Living through Loss

Life sometimes just sucks.

It just does.

Dads die when they are 60.  Teenagers that serve with you at church in the nursery have accidents and die.  Children get sick and die.  Brothers have car accidents and die.  Friends get cancer and die.  Friends have aneurysms and die.

There is one certainty in LIFE.  You are going to die.

Some of you know I worked in the funeral business for almost 10 years.  I saw MANY things during those years.  I witnessed acceptance of a loved ones death, I witnessed despair, grief so deep, I witnessed happiness that the suffering was over, I witnessed anger, I witnessed questioning, I witnessed love and hate.    I saw it all.

And from the wise old souls that walked through the door, this was the one thing  I heard repeated constantly, "It was their time".  

SAY WHAT?  That used to make me so angry.  What do you mean, "It was their time?  They were 18 (20,25, 40,50) It couldn't be THEIR time!  They were just starting their lives...."

Here is what the wise wise soul was trying to say....that no one wants to hear.  We are born to die.  And because our lives are so full and so special and so wonderful, that is hard to accept.

Before we found out about Laynie, I was reading the bible one night and read Psalm 139, and I called Lacey to share it with her.  I told her, "Lacey, God has had this baby's plan before we even knew she existed. And His plan for her will be perfect."   Then we found out, and I struggled with that for awhile.  GOD?? WHY?  Why us?  Why THIS baby?  And His answer was clear,  "My plan for her is perfect".

We aren't born with guarantees.  We aren't given a baby and told  "Love them for 86.5 years and God speed".  We are entrusted with a life, and given FREE WILL to live that life as good as we can.  Some choose well.  Some choose poorly.   God doesn't say, "I'm going to give you everything abundantly and you will live without pain or worry and life will be just peachy."    What he does say, and promise is that HE will NEVER leave us.  EVER.  In our darkest of hours, In our saddest of times, He is right there, holding us close and loving us with a love we cannot even possibly understand.

This world is broken.  Bad things happen all the time.  I truly believe that when we are born, God already knows our heaven bound destination date.  WE DON"T know, but He does.  And as we blindly run from one thing to the next, we NEVER know what tomorrow will bring.  EVER.

I wrote this the day we found out that Laynie wasn't responding as well to treatment that we had hoped, and that our time was becoming limited...

Today we are going to live full out. We are going to be happy and bask in the goodness of what it is bringing. We aren't going to worry, we aren't going to fret, we are going to be blessed in what we have right this minute. We are NOT going to be gripped in fear, of the unknown.. because the victory of this life is learning to live it each minute. Full out. 

That applies every single day. 

To everyone.  We need to live fearless, and focus on God.  It's hard to "Feel God" when something terrible happens if you aren't living in His pocket.  The enemy uses ANYTHING to break our bond with God.  He uses our worst pain to drive a wedge.  Just like a relationship with a best friend, you have to seek God.  You have to desire to have Him be with you and He is there.  It's tough to understand.  When you are mired in pain and loss, it's hard to understand that there is a loving God that wants to help you with that pain.  It's easy to blame God and say, "YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS." God isn't like the Gamemaster in the Hunger Games, up in a booth looking down on us, dictating the moves. It's easy to put Him there, and use Him to blame.  But the reality, it WAS their time.  They were born with that last day imprinted on them.  We just didn't have any idea.  We are all born with a "last day" imprinted on us.  It's how we LIVE before that Last day that makes all the difference.  We can do it alone, or we can do it with GOD beside us.

We are all born with angel wings.  

God is good, ALL the time.