LIFE'S LOST AND FOUND

i just don't have anything to say.

this week has simply left me feeling as though...words are vain.

my heart is grieving deeply for two very close families who are in my age bracket, who are facing the prospect of cancer. actually, one has been confirmed. one is waiting on a biopsy. people that i love from the depth of my heart. marriages that are being shaken. the very roots of faith being tested.

in light of their new pain, i feel shameful grieving for myself.
my loss feels so minute by comparison.
i was pregnant this week.
now i'm not pregnant this week.
and though that hurts, i am forced to my knees in gratitude and humility.

there is being frustrated by a thorn...a circumstance...a less than optimal scenario.
and then there is being shattered to the core by your entire future being threatened. your very life.

i was talking with a girl in my bible study last night who went to a CCEF (christian counseling education foundation) women's seminar over the weekend, and the entire theme was "Fear."

she shared that most of the time, God drags us to the 11th hour. to that state of complete hopelessness. helplessness. that place we hate being. finally accepting of our utter futility in our humanity. He waits for that moment, when we come to the absolute end of ourselves...and then He performs the miracle.

but some of the time...He doesn't.
we meet horror in real life -- when up to that point, it was only materialized as fear and anxiety in our hearts. the what-if comes true. we find ourselves in the 12th hour. whatever hidden nightmare of an idea that was festering in your heart -- is suddenly reality. is God less loving? is God less sovereign? satan so powerfully pushes the lies into our hearts....

but she concluded that there should be, even in the 12th hour, a realization that though we experience a death -- in any form; the physical loss of life, loss of dreams, loss of security, loss of whatever -- we are never forsaken. He has promised a 13th hour. if we can pry our hands off of all this world and our fallen state offers, though the clock can strike 12 at any time, hour 13 is waiting. unshakable. a covenant to us.

Jesus himself was forsaken....
so that i never would be.

Psalms 22:
King David (prophetically) speaks on behalf of Israel:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
from the words of my groanings?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest...
Yet, You are Holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel
In You our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and You delivered them..."

i don't know when deliverance comes.
but is my desperation for temporary deliverance eclipsing the very notion that, in fact, i am already delivered?
though David was utterly undone by his circumstances, he recognized he would be delivered.
in this life...or the next.

he feels forsaken. check.
he feels isolated. check.
he feels he can't cry anymore. check.
he's unable to rest. check.

Yet,
You are Holy.

as if to conclude it all...as if it were meant to be a lasting impression...as if to say, 'if you hear nothing else,' Jesus' final expression of love to the witnesses during his ascent:

"...and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age...."

as i meditate on all i can, while grappling with the very idea of fallen humanity, broken bodies, broken hearts, broken dreams, broken lives --His TRUTH is absolute, capable of arresting and interrupting every scheme by the prince of darkness to torment my mind.

...always, even to the end...