Is He kind?

IN THIS FOG

Sunk in this gray

depression

I cannot pray.

How can I give

expression

with no words to say?

This mass of vague

foreboding

of aching care,

love with its

overloading

short-circuits prayer.

Then is this fog

of tiredness

this nothingness, I find

a quiet, certain, knowing

that He is kind.

ruth bell graham

I started to read a book I have had for years now, "Clouds are the Dust of His Feet" by Ruth Bell Graham.  It has some really lovely poems in it and the one above kind of tells it how I feel right now.  Except for the part the very last line that says He is kind.  I still don't get that.  I still don't understand how I am supposed to just believe that Lucas dying was for some kind of good.  Right, maybe there was going to be a future so sad, bad, hard whatever that it was kinder for him to go when he did.  But how does that equate to a God who is so powerful that He can rasie the dead, yet He decided that He would let Lucas be born, be formed by Him in the womb with this terrible disease.  This poor little man never really had a chance, how does that describe a God who is kind, all powerful, loving arghhhh!!!!!  Really, really is he really????

At the same time I am over asking the questions, over wondering and arguing with God.  But I am amazed by how life changing this has been for me.  i don't think there is one thing about me that is the same as it was before June 23 this year.  My whole mind has had to readjust to a new way of believing.  A new way of relating to God, to walking each day throguh life.  There are people who have been my friends for years who I think simply do not know what to say or do anymore.  i don't talk about it with them much anymore, but I don't talk about all this wonderful isn't he great God stuff anymore either and I think that says volumes to them.  Like I've said before I believe He is and He was and He will be still, but I don't believe all the healing stuff anymore.  I don't pray anymore expecting to get an answer, so often I just don't pray.  Maybe that will change in time I don't know.

I lost it!

We went to church on Sunday, I felt really uncomfortable going and was nearly going to keep on driving but pulled into the carpark anyway.  I should have kept going.  All was ok until low and behold they are doing baptisms today.  The first baby was ok she was older about I don't know maybe 1 or so.  Then the next little one came out.  she had a head full of black hair, just like Lucas and she was tiny.  I would guess no more than maybe 8 or 10 weeks, if that.  She had on only a nappy and her face was so sweet.  She pulled little faces and her dad, who is a doctor dunked her right in the baptism bath.  Everyone laughed, I cried.  No actually I sobbed.  I was trying to be quiet, but I sobbed loud like a baby.  I looked at Adrian and he was crying too.  Tears silently running down his face.  We thought we were going pretty good.  It's been 13 weeks today since Lucas passed and I thought it was getting a little easier and then something like this happens.  I was so glad that Alicia and Paul weren't there.  Anyway some of the ladies came and spoke to me at the end.  I didn't really want to talk, but they care and I want to be kind. The picture above is of Adrian and I at the hospital with Lucas the night before he left to go to heaven.  I tried hard not to cry but really I didn't have a hope.  I can still feel the weight of him and feel the touch of his little hand.  Yesterday talking to Alicia I know that when she eventually falls pregnant again somuch of this pain will be eased.  We all feel like we are somewhere we shouldn't be, like we have left something behind and we are going somewhere with someone missing.  We are and having another baby won't make the pain of Lucas not being here any less, but we need the joy of some new life in us.  I miss you Lucas.

It's Simple Really

Tomorrow is Father's Day in Australia and it will suck.  Both Adrian and I have lost our fathers and poor Paul will face his first fathers day without Lucas.  WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Still no answers and still no comfort in any of this.  Yes the tears come less frequently but hey when you fast for three days by the third day your stomach stops rumbling, doesn't mean your not hungry.  No tears don't mean we're not sad.

