One truth Christians must not deny (and why would you want to??) is the hope we have in Christ. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope and faith that, indeed, what He has told us in our life manual (scripture) is truth.
Two truths that come to mind right now are that 1)
all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28), right? And 2) there is GREAT PURPOSE in our suffering (James 1:2). ALL things work for our good...you know, it takes a lot of faith in the love of a God we can not see to really believe that, especially while in the midst of suffering...or crappy times, as I affectionately refer to them. It's all head knowledge until you have to live it. Then and only then can it become heart knowledge. Heart knowledge changes your life forever, I'm discovering more and more.
I'm also understanding that life-changing heart knowledge doesn't automatically come. I have to first make the choice to believe and accept these truths as just that...TRUTH, and truth is not up for debate. It doesn't depend on emotion or a temporal outcome. If the Christian doesn't accept these truths, get ready for bitterness to set in, and that makes for a miserable, unfulfilled life on earth. I mean, that makes sense...you have hard times, you accept and believe He loves you and He is working out something great through it, BAM! Purpose. Joy. Peace. If you don't choose to trust His love and these truths in their entirety, then there's no point at all in pain in this life...no purpose...and frankly, that would just piss me off to go through this all for nothing. The poison called bitterness sets in. Then there can be no real lasting peace or joy. Not the kind that changes and enriches your life.
I haven't been documenting the hell we've been walking through since Christmas, mainly because I haven't had time (although I have referenced some incidents on this blog). But also, because I don't want to spend the time it would take to talk about it. I've just looked forward to the next day, and the next. I want to leave the weight we've been carrying behind and not carry it from day to day.
This past week I will mention only because I have high hopes that this is the last chapter in what would be a very bad book. I would have put this dramatic, ridiculous, drawn-out, over-blown piece of fiction down a long time ago...I say fiction because I would never believe it to be true, ever. And since I haven't been documenting all of the ridiculous events that have taken place, you girls (and coming son) might not can appreciate this past week as you read about it one day. (Hopefully, I'll be able to remember all of the drama later so I can tell you about it...but don't count on it since I can't remember what happened last week!)
Since this is already a long post, I'll make it as short as possible. Lainey, once again, became very ill, this time a random stomach bug, no respiratory issues thankfully. High fever that wouldn't respond to medicine at all, vomiting and non-stop diarrhea going on for (as of now) 5 days landed us in the hospital for one long day and night. She became a bag of bones with cracked, bleeding lips and a bleeding, raw bottom within a matter of two days. Within those two days, this past Thursday morning at 4 a.m., our house was hit by a tornado...as in a real tornado, clocked at the speed of 90-95 mph as it slammed our whole neighborhood. It was sheer terror for us all. Well, all of us except Lainey who was so weak and battling the high fever she slept right through it. It's strange to me now when I think about being woken up by what sounded like a freight train barreling through our house. I don't know that I would ever describe weather as "evil", but that's what I felt in our room as soon as we were startled awake. We had no idea what was happening since we hadn't been connected to the outside world because of the care Lainey required. It was just ominous though, we knew there was danger before we even were fully awake.
Natalie, who normally sleeps right through storms, began yelling for us, the power went off and we started praying...loudly. (On a very personal note, I'm proud to say my first words after "Kevin, what's happening?!?" were, "JESUS, JESUS HELP US!" Sadly, sometimes when under stress it's not quite cries to the Lord that are coming from my mouth.) Natalie was crying and saying that she was scared and that our trees were about to break. This was my biggest fear at that moment too, that we would be hurt by flying/falling trees. I told her to pray with me and believe that Jesus would send angels to hold our trees up and protect our house. And we began crying out to God, out loud, just in case He couldn't hear us over the freight train.
The storm eventually passed and within 30 minutes, the rest of the night was filled with sirens and helicopters flying overhead. We waited for daybreak so we could see what had happened out there (although we didn't get power back until the next evening so we still didn't know for sure what had hit us.) When morning came, I walked out the front door and was overwhelmed with what God had done for us. We were surrounded by broken trees, debris, etc, but wouldn't you know our two big trees were standing strong. I didn't know Natalie had walked out behind me until I heard her gasp and say "Mama!" I asked her what she needed. I'll never forget her precious little face, eyes so big and mouth hung wide-open. She was staring at our trees. She was in total amazement. She said, "Jesus DID hold up our trees!" The fact that she put that altogether at that moment was so special and powerful, I thank God for showing her (and us) He hears us and is involved with every detail of our lives.
Of course, right after that tender moment, she looks at all of our neighbors' trees and concludes that "God didn't go to their houses and hold their trees up". Ugh, theological discussions I'm not ready for. So I just told her that's what happens to people that don't go to church...oh my gosh, totally kidding. I shouldn't even kid like that since some actually believe crap like that. Anyway...God did protect us and our house. We get a new roof and fence and some repairs done to my Tahoe, which caught some flying furniture. I say we come out pretty good at the end of this deal.
Again, another post that's way too long with not enough pictures but I will end by saying I really hope we are walking through this time in a way that's pleasing to Him and that we have strong spiritual muscles after this season of strength training. I have hope and faith in the truth of God's word to us...that there is great purpose in this season of suffering, it does end well for us because He said so. There's purpose, great eternal purpose in these very trying and tiring days. There's no "let's hope so" about it. It's called truth. And that's a great ending to this stranger than fiction life we've been living in lately.
Lainey starting to feel better.
Sharing pasta with Dad, Lady & The Tramp style
Big Sis so happy to have Lainey home again
A mangled trampoline from down the block that lassoed a tall lightpost
An answered prayer...
our trees still standing.
A cool self-portrait taken last summer
