This Beautiful Mess...a grief journey and a new way of life

I used to think that my story was about who I was before I met Jesus.  It was about God saving me, a messed up, broken young woman who had trashed her life pretty bad....thats what I thought my story was.  Over the last few years my life has taken some twist and turns that I couldn't have imagined.  Sigh.....I don't much like it, but I am learning to surrender to it.  God and I are back on good terms, though I have to admit I have not been pleased by some of His decisions.  What I know it that He is still good.  His goodness doesn't change based on my ability to understand.  My favorite verse has always been...for we know that all things work together for the good (Romans 8:28).  I can't see it right now, but one day I will.  In the meantime I trust my Abba Father.  He is still saving me, present tense.  He did a miraculous job saving me twenty two years ago and He is still doing that today.  He is still my deliverer, keeping me from drowning, holding my hand, my strong tower, the one who will never leave me, He is still my everything.

When I find it hard to move forward, when fear is all around me, when darkness strikes at my heart, I return to the only thing I know is certain....He is for me and not against me. He loves me and is somehow taking this mess and making it beautiful.  Redeeming the pain by birthing purpose and destiny out of it.  None of us will escape without having our faith tested...mine is tested everyday.  Everyday I choose to grab a hold of the beauty in the pain, to see the Lord in the midst of it all.  As I taught last Saturday, some great things grow out of "crap".  So when it stinks and the "crap" is blowing all around me....I just remember that fertilizer is necessary to produce a great crop. That it takes the bad and the good to change my heart(it needs a lot of changing) and that somehow He must be glorified through this.  I have been praying for a glory cloud to follow me around, but so far it hasn't come.  So I guess, I just have to find a way to share God's glory with the world through this experience.

Do I miss my son?  Everyday.  The truth is that God has taken the sting out of death, and now my son is beautiful beyond belief. He is not lost, I know right where he is.  He is not dead, he lives.  This truth, makes it easier but I still live with a hole in my future.  A piece of my heart has gone to heaven before me.  Today I live in the messed up, beautiful life God has given me to the best of my ability, trusting that He will make something beautiful out of me.  Knowing that He has made something beautiful out of my Justin.  I suppose that is the glorious thing and the hard thing.  The waiting.  In the meantime, I get glimpses of Glory and I am reminded that life is but a vapor....Glory is coming.  His Kingdom is coming.