serenity

Sitting on the back porch, snuggled up in a blanket, and drinking hot tea while I watch the rain. It doesn't get much better than this.

- Pic taken at Stephen's Lake last Monday after my first pedi! Such a relaxing and refreshing day!

{ for he himself is our peace }

The Lord is the strength of His people;

He blesses his people with peace.

{ephesians 2:14; psalm 29:1}

{ he is our peace }

"for he himself is our peace."

:: ephesians 2:14

crashing waves of grief :: and do you know who [I am]

The last few days and yesterday in particular, I have been on cloud nine.

Then all it took was running into an email yesterday that brought what a friend so poignantly describes as “crashing waves of grief.” The moments where you are fine, or even as I was before I read it, on top of the world and so encouraged, and then all of a sudden, without warning, all of a sudden, you are not.

I didn't plan on checking email or reading anything hard until later, but as I was checking one of my other email accounts to print my crafting coupons for the week, I saw something that grabbed my eye. I didn't want to open it. I was afraid of what I might see, but then decided maybe it wouldn't be that bad.


Reading the email really affected me yesterday, and then after working through it and other things, I was fine. Then all of a sudden more waves of grief hit me this morning as I was getting ready to go to the office. Waves of grief that surfaced this morning that I just had to stop and allow myself to cry, breakdown and process, though I didn't want to. I didn't want to stay there. But something happened in those moments that changed the course of my day, things I share towards the end of this post in more detail, but for now, I'll continue with what happened yesterday.


As I was reading the email, the far too familiar wave of nausea and dread swept over me as I felt that also hauntingly familiar feeling I have had now far too many times than I can count, of how I feel when I hear or read about others that I know who are sick.

When it hits so close to home it is so surreal.

The last few months and last year really, since about this time last year, God has brought a handful of people in my life that He specifically brought into my life to walk through this season with me. People who have a depth of understanding that has come from walking through their own medical journeys or similar or different seasons of grief.


I felt an also far too familiar wave of anger rise up within me. A wave of questions that may never have answers and a feeling that I felt yesterday for the first time of how others have felt when they have heard or read about my story.


I found myself completely broken for their situation and mad that they had to be going through it. I found myself angry of all they are dealing with, as literally behind every single word, I felt I knew the million of words each sentence contained but that didn't make the email. Line after line I found myself able to identify and relate and felt this sense of I know exactly what you are talking about. I read it to Ben later as we were processing and he felt the same way.

It was healing also in the fact that it validated much of the struggle and difficulty we have had in communicating and keeping others updated on my condition as well as validated our need for time, space to grieve, as well as the need to feel normal.

The need to not feel like you have to give everyone an update every time you see them. The need that you have when life and just going through it itself is already enough. When you don't have the energy, physically or emotionally, or the capacity to rehash it all. And how when you're not in appointments or talking about it, you just want to do normal things, feel normal, talk about normal things, and just live your life.


But what hit me more than anything as I was reading this email was the anger and the sorrow I did not expect to come. I was angry just knowing all that we have been through, to know that these people who I haven't known that long, but love, respect, and admire, were having to go through this.

I was sad and I was angry.

An anger and sorrow I have felt when I hear news of others suddenly getting sick, knowing what it feels like when everything can literally change in the blink of an eye. When without so much as a moment's notice, the entire landscape of your life can change.

The same feeling I have struggled to reconcile many a time of things like this coming like a thief in the night.

Stealing and taking without so much of a moment's notice everything about what once was your life. I was broken for them, knowing the grief and the loss and the hardship that is so complex and multifaceted that you so badly wish others could understand.


I found myself facing a lot of questions that resurface from time to time in the midst of my deepest heartache and grief. Questions of why do they have to go through this. Why do people have to get sick. Why is this happening to them. Why haven't the doctors been able to provide answers. And a million others that I have asked relating to my own situation, issues of it not being fair, as I face all the myriad of ways this has changed and affected nearly all of my relationships and everything about my life and our lives.

Questions that I have found I may never have answers to.That I have had to work through, process, grieve, and face so my heart does not grow bitter. Suffering and questions that could have even broken or strengthened me.

Questions that this morning I found again that can only be met in who He is. In His character and the comfort of His love.


The Great I Am.

But, God, do you know that I am disappointed right now?


