The Stoning

 

 

One by one, a stone is chosen and hurled at my most vulnerable spots…

 

You never should have said that.

You never should have done that.

You aren’t as nice as _____ and everyone knows it.

You are a burden to everyone.

Everyone hates talking to you.

You just take and take and take.

You never seek people out.

You never help people.

People don’t want to hear what you have to say.

People wish you wouldn’t talk.

You are worse than everyone at everything.

Everyone else seeks out people and are always kind.

Everyone else is always patient.

Everyone else is always on time.

Everyone else is a good listener.

Everyone else never talks about their husband poorly.

Everyone else is grateful.

Everyone else is more diligent and intentional with their time.

Everyone else puts people first all the time.

You should just never leave your house.

You shouldn’t go to that group.

Everyone groans inside when they see your name on the roster.

Everyone tunes out when you speak.

You talk too much.

You complain too much.

You are more selfish than anyone else.

You are so self-absorbed.

People do not want to spend time with you.

People intentionally do not invite you because you bring the mood down.

……

 

…Until I am broken, bleeding, limping, the stones are hurled over and over until I am buried and suffocating under the weight of them. Wanting to run, curl up and hide from view, hide from light, hide from everyone else who is fine, content, perfect.

But I am the one holding the stone. I am the one pouring down the darkness on myself. I am the devil on my own shoulder telling me I should not be around people; that I am better off alone where I can’t hurt or offend.

And then He steps in, my Great Rescuer. He sends a friend to listen, who breaks open the walls of stones I have heaped on myself, lending me a crack of light to lead the way out into the sun again. He reminds me that the ruler of this world is a lion, crouching and waiting for someone to devour, and he almost does devour me, if not for my rescuer who saves me in the 11^th hour; my Rescuer who has won all battles, so I will never be completely defeated or destroyed. My Great Rescuer reminds me that he knows I am broken; that he wants to use my cracks and fractures for his glory, to fill them with his perfect power, strength, truth and character where, and when, I fail.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

• 2 Corinthians 4:7-18

When you know loss too well

When you enter into “happens often” to “we need to run tests” to “what is going on?” …

When a positive pregnancy test does not equal joy, expectation and relief but instead fear, anxiety, grief

When your once positive fades into negative just a few days later, just as your heart and mind were starting to feel a little better

When you start to understand why people wait to tell

When you begin to cringe at pregnancy announcements, not because you aren’t happy for them, but because your first thought is “I hope you get to meet your child”

When you know that you are never safe

Not after the first positive test

Not after the blood tests that confirm

Not after a sonogram

Not after the first trimester

Or the second

Or the third

Or the birth

Or the first birthday

….

Your feeling of safety when it comes to your unborn children has been completely violated before they are even given a chance to live.

When you see a baby and that reality for yourself seems further and further away.

When a baby shower turns into a bittersweet celebration.

When holding a precious baby turns from being enjoyable to therapeutic, cathartic, heartbreaking.

When your period becomes the enemy.

Blood means death, not life.

When life doesn’t allow for time to grieve, so you push on and work hard to keep everything together, only to have moments of completely overwhelming grief that come at unexpected times.

When you realize that your life is not your own.

Your timing is not your own.

Your wishes and dreams potential to become reality are not your own.

Your children’s lives, born and unborn, are not your own.

Your plans for your life are not your own.

When you hear the news of another experiencing all of these things, and you still don’t know what to say.

Because this pain should not be happening.

When you cry and grieve with others who cry and grieve with you and you cry together over lost lives and lost dreams and lost joy.

When you still hope for the future.

When you wake up and keep going.

When you break again.

When you understand what this is like, all of this, and you wish you didn’t.

When sharing your news each time feels like the boy who cried wolf and you are so scared people will stop believing you.

Stop caring.

When you feel like you are going crazy and imagining the positive tests.

When you take pictures of the positive tests to remind yourself that you aren’t.

When you don’t want to hear congratulations because it doesn’t feel like there is anything to celebrate yet.

And you are scared that you are jinxing the process if you receive these greetings too soon.

When you know that you aren’t supposed to have this much fear,

that you should have hope,

because you know Who is in control,

but you are still hurting and scared and feel alone no matter who is around, who has shared this experience or who is trying to comfort you.

In honor of my four little loves that I wish I could have met and for the countless others who left lives and wombs too soon, but never left the hearts of those who carried them. This is for all of you.

THIS is what you want for me God??

 ^“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter 1:3-7

I recall attending a church that my friend was preaching. As he spoke about a similar passage about Christians not being assured an easy life and the importance of struggling and suffering in our faith, I heard the voice of a man behind me whispering, “Why?” several times. It was a desperate voice that I heard that day and I could feel his soul searching to understand how suffering could possibly be a part of God’s will for us, his people.

It is so hard to comprehend as we are experiencing hard things, seeing or experiencing heartbreaking loss, feeling the weight of hurt or betrayal or even just the ongoing weight of the everyday to want to believe that THIS is what God wants for us. That THIS is a situation I am supposed to still want to honor God and give Him glory in. I understand how hopeless life can feel when you can’t see God in the darkness because THIS has blocked out the light of hope.

We can be assured that THIS wasn’t God’s original plan for us. As we look at the life Adam and Even enjoyed in the Garden at the beginning of time, we see that they were provided for, they were naked and unashamed or afraid, they were in perfect communion with each other and with God. There was no THIS to be spoken of. But through deception and their choice to disobey, THIS entered the world and from that time we were introduced to hard work, strife, murder, betrayal, injustice, oppression, perversion and all kinds of other things that cause us to experience extreme pain, sadness and weakness.

THIS, aka sin, is why God chose to make a way for us to have hope in light of all of it. THIS is why he came, to give us a way out, an alternative and a contrasting way of life to pursue with the promise of a life in a paradise like Eden at the end of all of our suffering. He came so that our struggles didn’t begin and end with THIS (pain, hurt, anger) but so that we might have life more abundant and full. He will bring justice to the unjust and peace to strife. We will once again have peaceful and perfect communion between each other and most of all with Him.

I know it is hard to comprehend this hope sometimes when you are feeling the loss of life in you; when you are saying goodbye to a beloved friend or family member who was taken way to soon by terrible causes; when you feel ashamed and hurt from your actions; when you feel the betrayal of someone you thought you could trust; when you are oppressed again and again unjustly and are expected to not retaliate; when you watch a child you love struggle with health or life’s consequences…the list goes on and on and all of this is just what I or those I love have experienced. But I also can look back at all of these things and see the point where God delivered me from the weight of all of THIS. When he reminded me of the hope I have in him. When by choosing to rely on his strength, his way of peace and loving others accordingly, that I was delivered from or given relief some way.

Sometimes I wish I could just go through life and know that I would be in enough awe of God through his creations, the sunrise and sunsets, the stars, feeling love and giving love…I wish that this would be enough to sustain me through life and keep me constantly turning to Him. But I know that sadly those things wouldn’t suffice. Sometimes I need to be reminded of his faithfulness, his power and his ability to redeem even the most heartbreaking of circumstances.

Lord, help us see you in the darkness. Help us see you in the struggle and the moments when all we can see is THIS-the pain in front of us. Lord, remind us of your goodness, your faithfulness and show us how you can still receive glory no matter what when we choose to trust you with everything.