Somewhere over the Rainbow

I have always loved the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Wishing upon a star... clouds far behind. Blue birds flying - troubles melting away.  Dreams coming true.

If we are being truthful, I think we all long for a place that isn't right where we are sometimes. It is those days that push us to the limits of what we think we can bear. The days where every light is red, and every meeting runs long, the kids are fighting and for some reason your head just aches. Every time the phone rings it is bad news and you just wish for a moment that you hadn't even gotten out of bed.  Those days come for all of us.  Sometimes those days seem like they will never stop coming. One hard day after another for weeks, and sometimes even years.

The wintertime of the soul.
Bleak.
Grey and so disappointing.
Disheartening to the point that you forget what the point really is.

I have been there. Day after day so dark that I couldn't remember that good days ever were. Every day waking to wonder in what way the enemy would try to tear me apart today. Fearful of what means he would use to try to send destruction to my life. Oh I am thankful to be out of that season. It seemed like it may never end. At every turn there was judgement and pain and confusion. Some of those days I could muster up a pep-talk for myself.  I could tell myself the truths I grew up on:
God is good.
He will never leave me.
He is not mad at me.
He is not punishing me because He is disappointed in me.
Love never fails.

But, some days I couldn't even make the thoughts stick, much less come to any sort of belief in them.
If you are reading this and you are in this winter season all I can say is I am sorry. Oh how I wish there were a magic formula to pull you out from that place. I wish there were words that would grab your heart so deeply that you could believe with all that you are that God is for you and not against you.  He has not hidden himself. He does not delight in your sorrow. But, I know well that words are futile in this place, and I am so sorry.

And yet, for me, today the clouds seem to be clearing away... not far behind me (yet), but I can see the sun is poking out again. It's warm rays are beaming down and wrapping me up like a cozy blanket. Oh how I have missed that! It is strange. The darkness is near enough that there are days I still want to retreat and listen to music that invites the sadness to come close and the tears to fall. Yet, the sun is beckoning me to come out and remember joy. What a strange place.

I stopped by the cemetery a few days ago.  I will be honest.  I don't do that much. My Jacob isn't there, and personally for me, I am not closer to his memory there either.  It is just the way I am wired. I would rather snuggle the blanket that he loved dearly and be in my own home - the home I was raising him in. But, today, I just wanted to stop by. It was a beautiful day and it was good for me to go. I remember choosing the verse that would be on this stone. I remember the desperation of it all. The weight of picking out the clothes and the pictures and what would be engraved and even the font. Every detail was important because my boy was so very important. Anyway, the sun broke through the clouds and I just thought it was God's little reminder that He is there.  In the heartache, He is there. In the good times, He is there. In every season of the soul... He is with me.  Such a sweet God. Such a good Savior.

One of my favorite verses is Philippians 1:6, "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

He has given me the assurance that He won't give up on me. He will work it out to completion. Of course the level to which I cooperate will determine a lot along the way. But, isn't it nice to know that He won't give up? I love that I can put confidence in that. Because it is very dissimilar to placing confidence in myself. I am well-intentioned, but oh so human. If I had to rely on myself for everything, I would be in trouble. And, without doubt, every time I rely solely on myself I get in trouble.

I flew recently and actually had the distinct pleasure of flying over a rainbow. It was interesting to look down on a rainbow instead of looking up at it. It wasn't glorious or more beautiful than anything I had ever seen, but it instantly triggered the lyrics to the song in my mind and I smiled a wide smile and let my thoughts drift to dreams I would dare to dream. Even in that, there is a breath of fresh air. Dreaming can be so good - as long as you are willing to snap back to reality in due time. Ha! I am not sure what season I am in. I still look over my shoulder for the enemy's attack... but I am pressing forward knowing that today I have something strong and secure to lean into even if the attack does come. Faith is confidence of things hoped for - and an assurance of that which we cannot see. (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is what holds me secure in the trials - and what gives me hope when all seems to be going well.

I liked flying over the rainbow. I liked dreaming of dreams. I like the idea of clouds being far behind me. Today has not been the easiest of days. I call it a deep breath in, deep breath out kind of day. But, I just keep breathing and remembering that all things will be worked out for good, even though in the middle it is hard to see how. And I am so thankful that eternity will be a place with no more worry or tears or pain... just love and peace and a beautiful, holy God that made the way for me. I hope you have that peace and hope in your heart today. If you are in that season of darkness, message me so that I can pray for you. You are not alone, and you should not feel alone! We were not made to try and figure it all out on our own, or to try and test the limits of our strength. We were made for community and sometimes that is messy... but it is so good when you allow yourself to be vulnerable with SAFE people.