I found my soul voicing this question that I remember gripped me from my seat as I heard one of my small group leaders ask this as she was talking about the book that held such questions and more as she was talking about how this book had spoken to her.


She said, Do You Know Who I Am? starts off each chapter with a question. Questions that maybe we're all afraid to ask aloud. Questions where there are no easy answers. But, that the answers to all our deepest questions are found in His Word, in who He IS... as the beginning of the book explains and as Michelle shared from the stage. For example, she continued, at the beginning of every chapter with every question she poses, an answer follows, questions and words/reminders of truth that have redefined and shaped my relationship with God, my journey and my heart.


For with "Do You Know I am Disappointed?", He says, "But I am your Hope."


Or "do you know that I am afraid?" "But, I am your Comfort."
"Do You know that I am weak?" "But, I am Your Strength."


There are so many times that the questions in a book I haven't read or picked up in months, deeply minister to me. Our small group leaders gave us a bookmark (with a flower attached, YES, the original flower I was given as a gift that was the gift that inspired and sparked and started this all, Mazvita's Angels :: Crafting for a Cause), and at the top of the bookmark are the words, “Do You Know Who I Am?”


And the twelve statements were written in ascending order as they appeared in the book,

I am Your God Who Sees...
I am Your Comfort...
I am Your Hope...

Etc, etc and I keep this bookmark in my Bible and there are so many times when it falls out and there is a particular word or phrase that I really needed to be reminded of in that moment that changes everything about my outlook and my perspective and my day.


Man, His truth really does set us free. It is crazy sometimes. But so true.

One of the things I also loved about these questions is that finding them in this book gave me permission to ask them.

There are so many times when I am working through something difficult or processing hard emotions/feelings I just would rather not deal with when I am reminded of them and will find myself asking God, God, do you know that my heart is broken right now? Do you know that I am afraid? Do you know that I am crushed right now? Disappointed. Sad. That I feel alone? And I cannot describe how much even just voicing those questions has changed so much about my relationship with God.

I find a comfort as I am reminded and given not so much the answers to my questions of “why” but comfort and peace as I am given answers of “who.”

I am reminded and have had so many times where I realize once I face the question that He already knows is there, buried deep, but that I don't want to unleash, afraid of what might be in pandora's box, I find that time and time again I am received.


I find that something begins to happen when I ask those questions.

I find that I am met and I am seen by the God who Sees.

The only One who knows that state and condition of my heart and my life in that moment and all that is happening in and around me. The only One who hears me. Who is here, who is fighting for me. The One who has never left my side.

In those moments are I am reminded of truth. Reminded not so much of what I feel I need to know in order to have peace, but that which He knows I need.

And somehow, that alone is enough. His presence and His promise which alone can answer me in those moments.

His presence and his promise which alone gives me life.

I find that He is not afraid or offended by my questions, but delights in me asking them. There is something that happens in those moments.

An intimacy that cannot be put into words of knowing that even in my heartache, there is someone who is there, who is grieving, weeping, crying with me and over me, who doesn't push me aware from all that I feel, but deeper into it, One who says the only words my heart has truly needed to hear and the feeling that washes over me that is the point where things begin to change, “Fear not, my child, I am WITH you.”

I find that I am not, I am never alone. Seen, known, held, pursued, chosen, loved, and fought for by the One who alone is faithful.


The One who continues to teach my heart how to trust Him. As He continues to take care of me, continues to be faithful, brings me through heartache from strength to strength, and holds me in the shadow and the Shelter of His wings.

My God of all comfort, my God of peace.

{And, You reach for me...}

"...With a love that quiets all my fears..."

   
    Yes, He himself
     is our
  peace.

                          [ ephesians 2:14 ]

- photo courtesy of tec petaja photography; song lyrics by peter furler

.: He blesses His people with peace :.

the lord gives strength to his people,

the lord blesses his people with peace.

for with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

[ psalm 29:11, 36:9 ]

- photo by tec petaja photography

{ for he himself is our peace }

{ ephesians 2:14 }

My peace I give you.

"A future awaits those who seek peace..."

[psalm 37:37b]

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."
[john 14:27]

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age,”
Jesus' last words in the book of Matthew.
[matthew 28:20b]

-- breaking free --

The Lord gives strength to his people;

the Lord blesses his people with peace.

:: psalm 29:11