Where I am at, and how I got here.

From time to time someone has mentioned their surprise at how through the life, illness and loss of my son, I have not become bitter or angry...

Of course, that is generally.  For of course I have had moments of bitterness or anger.  But sometimes it gets mentioned with surprise.  Because I think quite a few people expect bitterness or anger.

I have already shared in quite a few other blogs, some of the story of my life and how that has affected me and how God has led me all along.  But I just wanted to touch on it once again.  I might even need/want to discuss it through several blogs.  We'll see.

I know I mentioned that this journey in the land of grief was not my first.  That I had experienced loss before, when I was a teen.  I had several foster-siblings that lived with us for several years.  And then they were moved.  It's still hard for me to talk about.  I like to skirt around the whole story, to be honest.  Even now, years and years and years later, I'm not super comfortable getting into it.

But here is, in general,  the whole experience.  God let something that could only look terrible to me eyes, happen.  Did He cause it?  I've already stated my belief that no, God does not cause every bad thing that happens to us.  But did He allow it?  Yes.  Of course.  For surely He is able to stop these things.  I've seen Him answer my prayers many times.  But this time He let something happen that could only seem to me to be destructive and horrible.

And even now, years and years and years later, I have to say I have never seen anything good come out of that occurrence.  Unless you count the stuff inside me.  There was good that came out of the experience, if by "good" you are willing to admit the result that I learned to rely on God and to trust Him even in the midst of disaster.

I remember sitting in a bush in our yard (yes, I was inside the bush.  Like if you have every watched "It's a Wonderful Life," the part where Donna Reid's character is in the hydrangea bush.  I had this little hollowed out core in one of the bushes on our yard.  That is where I was).  I remember sitting in there and ranting to God or myself or the bugs and leaves, I don't even know now.  I remember ranting about how God had let my foster siblings be moved somewhere strange and unknown to me, how He let them be moved only "God knows where" and then I stopped.  My words silenced me.  And I heard a quiet voice inside say "Yes.  God knows where."

I don't know why that was enough for me at that moment.  Truly, I could still see no good in the situation.  Nothing had really changed.  But I heard God telling me quietly that He did know where my foster siblings were.  And somehow in that moment, it was enough to turn things around in my heart.  Because the voice was quiet, and gentle and sad.  And sovereign.  All at once.

And it turned around my hear and it turned around my life.  Because sometimes you come to a point where the rubber hits the road and a choice must be made.  Follow or turn back.  Trust or check your baggage off the flight.  Surrender your life, or decide you'd rather manage things yourself.

And at that point I had an indication of what I had/was signing myself up for.  Most of us get married and have NO IDEA what we really are signing up for.  Later on we think... hmmm... I really had no idea...  And with marriage, we have a choice to bail out at any time.  No matter what we say "at the altar."  And when it comes to God, yeah, He only wants people who want to be with Him.  So He will always leave the final choices up to you.

In that moment under the bushes, I had gotten a revelation of what I signed myself up for with God.  I realized, through the experience, that praying or "doing good stuff" or whatever it is, is NOT some kind of payment to guarantee God will bless your life (read: let you do what you want and get what you want).  I realized that God is not in the business of raising hot house roses untouched by blemish and unable to grow or bloom unless in a specific, very controlled environment.  And that His process of pruning and trimming, of allowing the elements in to shake us that we might grow strong in Him, I realized that this process might at times allow even for things painful.  Very painful.

C.S. Lewis wrote "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."  And really, that says it all, doesn't it?  God, I know you are only going to do the best, but how much is this going to hurt?  And am I still willing to accept "the best" or do I really want off of this ride, right now!

Does anyone truly stop believing intellectually in God when something painful happens?  Is it not that we become so angry, realizing that God would allow painful things "just" to allow us in turn to be transformed by the experience.  I have heard people say that they can not believe in God, for how could God exist if He could allow these things to happen.  I have never really heard that statement without an undercurrent of anger.  For logically, does the existence of painful experience rule out the existence of God?  Isn't it more accurate that faced with a God who says "I allow this to happen to you, that you might turn more fully to Me, that you might grow stronger in trust, that your character might be purged and refined," we say defiantly "If THAT is how extreme you are about this whole thing, I'm really not interested.  I'm so not interested that I'm going to pretend You don't even existed."

I'm not saying here that there are not people who sincerely question God's existence.  Yes, of course, some of us have these intellectual questions and doubts that deserve some sort of logical reckoning.  I'm talking most especially about people who do believe God exists.  Until something bad happens to them.  And I'm not mentioning them to condemn them in some way.  Because I understand pain.  And anger.  I do.  I have been there, at least in the anger.  And for just about all of us, the question is not if we have been angry at God, but rather, how long we were angry.  Which leaves us pretty much on equally questionable footing, no?

Back to my story...  I found myself under that bush, angry about life, and a mite peeved at God too.  Faced with a choice.  Follow or go my own way.  We used to say at the school I taught in up north that the students came to school cause we were the best show in town.  By which we meant that even though in school the students were disciplined and expected to work and learn and live with authority, they still choose to come to escape the boredom, loneliness, and emptiness of what was going on in life at home.  They might complain bitterly.  But yes, they STILL CAME.

And when it came to God...  it was the same way for me.  Because bad, painful and destructive things happen if you believe in a God who allows them for your growth, or if you believe in a random universe with no anchor or reason or help outside of yourself and a few close relations or friends.  And seeing it that way, what rational choice is there?  And seeing it that way, what warmth or comfort for the soul is there but to just run to the Everlasting Arms that never leave us or forsake us, no matter what pain we are in?

In those arms, I trusted.  In those arms, I made it through the pain and sadness and difficulty.  And I found myself on the other side whole, and not harmed.  I had been hurt, yes.  But I had not been harmed.  Because safe in the arms of God, no permanent harm can come to us.  In this God I had grown to trust, even in the storm.  He has never let me down, even in the illness and death of my child.

This is long enough.  I'll continue it later...