I will leave you with a sweet blessing that my friend Mary always says to me when we part. Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

Be encouraged today that God sees you, and have a heart of gratitude for even one thing that you can see in your life that is good.  Gratitude is sweet medicine to a weary soul.

Much love my friends!
~ Christy

What Easter means to me

 I was going to say Happy Easter to everyone via Facebook this morning, and I realized that I couldn’t just leave it at that. 

Easter has a meaning for me personally that goes beyond a two word greeting on social media. 

When I was 17, I had to wrestle with the reality of Heaven and Hell.  I had been raised all my life in church.  I knew everything my parents and Sunday school teachers had told me about Heaven and Hell.  But, when someone you love dies... Well, let’s just say you examine everything a little more closely.  My beautiful mother wrote me a letter before she died.  In it, she closed by saying it wasn’t goodbye - she would just be waiting for me in a different place, a place where there is no more pain, there are no more tears... Then she said it is just a long hello.  Good grief that woman was amazing. 


But, you see, for that to be true... You MUST have Easter.  If eternity is real, then Easter is not just one more Holiday where you eat too much and finally get together with family.  It is the day where death was defeated.  That tree in the Garden gave up its power, and life as God intended burst back onto the scene in full color. 

Jesus is Risen. 

He does not lie in a grave wrapped in linens.  He is not stuck in a place between worlds.  Right now, He is seated at the right hand of the Almighty, and He is making intercession for me, and for you.  That means He is pleading still with the Father on our behalf.  And, that also means that my beautiful mother, Cindy, and my precious, precious Jacob, are in Heaven - and they are very alive.  When I read the words that Jesus conquered death... and that He went before us to make a way... It gives way to a hope that I can not explain. 

This world is a dark and hard place many days.  I have a precious relative that struggles daily with much hate towards God.  Blaming God for the pain and the suffering that is rampant all over the world - and that his loved one suffered while on this earth.  Right now, in his grieving, I wish I could just sit with him and hug him tight.  I know that anger.  I know the feeling that goes along with “you could have stopped this - and you didn’t!!”  His is more of an “IF you could have, why didn’t you?”  If God is real and He allowed that much pain to enter into the life of one person... how could He be good?  I just want to squeeze him and tell him that this isn’t how God intended life to be. But, He did not choose to make us robots that HAD to follow Him.  He allowed choice - and thus, He allowed sin to enter the perfect beauty of what He had created and destroy the perfection and peace that comes with residing with Him.  However, and this is a big HOWEVER... when we chose wrong... He made a way to restore everything to the beauty He had originally intended.  We just can’t see it while we are here on this broken Earth.  Like a kind Father, He instructed His children, Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He didn’t just set them out there and wish them luck.. He told them don’t eat of the tree or you will surely die.  They didn’t understand what that really meant.  There wasn’t ONE OTHER thing that was withheld from them.  But, when sin entered the world - death entered with it, and the beauty that was - and the life that was, couldn’t ever be the same here on the earth.  My momma suffered here.  She had much heartache, and much physical pain.  My Jacob did not, and I praise God for that.  He had heartache and loss for certain.  But, he had not tasted the pain of cancer or any disease that robbed him of his health.  Why do some people suffer so intensely?  I believe it is because in her suffering, my momma brought much glory to her Creator.  Never did she doubt His existence, or curse Him in her suffering.  The more she felt pain, the more she longed to go Home, the Home that was available to her because Jesus went ahead of her.  He CONQUERED (utterly defeated) death.  And, because she suffered well, many came to believe in God - and in His Son Jesus.  And, though we cannot see what rewards await for our loved ones who have gone before us... We know that they are many for those who have honored the Lord with their lives.  How much more so for those who suffered long, but suffered well here on the earth.  This temporary pain has been outweighed by so much glory that they will live in forever and ever. 

Easter means eternity.  Easter means there will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fear.  Easter means that the BEAUTY God intended will be restored and NEVER taken away again.  Easter means that we will rejoice together again because Jesus took all of my stuff, my ugly stuff, and traded spots with me, doing what I couldn’t do, so I could be forever with God after all. 

Easter is beautiful.  Jesus is Risen.

