7-20-10 He Will Deliver Us

Yesterday morning Teagan was a naughty little boy. So much so that my mom called and asked how my day was going, and I just cried about how Teagan is so hard and being a mom is sometimes torture. He has me in tears a lot.

Later that day I read my friend Summer's blog, and she had a post about a friend of hers who lost her niece, and she had a link to the blog of the parents of that little girl. I went to the blog and looked at pictures and read their stories, and I cried. Their little girl was 18 months old and had fell into a canal. After being found 40 minutes later, she was given infant CPR for 2 hours and then flown to a hospital where her little body lay hooked up to a million machines that worked to keep her alive. She finally passed away after about a week.

I felt stupid. Ungrateful. And I realized that I'll take Teagan in all his whining and fussiness if it means that I get to hold his warm, healthy little body next to mine. And I won't complain about it because I'm sure that mother wishes she could have her baby alive, fussy or happy.

It also made me reflect deeply upon the trials that we endure in this life. There are days that we all just "get through." Sometimes that's all we can do on those certain kind of days. I had so many days like that crying in my bed when the ex abandoned his pregnant wife and 2-year-old son, crying that I just couldn't do it for one more day. I couldn't lose my eternal companion, I couldn't be a single mom, I couldn't let my children grow up in this broken fanily, I couldn't sleep one more night staring at the pillow where Adam used to lay. But I did it. And we always do because we are never alone. No, I couldn't do it, but WE could. With the help of the Lord we can get through anything and find the joy on the other side, even when we don't see it coming. And there are times when the sky is so black and the day is so bleak and the trial is so demanding that we can't see the clearing or even imagine that such a day can be overcome. But we always reach that day or find the calm after the storm. The Lord will never leave us stranded to face that day alone or face to that day forever.


I also felt myself saying, "I'm grateful that my babies are alive and with me. I'm so blessed." While that's true, I think there is a bit of a wrong idea in that thinking. It implies that I am blessed because my children are alive, but if one of them died I wouldn't be blessed or AS blessed as someone who had never lost a child. I am humbled when I remember that it's not the things that we have or the things that we don' have that make us blessed. It's the knowledge that we are children of God. It's knowing that one day we will rest from all our cares and cry no more tears and hold in our arms again those that we've lost. It's knowing that everything that we didn't get or everything that we lost in this life will be restored to us. It's knowing that families are actually forever and trials are not. It's knowing that no matter what calamity or hardship or injustice we face we will be upheld and strengthed and our burdens lightened until at last those burdens are lifted for good. It's knowing that glory, eternal life, exaltation, and incomprehensible joy beyond what we've ever known in this world await those who are faithful to the very last moment.

I once said I could never go through a divorce or make it through my husband leaving me. But I did. I had a list entitled "Things I Could Never Get Through." Not written down on paper but just stuck in my mind. When my friend Heather lost her baby girl I remember her saying that we have no choice but to "get through" because what's the alternative? Now I realize that I can get through anything that comes my way because my God and my Savior will uphold me and get me through to the calm after the storm. He always does. I just have to remember that when the day is bleak and unpromising, He will deliver us, in this life and the next.