25) To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
26) to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.
27) You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
28) You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.
29) With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.
30) As for God, his way is perfect: The Lord's word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.
~Psalm 18: 24-30 (NIV)
Since October people in my life and family have definitely put me through the ringer. With the passing of our baby God pulled us in and it was amazing! The love and healing that God brought to mine and my husband's lives cannot be explained fully. Phoenix was a line in our lives: a spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional line in the sand. My husband and I decided what loosing our son would mean and how our lives would continue, and God has incredibly blessed our decision. People we never thought of showed their love in the most amazing and healthy ways to us.
Decidedly with that though there is another side. People we assumed would understand and respect us have hurt us deeply. Selfish actions in the middle of us loosing our son are one of those things that have haunted my mind and heart for months.
Christ Follower
The best visual I have for this is bats in a cave. If you just walk in to the pitch black cave without any light you won't disrupt the bats. If you turn on a flashlight in the middle of the cave though....you are going to have an ugly mess because of how bad you upset them.
What I am still learning three months later is that my Phoenix wasn't just the amazing burst of light from God for my husband and I. He was the amazing burst of light from God in the middle of our environment! Like turning on a flashlight in a cave of bats, God's gift of Phoenix drew people closer to Him, and sadly drove others away.
When people have problems with God they take their anger and pain out on those who follow God closely. With the overwhelming power and love of God that was present in all we went through I forgot it would upset the bats. I was a little naïve in thinking that our environment was a safe place. I thought people would stow away their pettiness and anger to be in the glory of what happened. I was very much mistaken, and hurt in the process.
"To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd."
Family Reformed
Our definition of family has been reformed. Not even two weeks after Phoenix passed my husband and I were at home going through what everyone had done (and were still doing) since we found out the bad news about our son. Some people brought us tears of joy, and some brought us heartbreak and pain. Literally, we started writing a list of who we considered our new family and what qualities they brought to our lives. We have this list in our kitchen! I keep this list in my planner and Bible so I remind myself to pray for those who were with us. It was the most freeing thing I have done in such a long time. Now before you even assume it, not everyone in our new family is from our church or even a Christian.
Those who loved us the most didn't necessarily even talk to us while we were in the hospital! What?! Not even knowing what we needed ourselves, it was the people who took the initiative to just bring us dinner, who sent us a message saying they're praying for us, mailing us cards, and randomly surprising us with something. The pure intention of loving us in the middle of it all, and not expecting anything from us truly changed our life.
Just like Christ remaking his family, we remade ours!
"...my God turns my darkness into light."
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