When the script falls apart...

"...the script just didn’t make sense in the midst of the chaos and clamor." Excerpt from Proverbs 31 devotion this morning. 

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f63562b3be485ea0ae33acf18&id=4191fcc70e

me: God...this was NOT how this story was to unfold. 

God: Trust me!

me: This place I am in...it's deep, it's dark, it's scary. I can't see through my tears, the sounds around me are piercing me, I am scared. I can't catch my breath.

God: Trust me! Keep your chin up...it helps you focus on me. I am right here with you, beside you, crying with you as you grieve. 

me: I just don't understand! THIS is not what we prayed for...How can this broken chaotic dark place bring glory to You? Lead others to You?

God: Trust me! I've got you...stop trying to pull your hand from Mine & let me guide you through this dark valley. Let me write this story. Child, I love you too much to leave you in the chaos. 

me: *stomping my feet & yanking harder* But God, I don't WANT to go this way! Its too scary. 

God: Trust me. *stops & just holds me...right here in the dark, scary place*

me: *sobbing into His chest* I don't know how to trust You here. I've never been here before. This isn't the story I wanted. 

God: I know & I've got you & I've got a greater story for you. Trust me. 

me: I'm trying...please be patient with me?

God: Always. I will sit here & hold you as long as you need me too. Just trust me. And please daughter, don't set up camp in this dark place. I don't ever want your eyes to become accustomed to this darkness. I want your eyes to behold the beauty that is My light  once again. 

me: *looking up toward His face* I can't see any light, right now. This darkness is so thick. If it weren't for Your arms around me I am not sure I'd know you were here. I can't see Your face. *curling up into His lap & reaching up to touchHis  cheek*

God: sweet child, lay down your head and rest. We will continue the journey together, I promise.

(9.28.16 a little of the backstory) This was my dialogue that day with God as I was attempting to process through the emotions of losing my 9 yo nephew suddenly, tragically, horrifically; and when we (I) believed with all of my heart that Jesus WAS GOING TO SHOW UP at that "tomb" and call Julian's name. For HIS GLORY! For the whole world to SEE that God is real! I am still struggling through this dialogue with God because I don't understand this answer that involves Julian being gone & our lives broken...shattered...one single choice that changed an entire family. Check out Julian's story here, if you haven't already.  And if you feel led, would you send a small gift to help the family with the unexpected expenses associated with the death of their child? Thanks for ease dropping on my conversation with God.

Keep Your Chin Up

One year ago today, we lost a wonderful woman,daughter, sister, wife, mother & friend... and heaven gained one beautiful angel. Her life was her family... those she loved the most. I was blessed to know her if only for a few short years. (12 to be exact...and boy did they pass quickly)  Her life was her Lord...whom she loved above all else.

This was so very evident in her life...and her death.  One year later, her children, husband, family & friends still miss her and yet their lives go on... on to do wonderful things and touch the lives of others because of the example she lived out... They don't want her message to die with her... her message (at least to me) was that God loves each one of us and He is faithful no matter what comes our way. Walk with Him for it is the ONLY journey worth walking...no matter where it takes you...even if it seems you've been taken too soon...Keep your chin up...not because your tough and it's what the world tells us... but because it keeps your eyes focused on Him!

"I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me."  Could I really? Could I really do ALL things...you see all means...well...all...even death Lord? Yes child, even death. Could I leave my family behind? I really don't know Lord... My child, if I called you home...I know you would come. Please trust me with those you love...I will never let them down.

So... I keep my chin up... eyes focused on my Savior... and when everything around me feels like it is falling apart or spinning out of control... I trust myself into His arms-the creator of the universe, who named every star, knows the number of hairs on my head, and promises He will never leave me.  Well... at least I try really hard to do that!  I need to be reminded every now & then to Keep My Chin Up!

Miss you Beth... know this though... you've left a legacy that will not end!

the Dance

Ok... I have borrowed this from another blogger-Billy...but it spoke so deeply to where I am right now that I just had to add it to my blog as well. You see life is full of stuff-good and bad-will we give up just because life happens or will we dance til the dance is done?

(Okay, I promise this will be the last repeat for a while. Promise. I've almost managed to surface from the mounds of balled-up paper surrounding me, but before my coffee buzz fades and I wind up in a heap in the middle of my bed, I want to say this:

I first wrote this post back in October, but it's haunted me ever since. Our small town has been rocked with the sudden passing of several people lately, and this was the first thing I thought about with every bit of sad news. Death is often a shock, isn't it? I wonder why that is considering it's common knowledge that we can't bolt the doors of our lives to its entry. But what you'll read here is good advice, offered to me by a very special little girl who thinks I teach her. I think it's the other way around.)


Here I am, a man in a most unmanly place, huddled together with four others in the same predicament. We talk sports and trucks and the year's corn crop and anything else with masculine connotations, if only to take our minds off our surroundings:

A ballet recital.

My six-year-old daughter has been taking ballet lessons for a month now. Tonight is the culmination of all that study and work, and it is an event that requires my presence. Thankfully, other fathers of other six-year-old daughters have been similarly persuaded. I have company.

Within our conversation, I watch my little girl. She twirls and steps and trips and repeats. And she laughs.

("I love the dance, Daddy," she has told me often. "I think God loves the dance, too.)

Another twirl and step, but two trips this time. She turns, looks at my wife, and wiggles a finger. Come here, Mommy. The two meet in the middle of the elementary school gym, and I know what's wrong. I excuse myself from the group and join them.

"My sugar's messy," she says. We retreat to the stands for her glucometer. Her reading is 389.

"We should go home," I say.

"We can't!" she pleads. "The dance isn't over." She looks back to her teacher and classmates. "God wants us all to dance until the dance is done. God loves the dance. He said so."

Both look to me. It's my decision, and I offer a reluctant shrug. Who am I to argue with God?

Smiling, she returns to her group. But I remain apart from mine. I am instead alone, lost in this little girl, in her spirit and her joy. She dances in spite of her disease. With her disease.

And her bow is deep at the end.

Our evening over, we are confronted in the parking lot by a sea of red and blue lights across the street. A mangled white car, it's top shorn, lay upside down in the median. Police, firemen, and rescue personnel scramble in choreographed chaos. A medical helicopter waits, blades churning, an angel of metal and wires, death and life.
My family stands silent.

"God bless the wrecked people," murmurs my son. We all join him, grasping hands in prayer.

My wife and I exchange a look. Our town is small, the identity of the injured likely an acquaintance. Come from the school, perhaps. Football practice. A child? One of my wife's students? Regardless, it was someone who was here and is now gone. Breathing and now not.

The suddenness of life presses into me. So fragile is our existence in this world, so easily taken and taken for granted. To love is to risk, and the opening of our hearts invites not only the warmth of joy, but fear's cold winds.

"How can I live with this fear?" I whisper to God.

Silence.

"How can I bask in your light while standing in this shadow?"

The helicopter blades swoosh.

"How must life be lived

("God wants us to dance until the dance is done," my daughter had said. "God loves the
dance.")

in the face of death?"

I look down at my child, safe in the crook of my arm. She rests her head on my shoulder
and sighs. She is safe here, in her father's arms. We are all safe there.

Yes, God loves the dance. And so should we. We should hear the music in this life, surrender to its rhythms. We should make its cadence our own.
And we should always dance until the dance is done.