(photo credit to joytojourney.com)

Beauty has been restored and death has been defeated.  I want the truth of that to reside in my heart even on the days here that do not feel beautiful... Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we can not see. (NLT) 

I choose faith.  I choose hope. 

Happy Easter my friends. 

Without Faith...

Without faith I cannot imagine where I would be right now, or what I would be doing.  Without the ever-steady love of my God, and His heavy hand of grace upon me, I can only imagine what would have become of me. 

Today marks 2 years.  2 years since that precious, joyful boy bounced out of my house, late for school… never to walk back through the doors again.  This day, 2 years ago, I had to sit with my precious children 4, 5, 10, and 12 years old and tell them that they would never see their brother again this side of Heaven.   He wasn’t coming home from school.   I laid in my bed, shivering and unable to become warm trying to make my mind understand this reality.  Sleep could not be found without medication and a friend reading the Word as I lay still and try to rest.  My body was revolting.  My mind, overcome with grief.

I would be utterly hopeless.  I have heard stories from momma’s who spent years – many years – on drugs to escape the pain every day.  I understand that – and there are days when it still sounds like it could be a good way out from under the weight of pain.  I have never desired so greatly to just be numb for a while.  Judge if you would like, but that is the truth.  There is no way for me to explain the hurt.  By God’s grace, and because of my other precious children, the Lord has kept me from that. 

Without faith… desperation, hopelessness, constant pain.   

Without faith it is impossible to please God.  This verse rattles around in my mind.  Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  When faith enters the picture – it is like a ray of light cutting through the harsh dark clouds.  Faith reminds me that my Jacob is surely alive.  More than I am.  Faith reminds me that this world – all of its 80, or90 years is a * blink * in reality.  Faith reminds me that the way I walk this out can either point people to Truth and Hope, or it can lead them into further desperation. 

My hope is not that God will preserve all of my other children.  My hope is not that I will stay healthy and have wealth.  My hope lies in something that is unchanging.  My hope lies in Jesus Christ.  He CONQUERED death.  Before my Jacob died… death had already been defeated.  Because Christ rose… so did my son. 

When “normal” people sing praise songs, they are singing from their place in life… what sorrow and what victory they know and understand.  Worship songs have always ministered to me in ways that nothing else could.  But, I am going to be honest.  Worship songs are different now.   I would have sung with my hands lifted high – singing from my guts – asking God’s Spirit to “lead me where my trust is without borders”… or telling Him that His name is blessed – whether He gives or takes away.  And, I would have meant it – from the bottom of my heart, and with all that I had.  But, now, a knot rises in my throat as I go to sing those words.  Tears stream from my eyes as I am barely able to utter the words…

He has taken away.  And, in some moments, I do not feel like blessing anything or anyone.  He has tested my borders, and I have found that my trust did have very solid boundaries, and He took me beyond them.  There was a point that my trust waivered.  Does it mean that I do not believe God is who He says He is?  Absolutely not.  But, knowing He had all POWER to raise my son to life in this life – and He chose not to do it pushed my trust to a place I can’t explain.  It seems like it would be easier to believe He couldn’t do it.  But, I KNOW He could have.  With all that I am – all the way to my guts – I know He could have.  I have had to wrestle with that.  I have had to wrestle with the fact that He can make good of something so bad.  It doesn’t feel good.  It hasn’t left me with a confidence that we are safe.  What I mean is, I do not have the luxury of imagining that I can keep my children safe.  Or, that I can pray hard enough to keep them – or myself, or my husband from getting sick or dying.  My faith does not guarantee health, or wealth… but it is a guarantee that in the life that is ahead – I have a place.  In that place there will be no more tears.  There will be no more pain.  This is a guarantee, and I am banking on it.   I have the blessed hope that my goodness will not have to be enough to get me to Heaven.  Jesus was enough.  Jesus was my full payment.  And that is my hope.  Nothing actually depends on me.  Thank God for that.  Through these times of sorrow I have grieved the Spirit of God with my sins.  I have been weighed down with shame and guilt on the earth.  But, because of Jesus, I will one day be with my beautiful mother and my precious son again for eternity for the Glory of God.  Praise God that because of Jesus, my shame and my sin is no longer mine.  It was nailed to the cross - and I have been set free.

His ways are not my ways, and His thoughts are not my thoughts.  He is much higher than I – and even though I do not understand… I will never understand…

I can trust…

well, I can trust…

…over time, I will be able to trust His heart towards me. 

