Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
I have felt very out of sorts lately. I have not felt like sharing my life or journey with anyone let alone strangers on my blog. I am gonna attempt it anyway because when I'm called to share I want to be obedient even when I don't "feel like it". I never said this was gonna be easy or that the entry's are good. They are just mine, my heart and my journey that I'm led to share in order that it may help another.
Last night while I was reading before bed, I realized something. Its gonna be kind of hard to explain and maybe awkward (whats new right?). So here it is If you have a child in heaven and you are a follower of Christ you have surely noticed this.....We are for the most part all alike....... not only do we have in common that we have children in Heaven, or that we are living through Christ in the midst of a horrible tragedy. We are alike in our thinking, speaking and feelings. I have read so many books on grief and the loss of a child that there is no way I can count them. I am very selective (learned the hard way) about what I read and who wrote it and who I take advice on healing from. The books I read I usually research first, I want to know the writer and his/ her beliefs before I allow my heart to soak up their experience and what they have learned. Reading can be very dangerous when you are searching for help anywhere you can find it. A broken heart and spirit is more vulnerable than any other. So guard your heart and be mindful of the person you are reading about or speaking to. Its easy to get confused or to start to believe things that are just not true of God when your hurt. All it takes is the wrong word at the opportune time.
Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it
Okay, back to my original thought (shocking, I know). I am blown away at the likeness of us in this group of parents with children in Heaven, or really anyone who lost someone they loved more than life. If we were followers of Christ before our loss and chose to seek Jesus in our loss, then man we grew in faith with supernatural speed in our pits! I mean not only did we grow and mature in our faith, but our way of speaking and our very spirit's seem "alike". The longing to know everything we can about Heaven, the way we feel and SEE the sufferings of this world, the way we love with our whole hearts, the words we use to explain the pain of it all. I stand amazed at this realization, how can I just now notice how very much we are alike?
I noticed from the beginning of our walk with grief that others living with grief were "like"us, but I didn't realize why or maybe I never considered the "why". When we allow Jesus to carry us, teach us and grow us we become more like Him which is the point right? I have said 100 times that there are times I feel so close to Jesus that if he showed up in disguise, I would recognize Him. I have no doubt that's true of any of us who have given our grief to Him and let Him carry our burden. There is no doubt that the trials I live with every day are not trials that one can live through (and actually live, not just exist) without Christ. It takes supernatural intervention to actually "live" again. I have days and sometimes weeks that I feel like I'm spiritually sideways (like that V8 commercial when the people are all leaning as they walk) I need Jesus to come hold me tight , like when someone hugs you and pops your back....that kind of hug. Nice and tight, and straiten my back and my spine again. I don't want to live in a spiritual slump or walk around "off" or leaning one way or another. I want to walk with my back strait and my eyes focused up and on Jesus who saves me over and over again.
I love to read and talk to my co-sufferers because they lift me up and help me shift my focus back where it needs to be. I hate that I am a part of this group but man it's amazing to SEE how we are all so much alike. I never understood it but now I do, just like that, He showed me. Jesus showed us Himself because we let him and that forever changed and bonded us in this grief stricken group of followers. We know because we learned from the same Jesus, how could we not be and speak like each other?!
As I type this I mentally picture Jesus smiling at my revelation :)
We are children of one father, we made the choice in horrendous circumstances to focus on Him and that forever bonded us. We are like Him in ways we never would have been pre-tragedy because we SEE now. Don't get me wrong, we SEE Jesus, that does not mean we understand His ways. When all you have is Jesus to get you through moment by moment you tend to listen for His voice in any storm, not just the life altering ones. That goes back to the saying "Faith isn't faith until its all your holding on to". When we are forced to choose to live in faith again or stay spiritually dead we are absolutely changed. If I learned one thing from Him in my storm its that cause and effect are a human thing. There are not always reasons for everything that happens. We have to stop looking for the effect of our loss. Maybe there isn't one, or maybe there is. We wont know this side of Heaven and that's the way it is. Stay focused on Eternity and it will be here before we know it. Hold on to faith like its all you have, because the truth is....it is. Just ask any of my co-sufferers, I feel confident you will find the same way of thinking.
The most famous co-sufferers I have ever met, yet we still have the same mind set. amazing. Stevin Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman & Me
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