No, seriously...some days I do. Why today of all days? I have my suspicions...Dates and Anniversaries have always been a very huge part of my life. I look at each one with either intense joy or immense pain. Today I feel like February may be the worst month of the year...attribute is to a night of horrible sleeping, attribute is to a lack of vitamins in combination with a pathetic diet lately, or attribute it to the fact that a year ago my world fell apart.
Take your pick.
I am remembering vividly things I haven't thought about in a year. The fact that we had finished re-doing our bathroom and how proud I was of the job that Shannon did. I remember us having friends over and deciding it was time to celebrate Hallowuary (Halloween in February). I am remembering Valentines day especially - Shannon buying his dream guitar, us enjoying our favorite racqlette meal together, us going and staying at a hotel in Raleigh. I am remembering especially that fact that a year ago this week was the last time I was with my husband.
Despite these overwhelming emotions and this outpouring of memories I am feeling as I survey my life a year ago this month, I think of one thing very clearly. Romans 8 : 18-27.
"...I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will..."
These momentary troubles I am facing are instilling in me a gift more precious than anything in the world...glorious freedom and hope. The things I have been faced with throughout the past year have taught me so many things about who God truly is and how much He truly loves me. There are times where my heart and my head begin to become unbalanced with eachother, and its in these times where my focus begins to turn violently on me and in turn, this turn makes me feel like my world is falling apart at the seams. I begin to survey each and every problem with my life and how things turned out and doubt begins to creep into my life. Doubt that God really has a plan for me. And then this doubt turns to fear. Fear that I will always be alone. And then I begin to panic. When the panic begins, the Spirit of the Living God rushes in on me like a flood.
There is a line in a song that says "If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking"...it always struck me as beautiful and odd. His grace is an ocean...an endless, life-giving body that sustains us, and all we have to do is let it overwhelm us. I love Grace.
As my heart is still pondering many, many things...many memories, many fears, I want to leave you with one thing. We had two very dear friends who went through a very tough time trying to have a baby. Shannon and I both spent many, many times praying and crying on behalf of this couple. The wife, who I love more than she'll ever know, told me a story about how her father had recounted the story in the bible that if we pray for bread, He won't give us stones...after I told Shannon this story and recounting to him about our own struggle with infertility and how I felt like God was giving me stones...he wrote this song. I haven't read this song in a few years, and I just stumbled upon it last night...the words though really spoke to me...
If I ask you for bread Why do I bear these stones
you say you'll never leave me But I feel so alone
Its hard to explain I don't always understand your ways
I refuse to lay down and die, won't let this moment pass me by
I'll build a ountain and I will over come
this pain that I'm feeling won't leave me undone
the purpose of the stones that you have brought me to
Was to build up a mountain so I could be close to you
If I really believe In everything you've said
then if this pain kills me you'll raise me from the dead
to trust and obey for me there is no other way
I'll hang on to faith, for today is the day
I truly understand that God is who He says He is...and with each new level of this understanding, I feel another part of my grave clothes slipping off my body...revealing a new, living person.
I love Grace.
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