Late night thoughts

Disclaimer: It’s pretty late here, and this could very well be a lot of random thoughts, so you’ve been warned. It could be real long. :)

It’s been 7 days since my son passed on and I feel like I have lived an entire lifetime. I was telling a dear friend who has been battling cancer today (and whom I feel like I can relate to in a way) how many conflicting emotions go along with this type of experience. My heart feels hopeful in so many ways, but there is also a deep sense of longing. When people ask me how I am doing I find myself saying, “Best case scenario, I suppose?”

How do you answer that? I mean, obviously I am not doing “well” all together, but given the circumstances, is it appropriate to say I’m doing well? Well, I’m not sure! See what I mean? It’s conflicting.

I probably read my original blog post 200 times consecutively after writing it. I missed dinner because I was so lost in it, thinking, and rethinking about what I said and its accuracy, and all the variables of what I’m feeling and hoping that the what I could muster up in the english language would suffice.

This is going to be raw you guys, my grammar may be bad, my punctuation terrible, and I may seem to contradict myself, and you who are following me will probably think… well, she said one thing on such and such a date, and a contradictory thing on this other date… so what is she really feeling? Is she really ok? Is she just coping with all these hopeful words and encouragement, or is it true strength?

You know what, YES. It’s all of it, wrapped up into one big messy, beautiful, raw, terrible, contradicting bundle. That’s what grief is, and if you have never experienced grief, or experienced it in this way, there is no way to understand it. That’s what this place is for. To let people know that haven’t experienced the physical loss of their own offspring, how we feel. For those of you who have experienced this type of loss, it’s to let you know, you are not crazy, and it’s ok to have conflicting thoughts and emotions, and that you are not alone.

I have had wonderful moments and moments that really really suck. Mostly what I’m experiencing is hope, and even in the sorrow, all I’m experiencing is beautiful, but it is HARD. This is the hardest thing I have ever been presented with in my life.

People have applauded my faith during this situation, as well as questioned me. I have not directly been challenged in my beliefs, but I have had people say that although they are so thankful for my faith being able to sustain me, but that they are angry… they are confused… they are hurting and struggling over this on my behalf. They are questioning God, asking, how could you let this happen to such good people?

That’s the all time question that leads people to doubt God… “Why do bad things happen to good people?” …whether it’s over God’s existence all together, or whether he is indeed GOOD. You know what I say to that? YES. Question him. I encourage it. That’s how I have found my faith. God is not afraid of your questions, and I am not going to sit here and play the christian card and tell you people who have not experienced His goodness that you should just trust Him blindly. You can question Him. That’s where faith starts. He is bigger than you questioning Him, and hey.. isn’t asking questions how we get to know people? If you have questions, ASK! As long as you are open, and want to know the answers, and can receive the bits of truth you are given, even if you don’t understand, He will answer… and He will let you into His perspective.

I personally have a bit of an advantage because I have experienced A LOT of brokenness in my life. I spent A LOT of time since I was a very young child lonely, broken, and longing for relationship. My relationship, questioning God, and asking Him to show Himself to me began at the age of 4. I cried out to him so many times as a young girl, and through my adolescence, longing for relationship, and wondering why I didn’t feel connected to anyone in the flesh on a deep level. I have to tell you… God showed up to me every single time I turned to Him. He was my comfort, He was my closeness, and my time spent being comforted by him in my loneliness are some of my fondest memories of childhood. I can honestly say that He showed himself to me, proved His love for me, fought for me, and preserved my life at times I felt like there was no purpose in living, over and over again.

This is intense… and I am intense… and I used to try and bury that because I didn’t want people to be freaked out, but you know what… I don’t care anymore. I don’t care because there are too many broken people in this world who have faced hardship and tragedy and think they are alone because no one is brave enough to say, “HEY I’m hurting too, and it’s deep! I’m questioning God and I feel guilty.” Whatever the secret, unexposed thoughts may be, we all have them… and it’s time someone decides not to push them under the rug, gets vulnerable, and lets it out because THAT is where healing begins. I’m not saying you need to blog about your struggles, or post on social media like I have. No, because you are a different person than me, and your process will always look different than any other person’s. Binding up your hurt, though, that will not help you or anyone around you. We need to be vulnerable, we need to dare to let our hearts be exposed. This is for survival. This is for wholeness.

So I guess what I am saying is, dare to question, dare to question yourself, dare to question God, dare to question whatever you want. It is OKAY. God is not intimidated by your questions, if you are sincere in wanting to know truth, He can handle it. He can handle your raw honest anger, frustration, and pain. He wants it. He wants to take it from you and transform it into understanding. I challenge you to dare to be honest with Him.

There are many more elements to this, but being honest is the best place to start.

I know there are so many different people reading this… agnostics, new age, christians, buddhists, pastors, philosophers, the undetermined, the spiritual, the melting pot people that have taken lots of different believes and meshed them together based on experience, and you know what I don’t care which category you fall under or if you don’t like to be in categories so you don’t fall under any. This applies. We are all human, we all have pain, and we all question life and it’s struggles, and it is okay.

This is not a place where I am going to tell you what I think you should believe or how you should process your journey. Although, I, myself have very strong personal beliefs, I do not want to put them on you. I 100% believe that if you want to know Truth from the depths of your being, you will find it… and Truth will find you. God is bigger than our belief systems, He is bigger than our circumstances, our questioning, our religion, our everything.

In my life, I have become convinced that who Jesus is is Truth. I don’t believe in rules, I don’t believe in formulas, I don’t believe in have to’s, in order to’s, or any other type of man made formats for finding God. I don’t think Jesus did either, and that’s why I like Him so much. I like who He was, who He is, and I like that He has never let me down.

Until my husband came into my life, I had no human consistency. I had no one thing in my life that I could heavily rely on to be the same. When he came into my life as a friend, I remember asking the Lord, what is this guys purpose in my life, and hearing, “I am going to show you my love for you through a human, through him.” At that point I wasn’t sure what that meant and I surely did not know he would become my husband, let alone walk with me and show his love and strength through something as tragic as we are experiencing now. He is pretty awesome.

Up until he came into my life all I had was Jesus. Jesus held me every time I was broken by the pain of this world, he called me out every time I needed correction, and he was patient with me every time I was slow to listen and shot myself in the foot. I’d screw up over and over again and He would always be there, quietly, patiently waiting for me to realize my stupidity, and let Him take care of me again. Every time I got caught up in my own strength, I would fall, and He was always there to replace what strength I thought I had with His. He has always been so kind to me, so gentle, so patient and understanding.

….This is why I trust Him, this is why even in the pain of physical loss of my son… seemingly undeserved, I really really trust Him. He has never let me down, and I know He never will. He is the reason my marriage is so strong, He is the reason I seem so strong. I’m not strong you guys!!!! I’m super duper weak…. like really pathetically weak. I have just learned from 28 years of bruising, to let go when the pain hits, and allow His strength to supersede my circumstance.

Ok, this is long enough, and my husband is snoring…. so I think it’s time for bed.