they both have had beyond a HARD year. hard. h.a.r.d.
one buried her best friend-husband last year. at age 35. she is now a widow. with a four year old. mercy.
the other walked her husband to the gates of a prison this last week and surrendered the next two years of her life and her best friend-husband to the system. mercy.
it's broken my heart for them.
they are in the world-just-stopped-what-the-hell-just-happened-to-my-life storm. i remember ours. it shatters all the ways you looked at life before and just as a snow globe that's shook and takes a bit to let all the glittery cloudy goodness fall and settle back down, you just sit in shock and try to re-see the simple world that was before. it's no more. it literally changes the way your heart-eyes work. it changes your view finder and the filter in which you see all of life through....just as the silly view-finder kid toy did when we were little, the button was flipped and a new picture comes into view....
my view finder changed in 2007 when i held our still lifeless daughter.
and it's sad how it changes back at times now and gets stuck back on old selfish pictures, old ways and thought patterns in different seasons, but it does. it's just the sinful selfish heart...stuck on a picture view that feeds desires and comforts, not wanting to change. these friend's-life-heart-stories lately though have changed the view finder lens for me once again, just as life seasons and storms can do....and it's got me thinking...
what taking things for granted looks like...in life, yes, but let's say in marriage....
both are fighting the faith fight in real ways right now. they are putting their heart's salvation beliefs and truths to the test....to the fire....and are shining most beautifully as they reveal that their hope and trust in their Savior IS and WILL be their future joy, their future peace and greatest good. AND yes, BE their anchor NOW in their presiding storms...their own view finders have changed, been rocked and dropped to the ground. and picked back up to see a different world around them. one that has them without their loved ones...mercy.
if you are fighting over guys night or budgets or forgotten gifts, think of my friends.
if you are unhappy with your marriage and have list of things wrong, listen.
to the cries of two women right now...who would give anything to fight over dirty laundry or even a missed paid bill. or a honey-do project forgotten about or skipped over...or even hurt feelings....or downed expectations. they wish that they could fight about such things and have the opportunities and chance to fight for Love with things on that list.....click the view finder...
and go to work. let Him go to work in these areas, but also please let the view finder change your heart.
even, the disagreement of how to discipline a child or unhappy with communication, sadness or brokenness of issues of anger, sin or hardness of heart. they would gladly pray the hurt away and the absence of their men, just to be able to only have to worry about socks and silly arguments over the loud football game or a missed errand that was important.....even the messy dark places of marriage that we find ourselves in at times, the ones that scare us and shove doubt in our face? that ugly scary-do-we-really-love-each-other stuff? yes, they would gladly welcome even that back into their lives if it meant their men were by their side.....yes, go to work on the issues. but click the view finder...
what i am getting at is this: the dirty sock, means your loved one is alive to leave it there. THANK Him. that alone is a gift.
the argument that escalates over hurt feelings and misplaced words means your loved one is breathing and present and able to stand before you to fight with....so FIGHT FOR one another, not with. fight for your marriage. THANK Him that the other person is there to fight with. don't take for granted that the person will be there tomorrow to fight with....
the issues over budget and money, wanting more and connecting or not connecting emotionally all mean you still have someone there to CONNECT with in person, to touch, to try. SO TRY. don't give up. fight.
the loads of weeks of laundry piling up and haunting you, the meals that somehow sneak up on you, the messy rooms that continue to get worse and stacks of dishes in the sink that you feel you are a slave to ALL point to the fact that you HAVE a family to serve. you have people to take care of, THANK Him. and serve. be glad to serve a family and a husband or wife, and children that are YOURS for this life, however long we have. they are a gift. not a burden.
many among us would gladly welcome those chances for fighting for such gifts back into their worlds right now. click the view finder...
or let's talk about all of this view finder changing lens stuff in regards to our kids:
i know of two young boys. fighting for their lives. cancer and hospice are the two words that fill their homes right now, aching words on their parent's lips and breaking hearts. not words like homecoming games and dances or dates. not soccer practices or play dates....they aren't planning birthday parties, these families are planning for the end....mercy.
one of them is a young boy in kentucky, to follow his story just breaks me. such bravery, that boy and that family. and a mission. a wide-spread-going-on-now mission they are on to spread awareness of childhood cancer.. it causes my view finder to see my own son near his age, running in the backyard and scream Glory and Thanks...and pray for that sweet boy for healing here or at Home with his Jesus....and say to that family, yes, your son MATTERS, his story matters, i've allowed God to let your sweet boy change my view finder back to what matters....
