Mercies in Disguise

"What if my greatest disappointments, or the aching of this life, is a revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?"

So, I have been extremely busy this week. Lots of events at work, and my best friend is getting married today. I had been feeling guilty about not posting over the past two days. So as I looked at the topic I planned to write about today, I was suddenly floored at how appropriate it is to write it today.

A little background: My best friend and I met through our boyfriends, who later became our husbands. They were best friends. We got married a year apart on the same weekend. Then, tragically, only a few months later, her husband died in a car accident. We were all devastated. How could such a terrible thing happen to such a wonderful person?

Which falls in line perfectly with today's topic: Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

What I've realized is this. Contrary to popular belief, everything doesn't "happen for a reason". Stuff (insert word of your choice) happens, and God doesn't always stop bad things from happening, but I don't believe he has this master plan which dictates who lives and who dies and when those things happen. He allows life to happen, and when those horrible, terrible things do happen, he finds a way to make good out of what seems like nothing but hope and dispair. And by good, I mean better than if that terrible thing had never even happened. Not very often do we get to see it come full circle in a relatively short amount of time.

Back to this weekend. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, her fiance' was wrapping up the toasts with a moving speech about the important people in his life, and he ended it with how important she is to him. He said that for all that know him well, ever since college he has been kind of a lost soul, and when he met her, he was finally "found". Nobody has ever showed him the unconditional love that she shows him, nobody has shown the grace and mercy that she allows him, and even though she has always been a wonderful person, I think she embodies this grace because of what she went through. She knows what it is like to suffer, a suffering that few young people ever have to experience. She, for a while, was truly broken (I remember her telling me she should just be a nun, because she would never be able to love again). God gives us an opportunity to take our brokenness, and the hole that it leaves in us, and fill it in a way that magnifies and glorifies God.Without our struggles, we wouldn’t grow in our capacity to love. She truly has such a greater capacity to love than most people I know. She judges her fiance based upon his worth as a person, and not based upon his feelings or actions at any given time.

In my toast last night, I couldn't say everything I wanted to say, because this wasn't a time to relive the past. But this morning I texted her the part that I couldn't say, and it was this:
"I have been meditating on why certian things happen in our lives. After hearing [fiance] speak last night, I was really able to see how God brought tremendous goodness to a situation that once seemed hopeless and futile. I don't believe that God took [deceased husband's] life as part of his master plan, but he found a way to create so much good out of the situation. You are such a blessing to [your fiance]. You have a grace and understanding that most people who haven't been in your shoes would never have, and [he] needs that. This gives me hope that great and wonderful things can follow all of our strugges in life. I love you, and I am blessed to stand by you in the greatest days, as well as the worst days, of your life. I am glad today is one of the greatest. OK, no more tears on this happy day! I love you!"

The book that I am reading "When Life Doesn't Go Your Way: Hope for Catholic Women Facing Disappointment and Pain" (I highly recommend it for all Christian women, Catholic or otherwise), goes so far as to say that we should ask for God to change the script of our lives, because in allowing him to use us, greater things come about than anything we could ever have hoped for or imagined.
Don't you agree that I was meant to take the last two days off and cover this topic today????

Two song recommendations for those that are suffering (make sure you have tissues handy):
"Blessings (Mercies in Disguise)" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSVqHcdhXQ
"Steady my Heart" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmaBhMOXXHg

Wait for HIS answers; Relax in HIS presence

When we are in desperate need of confirmation that God is here and with us, why is it that even when we ask, he doesn't just speak to us loud and clear, giving us the unshakeable doubt that he is right there next to us? Because he could if he wanted to. He is GOD; he can do whatever he wants. A wise friend (who I've actually never met in person) told me in response to this question that maybe I need to shake off my ideas of how I think God SHOULD be talking to me, and open myself up to the idea that he may be speaking to me all the time, but in ways that I am not recognizing because I'm expecting it to come to me on my terms. So I'm trying to listen, to pay attention, to things going on around me, to the words and actions of others, and to see if I can't glean a little God out of them.

