Head Over Heart

I have been thinking a lot over the past several days about a book that I have attempted to read now for the third or fourth time.  I mentioned this in a Facebook post recently and one friend actually thought that I was writing a book; so clarification... I am not writing a book, just attempting to finish reading one.  I was deeply honored however that someone thought I had taken that on and even wanted to read it.  (BTW I probably could write a book at this point in my life).

If you have been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that my faith has definitely taken the front seat in my healing process.  No day is easy yet and I truly do no think that it ever will be, but I am confident that God has His hands all over me and this difficult time in my life.  After much internal debate and emotional turmoil, I decided that I needed to seek out a professional therapist that had years of experience in dealing with losses such as ours.  I just simply was at the point that breakdown was on the brink and I needed someone not emotionally attached but qualified to guide me through this unfathomable pain.  I made the appointment and went in to see her.  She assured me that my feelings and emotions are all normal, part of the normal grieving process that happened in different ways and different timing for different people.  Thank goodness because the way some people were acting I was beginning to wonder if I was a weirdo for continuing to be so emotionally distraught over losing Annalise and Emmalyn.  That was a positive outcome of our meeting (as well as some other thins).  Toward the end of our meeting, she suggested that I read a book before I came back to see her and I just had a funny feeling that I knew the title she was going to throw out at me and I was right.  It was a book that I had started reading at the suggestion of another bereaved mother.  I had started to read it and I commonly read in bed at night when I am unable to sleep.  I reached an area of the text that really seemed to bother me and I thought that I had possibly read some portion after taking something to help me sleep and would have helped me to understand what the author was saying now.  So.... at page 127, I started over.  This time sure to be fully awake and paying attention as I read.  I mean really close attention.  However, I reached that same point in the book and realized that the part the was so troubling to me, was indeed what the author was implying.  So once again I put it aside.  But after seeing the therapist and explaining my position about why His position in the text was so troubling to me, she told me that she really thought that if I would continue to read it, (if I was able to get to the end), she felt like I would feel differently.  And boy right now I would do anything, I mean anything to feel differently.  So after a couple of days I started over, again!

This book does have many valid arguments in it, but the one that bothers me the most, is that the authors basic argument is that random bad things happen in life and that God is just not big enough to stop them.  Major theological stump for me!!  I mean MAJOR!  I am truly a believer in a God of miracles.  I do not believe that God caused my babies to die, but I do one hundred percent believe that He could have prevented it if He had chosen to do so.  But for a reason unknown to me, He didn't and now I just have to trust that His purpose in both their lives and their deaths is all for His glory in the end.  I know that some of you think that I am probably totally off my rocker. But I assure you that instead of being off my rocker, I am trying daily to climb into it right in the lap of God and allow Him to be my God of all comforts.  Because may days that is the only place I feel any comfort at all.

I am disappointed to say that I once again have been unable to finish this book and am not sure I will ever even attempt again, but have been given a new one that so far is addressing the same issues in a more biblical fashion.  Thanks to the person that understood my dilemma and offered to let me borrow this new book.  Please pray that as I read this title, I will gain a better understanding of the questions that I have and find great comfort.

These books, however, have allowed me to think about faith in a deeper realm both for myself and for others.  What is in our lives that drawn us to a "less" shakeable faith.  I don't want to say an unshakable faith because the reality is that at times we all get our faith shaken up.  Or what didn't happen in our lives, or has not happened yet to help us develop that "less" shakeable faith.  I can;t imagine not thinking that there was more to life that just what is here on this earth.  To not think that there is life everlasting.  Life everlasting with my girls someday.  Life everlasting with my other two precious children and my husband.  Life everlasting with my parents and in-laws, grandparents and dear friends (oh how I miss you Missy).  How lost I would feel and what purpose would life really have.  What reason would we have to run the great race?

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,

 let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

 And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,

Hebrews 12:1

I must admit, that at times I struggle, and especially on the days that I feel that losing our girls was was unfair.  And o the days that I am angry and confused about God's plan, and even more when I can't feel Him close.  But my questions over the pat few days has been troubling to me.  Is it that I truly believe in my heart and am trouble on days convincing my head, or I am I believing in my head and having trouble convincing my heart?

I would truly like to believe that in heart God's truths ring loud and clear, and that bringing my mind on board at times is the challenge.  But I must admit that deep down that is not always the case.  But daily I continue to remember the words found in Hebrews 11:1 (words that my dear friend Missy lived out so courageously until God called her home).

^"The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith,

is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.

It's our handle on what we can't see."

Hebrews 11:1 (MSG)

And I will strive daily to:

"Fix my eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for

 the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning it's shame, and sat

down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such

 opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

Hebrews 12:2-3

I pray that you too will examine what it is exactly that hinders your faith.  Take it to God and ask Him to take it away.  I am always willing for you to comment about your struggles and pray for you specifically.  You can even comment anonymously, I never need your name, God know who you are.

Dear Lord thank you for times like these when you really give us great insight into the things that stand between us and You.  Please give us the strength to be honest about what those things are and then be selfless enough to trust you with them.

Just as a side note for those of you that may not be my Facebook friend, I finally completed my journey in finishing reading my entire Bible on May 12.  What a glorious Mother's Day accomplishment that was for me and I can not begin to tell you the comfort my journey brought.  If you have never set out to read the Bible all the way through, or if you have tried in the past and given up,  pick it up again and ask God to see you through it.  I promise He will show up in some BIG ways.