That is where I am.  I am re-learning to trust Him when trust does not insure safety.  Please don’t get all religious on me and say that I am safe.  Of course, my soul is safe.  And that is what counts… it really is.  But, I mean I know every day that my children walk out the door that they are not guaranteed to come back through it.  And that, changes a person.  I know that I am not guaranteed to be here to raise my children.  My mother died when I was 17.  I was not fully raised.  I was certainly not without need for a momma.  And, yet, here I am.  By God’s tremendous grace… here I am.

Life has been a painful journey for me.  I am still healing.  I feel in a way, like I was wounded in battle… desperately wounded… and it is taking much time to heal.  I still feel like I am laying on the battlefield… war raging all around.  I am hanging on.  I am grasping at truth… and hanging on for dear life.  But, I am bloody, and I am weary, and I am still unsure how long until I am pulled from the battlefield and given rest. 

Don’t misunderstand.  I have peace.  I am not terrified of losing my life.  I am not terrified each day that more loss will enter my life.  I know that no matter what happens… God will hold me in His great big hands.  I know that this life will pass – and then there will be eternal joy and safety.  But, I am still fighting for joy.  I am still waiting for healing in deep places.  I am still wrestling it all out with my God.  And, the most beautiful part of it… He delights in my heart.  He delights that I am still wrestling.  He delights in the broken places in me… because He knows how to bind them up – and He loves me with an everlasting love.  Where man will judge and say things (that are meant to be helpful) that bring more pain and seek to diminish the gravity of it all… My God sees my heart and He is pleased with me.  By His grace every day I press forward… and on days like this – where soul crushing memories and images flood my mind and my heart – I press in tighter.  I cry out to be held – in tangible ways – to remember there is joy.  There is goodness.  There is life.  There is HOPE.  I rest in the fact that He sees every broken place, and His one desire is to bind up the brokenness, and heal that which is wounded. 

He is good.  His heart towards me is good.  He will heal me.  And one glorious day, it will all make sense… and I will cry no more.

Family Update... School has begun!

All three of my precious kiddos are in school now! Wow! What a fun time this is for our family! Jake is doing so well in intermediate school. He rides his bike to school everyday and has a routine for his homework. He is making wonderful grades, and I couldn't be more proud of the way he is keeping his things organized. Praise the Lord! He is really growing up. If you don't believe me, just call him sometime and talk to him for a minute on the phone. He sounds so grown! He is showing me this year that he is really very capable of keeping up with assignments and turning stuff in on time. He is also such a help to me at the house. He helps me so much. I never dreamed that he could take so much off of me - but he does every day! He officially has an extra hour of awake time after his brother and sister have to go to bed. He needs it most days just to finsih up homework and have a little down time. What a blessing he is to his Momma and Daddy!
Then there is my Maddy-Bella. Oh she is indeed a beauty! She is taking her new challenges and running with them! Her Spanish teacher this year ONLY speaks in spanish! Talk about full submersion! She is doing great! Yesterday she said, "Mommy, I wrote in Spanish in my draft book today!" I am so proud of her and excited for the opportunites that will come in her life from this program! My favorite thing that is going on in her life right now is the way that she is listening to God. She hears His voice and it is so encouraging to this momma! Please ask me about this if you want to know more. I promise it will be an encouragement to you to. It has really made me want to have a more child-like faith. I want to feel conviction as quickly as she does. I don't want a hard heart - and I see the ways that God is protecting her from that. Wow! She is a delight to my heart and my spirit. What a breath of fresh air!
And last, but not in any way less than my first two, there is Jared. Oh what a joy! I asked him what his favorite part of his first day of school was, and he quickly said, "the whole thing!" He is feeling so grown up, and loving his school. He is going to learn so much about being a big kid this year. That is a little hard on me, but he is no longer a baby, and it shows. He is so precious. I am so proud of him! The first day of school he also said, "Hey Mommy, there is a girl in my class - in a yellow dress - and she doesn't love God." I said, "Oh, were you talking about God today in school." His response, "No ma-am". So, I said, "Oh. Well, how do you know that she doesn't love God?" After much talking, I am still not certain how it all came about, but he and another little boy were telling her she was rude because she doesn't love God. Oh boy! I had to explain that if they ever wanted her to love God, they had better stop telling her that she is rude and start loving on her. It was such a hoot! Yeah that he is already talking about God - one way or the other. Ha!