|
| This week is going to be hard for me. A month ago I was really looking forward to this time. Matt was going to be home Thursday. I was so excited that not only would he be home for the summer, he would be home for good. I guess he is Home now, just not here. I have been trying to deal with everything, and I guess I am. I don't really know what "dealing" with it looks like. I still fall asleep crying some nights asking God to change it all while I'm asleep. Jesus, make it so this is just a dream, a horrible dream. But I wake up and the day is the same. Find something to do, try not to dwell on it, try to figure out who you are now and what you should be doing.
I have been finding a lot of comfort and connection with songs. This isn't new though. There is an artist called Brandon Heath that I'm not too familiar with but he has a song that has been very encouraging to me. It's called I will lay you down. The 'chorus' goes like this,
come to me weary now
and I will lay you down
throw all your cares aside
you will never be denied
come set your burdens free
you will be safe with me
come to me weary now
you will never be denied.
I don't know how to do some of these things yet. I am definitely coming to God weary, but I don't know how to throw my cares aside and set my burdens free. It seems like other people are doing that. Maybe it's just because we're not showing our hearts on our sleeves like we were in the first week and a half. It seems like everyone is finding ways to move on. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one still crying. I know that can't be true. I think it's more of Satan's lies.
Never before have I understood how true the statements are that Satan is a liar who come to steal, hurt and destroy. I know that isn't the exact quote. He is definitely trying to destroy. I feel like he's bypassed all those other smaller things and he's trying to destroy.
| | |
|
Life changes in a sentence.
That’s all it takes to rock everything you thought you knew. You hear news that changes your entire world
and it’s only spoken in 5 words. The
shock sets in, disbelief. You don’t want
to believe, you never want to believe. Days
and weeks later it’s almost the same, even though time has started to
pass. What do you do now? Everything is shaky. Everything is a reminder. I bought these two days ago when he was
alive. We talked before he left, when he
was alive.
It’s so quick. It’s
so heartless. Not the person telling
you. Who could blame them? The way it just rips everything out of you
all at once. You never get to say
goodbye. I never got to say
goodbye. To Matt, or to the person I was
July 2 at 7 am. By 7:30
everything I knew had changed. I had
changed. Who was I before now? I feel like I barely remember.
Tears fall at the strangest times. Sobbing in the car because a song just played
on the radio. Why do they play it? Don’t they know they’re just breaking my
heart all over again? I thought I
understood those words. Sure, I heard
them, I sang along, I “understood.” I
thought I had felt pain, I thought I had known some suffering. I was wrong.
I see him everywhere, I close my eyes and he’s there. I hear his laughter, I hear him say my
name. Never again. Never.
Never. Never.
I try to remember heaven.
I try to remember that I will see him again. Not in these shadowlands, but in my true
home. Everything is different here. We hear horrible news of death and desolation
every day and we never blink. WHY HAVE
WE STOPPED FEELING? Why did it take this
to make me feel, really feel? What am I
doing with my time here? How long will I
be here? How much longer until I go
home?
We need Jesus. I need
Jesus. Someone sent me a facebook
message and it said something about “my strength is an example”. And although I appreciated the thought I
wonder, what strength? What
strength? Some moments seem normal and a
second later I’m crying out to God to take everything away because I don’t have
the strength to handle it. How does he
decide who can and can’t handle this kind of pain? My pastor said, as I’ve heard before, “God
doesn’t give us more than we can handle?”
Is this a good thing? Why can I
handle this pain? Why are any of us who
were close to Matt deemed able to handle this kind of pain? I know I’m not the only one in pain. I guess I can be kind of selfish in my own
grief. It’s hard when I haven’t seen
others who know Matt for a couple of days.
I start to forget that I’m not alone in my grief. Maybe the others can tell me, how are you
handling it? What are you doing?
Dear Jesus, take this
from me because I can’t handle it on my own.
Carry me, Lord. Carry me,
Daddy. I can’t walk without you. I want to relearn everything You have tried
to teach me. I want to relearn
everything I thought I knew. God, you
are changing the playing field, You are requiring something new. Utter and complete surrender. Help me God because I won’t be able to do
that without You. Take away my desires
for this world and the mere shadows it holds of Your true home. My someday home. Amen.
| | |
| John 1:19-51
John is preparing the way for Jesus to come, telling people He is coming. John said that he came baptizing with water so that He might be revealed to Israel. Then the first disciples join up with Jesus and John. Their faith seems so easy. They heard John call Jesus the Lamb of God and followed to spend the next ten hours with him. That seems to have been enough. Nathaneal believed because Jesus said he saw him under the fig tree before he was called to by Phillip and this was enough.
When I read sections like this I wonder why it was so easy for them to believe and why it feels so hard for me to. I don't doubt that God is real and living, or that our sins haven't been covered. I guess what I don't feel like I know how to do is really follow with that immediate and complete devotion. I keep thinking about what God wants from me. I heard a couple of people say after Matt's memorial that it doesn't feel like they've done much. I could probably say the same things, but I know that "doing stuff" was not the reason all of those things were said about Matt. He didn't get up in the morning and make any of the choices that he did because he wanted to glorify himself or stand out among his peers, he didn't even make them with "being extraordinary" in mind. It was just Matthew following God. It always was. I don't want to turn away from God in this time, I want to be near to Him, especially in the times when it feels like my heart is breaking all over again. I want God to work through my life, not around it or in spite of it.
I serve a God that I won't understand. This is hard for me, but I think He wants me to be "okay" with that. Four years ago Mr. Smith died. It's still hard to believe. God does what he wants with us. But not in a mad-scientist-angry-greek-gods kind of way. He has dominion over everything. Whether Matt's going onto heaven was always the end of God's earthly plan for him, or Satan wanted to break us by taking him out of the world, God will work for His glory. I want to be part of that glory.
| | |
| John 1: 1-18
I never looked at Jesus as "The Word." I've heard the phrase, the Word became flesh before but it never sank in. These verses in John caught my attention. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." But also in the first part of the chapter there is a little piece that breaks my heart. "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." I know that the world did not and does not recognize the Word, Jesus. But there are many ways every day that I don't receive him. I may recognize Him and acknowledge that He is present and powerful, but I do not receive Him, I do not welcome Him in. John goes on to say, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--...born of God."
I have been seeing people who knew Matt and came to his service. I've heard the comment twice that after seeing what He did during His life they don't feel like they've done much. I've been thinking about that. Both times I said, the thing is, he didn't wake up in the morning saying, Okay - today I'm going to be extraordinary. He got up the morning and probably spent time with God and went out to live. His life was everything it was because God was always acknowledged and welcomed and received by Matt. I want to learn how to do this, how to always recognize and RECEIVE God. It doesn't mean I have to attempt perfection. One huge blessing of knowing Matt as well as I do is knowing that he had very human moments. But, the greatness of his life is not dimmed because he always gave glory to God.
| | |
|
My world has changed and I don't know what to do. | | |
|
