A New Year Starts

As 2013 starts, I have seriously mixed feelings.  A part of me wants to go back 2 months and never move forward.  Another part wants to move on and put 2012 (actually 2010-2012) behind me hoping the new year will be different.  But most of me understands that even though the calendar year has changed, my journey has not.  Today is just another day of almost 50 years of days.

2012 holds my deepest hurt to date.  But it also holds unexpected beauty.  And some unknown strength - although I can't take credit for the strength since I attribute that to a gracious God who has infused His strength and character in me undeservedly.

If you are new to my life, my 3rd child, 2nd son, committed suicide at age 18 in Nov 2012.

Never having had such a crisis in my life, I have never before had the opportunity to truly watch the Hands of God envelope a person or family as they did us.  God's presence did not take away the pain.  It did not lessen the pain.  But it did reveal the character of God - His Peace, His Compassion, His Unconditional Love, His Strength, His Comfort, and His Power over despair.

But then again, this is the God I know.  This is the God that promises He is always present with His children. This is the God that calls us (His church and people) to unity so He can be so obviously displayed.  This is the God that promises He is for our good - it is His priority.  This is the God that rewards obedience.  This is the same Jesus who was always gentle with the hurting, never asking anything of them but faith.

God was showing me - months before Caleb's death - that pain is not the enemy.  It is not a symbol of failure.  The system doesn't work in such a way that if I do, say, be right things then life will be easier and if I sin or fail then I will have more pain.  That's not the system Jesus lived in and what would make me think that I would live in a better system than He?  Now I see that pain comes.  It comes in larger doses to some and smaller doses to others, but it comes.  And I can choose to see God's presence and provision in the pain or not but that does not change God's presence and provision being there.

I am grateful, beyond words, that God has chosen to capture my heart.  And I am so very glad I have chosen to stay captured.  I tried to run once - and didn't make it very far.  God has shown His Goodness and gentle compassion in abundance over the last 2 months and I am grateful to be the recipient.  And am thankful, beyond words, for the many people around us who have been unending displays of God's character.