December 14, 2012

When I feel like this I take to this computer and I try to pour out something that will give me peace.  I don't come here thinking that anyone who stumbles upon these words will find any comfort because y'all, I've got nothing. I only come here to move my shaking fingers across this keyboard because I am drawn to this place when I am confused and pained.

I find myself here, where with one click I can watch images of unimaginable suffering. I come here to rack my brain to find sense in the senseless and I know it will be futile.  Today I find nothing but horror.  No reason.  No justification. No prophetic statements.  No healing inspiration.  And I know that on this night I will find absolutely no peace.

The only thing I find is an empty, bruised heart.  And honestly, this woman who writes of blessings and God and enduring, comforting love?  She has a badly battered and trembling faith tonight.  A faith which is not lost, but is teetering and shaky.  I know this faith has bent before and I know God will right it.  I believe He will come in and make it stronger again for me.  I know this because He's done it before and at least tonight, let's be honest.  It won't be that hard for Him to do for me. Undeserving, unworthy me, who sits at this desk and listens to boys shout and laugh and argue.  Grateful, humbled me, who watches as boys breathe in and out. 

But what can I do about those parents in Connecticut?   I can't pray for me and my shaking faith.  I have to take all of my grief and all of my pain and bend my knees for them.  I have to take all of the guilt and the gratitude I feel about the fact that tonight my house looks exactly the same as it did last night and use those feelings to make sure that I will not stay the same after this.  I have to channel all of the relief that my eight year old came bounding out of those elementary school doors today and flood heaven with fervent, angry, sorrowful prayers for them.

But I can't even find the words.  I want to pray that He will come to them.  I want to pray that they won't close off from Him.  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure that I wouldn't turn my slumped shoulders away from my God today if I was one of them.  I'm not sure that I wouldn't feel utterly and completely abandoned.  I'm not sure I wouldn't curl up on the sidewalk at that school and wait for Him to take me, too. 

I have no experience with that kind of pain, with that kind of confusion, with that kind of hopeless fear.  All I know is that as I waited for my boy to come out of the doors of his elementary school today, my stomach clenched and my eyes blurred with tears.  When his little red head came bouncing outside, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief followed quickly by an overwhelming sense of fear.

I once had a friend tell me that it was okay to be mad and it was okay to be fearful.  It was even okay to read the Bible and be mad and fearful.  She sent this verse to me at that time and told me to go ahead and read it and feel any feeling I was going to feel, but she urged me give it more than one chance.   

"And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort" 2 Corinthians 1:7

So, I did.  I opened my Bible to read this today with a faith that is shaky and a hope that is wavering.  And maybe what my friend meant was that the suffering might take some time.  The comforting might take some time.  So, I'm just going to have to read this tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next.  We'll just have to keep reading it and keep letting Him suffer with us and keep letting Him comfort us.  Then maybe one day we might wake up to find that because of all of the suffering and the comforting that we shared together, we were able to build up a world full of hope that is strong and firm again.

Blessings to you and yours tonight, friends.  Pray hard.