And he has. A few nights ago Grace was having trouble sleeping (which is a VERY rare occasion), and so we put her in our bed to see if she could fall asleep. She was just jabbering away, like she had drank 5 cups of coffee right before bed. I rolled over to try to disengage from her so that she could fall asleep, and was praying for God to reach out to me, to give me a sign, to send a message, anything to let me know he was there. At that moment, I felt a little hand rubbing my arm, and a sweet little voice saying "Hi! Hi! Hi! (repeated about 15 times)". I have no doubt that God worked through Grace to give me the reassurance I asked for.

And then at the retreat, we were told on several occasions that God had something big for us this weekend. I was petrified. Petrified that I would leave there feeling exactly as I did when I arrived, and that I would feel further ignored, and no closer to God than when I arrived. When we got back to our rooms after that first night, there was a little card on my door. Let me preface this by saying that I didn't know a SOUL there, nobody knew why I was there, what I was wrestling with, etc. The card said "Wait for HIS answers; Relax in HIS presence." Wow. Could that not have been a more direct communication from God? It turns out that the woman that sent it was in the room next to me. She is from Baton Rouge, and we had met right when I arrived, and spoken for only a few minutes before the retreat went silent (oh yeah, did I mention that this was a silent retreat, and I didn't know that until I arrived? And if you know me, silent is not my thing).

So I will keep listening, watching, and waiting, while trying to RELAX!

A Homecoming of Sorts

I've been away from the blog for over a year, and I’m returning, but not with an update about my daughter (who is doing fabulously by the way).  I attended a retreat this past weekend, and discovered that as an adult with lots of things to do and responsibilities, I've neglected the part of me that needs regular attention to my spirituality. We go to church most weeks, and we pray before meals and before we go to bed. But one thing that I realized is that I don't often talk about my faith, either in an effort to grow it or to share it with others. I'm writing this blog more as an outlet for myself than as a means to share with others, but if you want to read and follow along on my journey, you're more than welcome.

To set the stage, I've been struggling. Not in the "is my life worth living" kind of struggle, but more of a finding myself, setting true priorities, and understanding why bad things happen to us.

My struggles have centered around two main questions:

1)      Why doesn’t God speak to us in a clear, understandable way, leaving no doubt over what his intentions are for us?

2)      Why does God just step in and fix the situation when bad things happen?

My retreat helped to shed a lot of light on my questions (and some I didn’t even ask), and I came away with four main points of clarity and understanding.

1)      God does speak to us.  It’s just not always in the way we expected, on our terms. 

2)      God doesn’t “make” bad things happen, but sometimes, he does allow them to happen (as in, he doesn’t prevent them from happening).  This gives us an opportunity to take our brokenness, and the hole that it leaves in us, and fill it in a way that magnifies and glorifies God.  Without our struggles, we wouldn’t grow in our capacity to love.

3)      I need to find a church home.  I am a member of one church, go to another, but feel rooted in none.  Although I don’t believe that the church is a requirement in a quality relationship with God, for me, it is essential.

4)     Something I didn’t come for, but came away with: I spend far too much energy on what people think about me.  I aim to please (sometimes even to impress).  I like to be praised, and I take criticism personally.  And this third realization is what is bringing me to write this blog.  I need to put myself out there, to be vulnerable.  I believe that letting people in on some of my trials and tribulations will help me to shake that need for approval (or perfection, or praise, or control).

In the following few posts over the next few days, I’m going to go into each of these realizations in more detail.  Then on a daily basis, I’m going to write about ways in which God reached out to me, or spoke to me, each day, as well as any progress I've made in my faith walk.  I am doing this so that I learn to reflect on each day, to seek out the “God winks” that I receive each day, so that I don’t get to the end of a month and have to wonder where God was in it. I’m also doing this to invite you into my life, to be vulnerable, to share my story with others that may be going through the same thing (or some variation of it), and finally, to let you all hold me accountable to seeking God in my everyday life.

I’m not posting my blog to Facebook, because I’m not ready to put myself out there THAT much, this quickly, but if you are close enough to me to already be a subscriber, then I assume you’re close enough to me to read this, and there are a few others that I intend to share this with that are helping me along my faith journey.

If you feel led to comment on any of my posts, or share your stories, please do.  Because perhaps God will be using you to speak to me too!