the other boy is ian's 17 yr old cousin.
stage 4 colon cancer.....over the last year, he and his family and doctors, they've exhausted all treatments and courses of chemo, he's fought SO so long-sufferingly hard. and now they have given him 6-12 weeks. to live. mercy.
it breaks my heart to even write that sentence. unfair, achingly unfair......that a 17 yr old is saying his goodbyes and planning his own funeral, yet is asking questions of how can i still change the world? what can my life mean here until then? what is my legacy? mercy. click the view finder...
what does that say to you? scream to you?
does it motivate us to love our kids differently?
to spend more time teaching them about wanting God more than the latest video game, wanting His love to reign in their hearts and be a goal rather than being the perfect student with prefect grades and a perfect extra curricular activity schedule that will get them into a perfect college and the perfect job that will lead to worldly success and money? to teach them to have self-confidence and self-esteem OR love others with a radical love over selfish ways by our radical attempt at Jesus-living example, to spend time laughing over yelling, enJOYing over feeling burdened, just an overall richer and more intense and intentional Love? to hug them tighter? to take in and capture their laughs and smiles in the memory banks of our minds? appreciate even the fighting moments between siblings because it means there are two or three or four or more little breathing souls there to fight with to begin with. to absorb the frustration of missing shoes at the last minute of leaving the house, the angry moments of catching little lies told from young mouths or tantrums or meltdowns had in public, the tired repetitive moments of whining or complaining or one more meal made or spoon of medicine given at 3am?
i am seeing death and loss and sickness in my own view finder right now, in my community and in my own extended family and circle of friends. and it rocks my heart and makes it hurt and ache.
and then in a rocky-esque theme song in my heart and head given to me by my God as i remember the ultimate view finder change for me, the Cross, i feel it's weight in my life and i know where that hurt can transform and Who can transform it. i must let THAT hill-death-gift change me...and the way i see death all around me.
and just as i know from our own season of daughter death in our family, that all of this MUST change me.
it must change us... we must let it sink down to the gritty messy hurting places in our heart...and from that, we must love differently, we must share differently, we must speak and act differently, we must fight differently and we must obey differently, we must choose and believe differently.....
for our sydney grace girl that we don't get to raise, for my friend's husband locked away or my friend's husband who died at 35 yrs old leaving behind his wife and young daughter, for my sister-friend's that are grieving these men, for a young boy on hospice now or another one saying his goodbyes at 17. for all the stories that are told before us....mercy.
we MUST let them change us.
we MUST let their lives and their stories, their trials and their pain, their losses and their mission BE valued and listened to, taken in and treasured and ached and thought over and then we MUST let them rebirth a new sense of Life and fight in us, just like the first and most important view-finder-change that took place for our saved-heart, we must let them and their stories change our view finders....back to what matters...what's lasting. and eternal.
we must give that gift back to these families. to let them see that their loved one's stories and lives CHANGED ours....that their pain was not in vain. one bit.
that one life was changed, that even just one person's view finder was changed because of our daughter's life and death story would bless my soul. it would. it wouldn't bring her back. but it would bless my heart in eternal-healing ways....it just would. mercy.
we must let God work sad things for His good and our good and let them change us and soften us and mold us into more loving and gentler people like Him, more serving and more giving like HIM....more able and more quick to have our view finder-hearts rocked and be ok with that..
and be glad for the God told stories that craft us more into GODcentered-eternal-seeing-Christ living human beings....
we must let these people matter, God is using them in mighty ways in this jacked up world, to bring others to Him, to refine selfish hearts and ways, to soften hardened souls and to bring us back to Him always. always bringing us back to Him and our Future Grace...yet, also to let Him change our view finder in our own lives now. we must fight for our view finders to stay on Him.
just as His word, His life and death and His Love story is to be our true heart change first and foremost... we must fight to also let the faith stories and the soldiering-in-storms-people around us be a vehicle for that change as well, to let people's pain stories and faith fights change our view finders and remind us to walk this life with resting in every single second we are given breath. for His glory. and His good. and let our lives scream that for other's to see.
all is grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment