn't even get to finish the classes we were teaching. I am a deep-rooted person, and not having those precious good-byes and lasts and conclusions and celebrations just is agonizing for me. I have even shed tears over not being able to have a last moment with the table we have lived around for over a decade, not being able to walk the lawn one last time, and in the crazy, I didn't even have a goodbye with the silly dog I loved, despite my best efforts.
While Matt and I will continue to spend time in Haiti and to pour into these relationships we value, it is highly unlikely it would be together, at the same time, and even more unlikely that it would include all six of us. And that kills me. Our family had a rich life and ministry in Haiti, and while that will never be gone or over, it will never be the same, I will never get that season of good-bying and remembering and cherishing that with my family, and I simply have to deal with that, have to help our kids deal with that.
It feels un-redeemable.
We all need closure, and ours is going to have to come from the Lord, not from going through the closure motions.
Life's just like that sometimes, isn't it.
Someone dies unexpectedly, and you're never going to get that good-bye. Something is lost. The opportunity to forgive or to apologize passes forever. A job is terminated. A horror is lived. Something is shifted. Or changed. A child, a marriage, a parent, is lost. And you didn't get what you wanted, or even what you needed. And it cannot be redeemed by yourself, nor anyone else on earth.
I know, having walked thousands of years through the Bible and life with the Lord, that this reality limits Him in NO way.
If our family NEEDS peace and closure from this season of our life, and we cannot get it from Haiti, from life, cannot get it for ourselves, He is going to have to give it to us. Supernaturally. His way.
He will. He will give you what you need in those times and places, too.
I do not stinking know how.
But I KNOW He is in the business of redeeming that which cannot be.
I want to say this loss, and so many others, break my heart...again and again. And I want to say that giving little Sofie what she needs, giving Matt and I what we need, giving Haiti what she needs, giving you what you need...being what we need, that is HIS job.
He is limited in NO way by how things happened this past month for ANY of us, nor is He limited in any way to heal the hearts and losses of MANY.
I have confessed the loss and pain, I have confessed my conviction of trust, and I am deliberately taking my eyes off the loss that threatens to eat me up, now, and looking instead for the miraculous healing and meeting and closure He is going to be working on in our lives...in His time, in His ways.
Whatever life is unable to give you friend--however sad, however unjust, however broken--our GOD IS ABLE TO GIVE US. Our God is WANTING to give us.
Where is He in this?
Where is He in all this corona virus pain fear and anxiety and uncertainty and unkown? Where is He in the middle of all this LOSS?
He is knowing.
He is allowing.
He is in the middle.
He is working to BE and GIVE that which is needed....He is ready to DO the deep work, the miracle work, the rich work, the work of PEACE in the soil of our lives and hearts.
I am taking my eyes off the loss and pain of many, of entire countries, and I'm lifting my eyes UP, with expectation. I am watching, as the watchman waits for the morning, for the Lord to be doing the REDEEMING that only He does. To be doing the fixing of that which can't be fixed. To deal with that which I cannot....Which lately, is like everything :)
For my little family. For our country of Haiti. For our country here. For friends and family experiencing loss for which there are no words.
What have you lost? What is the thing you can't even talk about? The pain so deep there are no words?
He is right there, and unlike us--who can't even voice it well, much less rearrange it--He is at work.
I'm looking for that today, as we head into this abrupt and drastic new season, mourning and changing and waiting upon the Lord.
Tell me how you're seeing Him at work, in the middle of this season of loss.
Keep your eyes glued as He works to sow peace and beauty in the middle of such utter ashes.
He is at work...let us watch Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment