The Reason for Sorrow

I've been sitting here reading a blog for quite a while this morning... relating to the pain, relating to the comfort God's Word has been to me down thru my life. And I've been feeling ashamed: thinking to myself many times, "I'm the only one...." (Anyone hearing an echo of Elijah the prophet here?) I'm NOT the 'only one' who has been thru this 'valley of weeping'. Other have tread this path long before me, and others (countless others...) will continue to tread the same path until life on earth has been destroyed (which, I believe will be very soon).

Not too long after I graduated from high school (nearly 30 years ago, now) one of my best friends lost one of her baby twins to SIDS. I grieved with her, but didn't feel the pain as she did.

It wasn't until a few years after, that I grieved in a more personal way. I had miscarried my first child. It was even harder, because the medical term they used when talking with me was 'spontaneous abortion'. Those of you who are true believers know that the word 'abortion' carries such a darkness that we don't like to use it in relating to a personal experience. The other really hard thing to deal with were comments by folks that weren't really thought out. "You can always have another one" was one of those. Also, when I went to the doctor the following day AFTER I'd lost the baby in the night was spoken by a nurse who didn't have the bedside manner that one would hope a nurse would have. She said, "Didn't ya keep it?" (Meaning, the fetus.) No, I didn't have the presence of mind to think that you were supposed to bottle up 'the fetus' and take it to the doctor.... These comments have often reminded me of my mama who used to groan out loud about the senseless 'throwing' of scripture at a person when they were already 'down'. One she would say in a comical sing-song kind of voice was Romans 8:28. "For we know that all things work together for the good to them that love the Lord..." Great scripture. Truth, for sure. But don't throw it at someone who is swallowed up in the depths of pain and sorrow. Save it for the right moment. Ask God to help you to know what to say and when to say it.

In my physical and emotional pain after being awake all night, knowing what was going to happen, and determined to not wake my husband who had to preach the next morning, I lay exhausted on the guest room bed afterward. Only those of you who have experienced something like this will understand what I am about to say. God came to me, and gave me a deep, unexplainable peace, even in the midst of my pain. And the words I'd memorized from a song from Hymnology class in bible college came to me:

"What'ere my God ordains is right.
His will is ever just.
How'ere He orders now my cause,
I will be still and trust.
He is my God -
He owns me that I shall not fall.
And so, to Him I leave it all."

I have rested in that verse in many other trying circumstances that followed in the later years of my life: the suicide of a surrogate mom who I dearly loved... the loss of another baby... leaving one pastorate to go to another,,, mama's painful death with cancer....daddy's dementia and death some 5 years later... and my brother's sudden death on a Sunday afternoon not even a year ago.

Does this mean the pain is gone? No. Sometimes it's almost as fresh as if the circumstance had just occurred. I miss them so much - the one's who've died, and the ones I've left behind as we moved to serve in another congregation.

BUT GOD.... But God is still 'my rock, my fortress - in Him will I trust'. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower - the righteous run into it and they are saved." His Word has been counseling my soul for these many hard years. He is God, and He is good.

I felt He explained to me the 'reason' for these things years ago when I was in bible college. I ran acrossed the verse in II Corinthians 1:3 where it says, "God...who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." He allows these hard places to test us, to strengthen us, and so that we, in turn, can help comfort others with the comfort we received from Him in our hard places.

Because of my own personal heartaches I have learned not only to sympathize, but to empathize. The latter is more important than the first.

God Shed His Grace on Thee

Tomorrow night I will attend a band and choir concert performance by the Sheridan High School Music Department. It is an annual event for Veteran's Day and usually very patriotic. Emily says it will not be patriotic this year. How sad.

America seems to have lost its patriotism. They are bitter because of the War in Iraq. How quickly the "We will Remember" statement from 9/11 seems to have been forgotten. Now Bin Laden supposedly is planning an attack that will be far 'greater' than that of 9/11. Maybe it's rumor, maybe not.....but the fact is.... lots of people really don't care. They just want their comfort and financial situation to stabilize regardless of the cost. Who cares if we end up sacrificing millions of unborn babies? Who cares if we turn into a Sodom and Gomorrah and 'legalize' same-sex marriage, which, according to the Word of God, is corrupt? Who cares if our president-elect mis-quotes and mocks the Holy Bible, yet professes to be a Christian? What about the 'wolf in sheep's clothing'?

ONE DAY ALL WILL CARE. Sadly, though, it will be too late. Many mock us and say we are not to follow such 'archaic teachings'. They call us narrow-minded. They do their best to make us look stupid. But ONE DAY they will realize the TRUTH and regret that they rejected it.

My song lately has been, "God HELP America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.