Again

This morning we had sad news.  A friend has passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer.  He leaves behind a wife and 7 children.  How can this be good for anyone.  He believed until the very end that he would be healed.  He prayed and talked to God all the time.  He stood in our church and the entire congregation prayed for him.  He believed he would be healed and once again it didn't happen.  I don't think it does very often at all any more.  We hear about it happening in 3rd world countries, where there are no cameras, how convenient and we read about it in books that are sold world wide to supposedly build our faith.  Really well that isn't happening when all around me I see people who believe and have faith abandoned and die.  So not fair, so not what I expect and absolutely not what I read in the word.  "Lay hands on the sick and they shall be healed"  oops sorry about that folks, not today. My friends can't understand why I am so ticked off, are you kidding me?!  One said to me yesterday that maybe when my heart was not hard anymore I would get the answers I am looking for, REALLY you are joking aren't you???!!!! When my heart isn't hard anymore, well I don't want it this way, I don't even know where it is (my heart) at the moment, last time I saw it, it had been torn out, tossed on the ground, trampled on and hung out to dry.  Hey and I didn't do any of that sorry.....He did well he at least let the circumstance happen that caused it to be that way.  So when I say He isn't talking to me, it isn't that I'm not listening, it isn't that I don't want to hear from Him, it is just that He walked away 10 weeks ago and I don't know where he is.  Never leave me nor forsake me, yeah right, not likely.  So yes my heart does sound like it's hard, it's hurt, bruised, crushed, mangled, torn apart, BROKEN and now my friend expects me to just soften my heart HOW HOW HOW, tell me I'd like to know what I am supposed to do to make it better.  Where is this Prince of Peace, Comforter...????? HEY are you out there come talk to me, come comfort me, come bring peace casue I'm losing it here.

So my ranting is out, seriously, I just want to know what I need to do to understand this.  I'm sick of questioning, and I'm tired of getting no answers, so now mostly I just do nothing, I let it go and I wait for God to come and find me out here in the desert.  Where is my burning bush?  How will I find my way out from here?

Remembering

What a little beauty he is. So tiny and so precious. I never thought that someone here for such a short time could steal my heart forever, but he has. Look at the size of his daddy's hand next to him, isn't that amazing? It's been 8 weeks since he left to go and play in heaven and there hasn't been a day I haven't selfishly wished him back to us. Cruel maybe, but what can I say, I want him to be here with us and I want to watch him grow. I'm crying of course as I read this, but I try hard every day now not to spend too much time weeping for him. Alicia said to me the other day, of course she cries, but what does that accomplish, nothing really does it. I actually don't like crying all the time, and I am hoping that as the weeks roll by it happens less. I am an overly emotional person anyway so it doesn't take much to set me off. I'm still asking what happened, why did it happen, what can I do to feel better and I'm still without answers. I want to trust God again, but how do you do this when everything we thought He would do He didn't. Anyway I am tired of the questions and I am tired of the pain and I want to start to live again and see beautiful things again. I love blogging and I have started another blog that is my fun blog, not a travel one this time like my other two and not one like this one where I come to grieve. My new one is called "A Box of Chocolates"and that is just what I want it to be like. Like opening a box of chocolates and seeing colours, smelling the sweetness, having your mouth begin to water, needing to make that huge decision about which one first. So for Lucas I want to be happy again. One Day.

A Sadness Within

Alicia and Paul came for dinner last night, it was nice. No episode from Brothers & Sisters this time. Family joke I guess. With all our personalities in one room, we often end up with a night like an episode of Brothers & Sisters. Funny!!! But it's different now, it's like we shouldn't be too happy yet. We're not, happy as such, I think e are healing a little bit at a time, but I see a difference in Alicia and Paul. A quietness, a broken bit in them, like something has dampened the joy in them. They can have more children, it will be a process, nothing like just deciding now is the time and then letting it happen, but they can have more children. But what happens then, I wondered today, would it be better to havea little bo or girl next. Would a little boy be too much like having our darling Lucas again? Would a little girl, just go to show that they would have had the ideal family, big brother first then little sis. I don't know and does it really matter, sometimes I think I just think to much. Whatever they have we will of course adore them, we will cry when they fall pregnant again and we will cry when the baby is born. Tears of joy and tears of fear, is this little one going to be ok. We will cry when we get told the baby is fine, we will cry when they finally get to take their precious baby home. We will cry when we go into the yet unused nursery and we see again all the books, clothes, toys and gifts that were meant for Lucas and now will be used by this next little one. But we will also laugh at the little face, the tiny toes and fingers, the little ears, the giggly laugh. We'll laugh at the smelly nappies, and the yukky up chucks. We will heal when we nurse this little one and we will love him or her as much as we love Lucas. I log for that day, I long for the joy and the sadness, the bittersweet.