Lord, Help Me to Remember...

Our beautiful daughter's little hand

Waiting for our daughter has been the hardest things that we've ever gone through. Waiting for our referral was extremely tough. Waiting now that we know who she is is torture. Especially being told we would travel in July or August, to now having to wait until late Oct. or November. From what we've been told, the wait after we meet her until the time we can bring her home will feel even worse. Over the course of a lifetime, a month or a year or two or four or five doesn't seem like much. When you are waiting for your child, each day feels like an eternity. Every day your child sits in an orphanage seems so pointless and you feel so helpless.

During this time, I've been trying to pray and ask God to teach us what he is wanting us to learn during this time. He has made two things rather apparent this week that I've felt led to share.

First, I'm a fixer. I don't like conflict. Or pain. Or discomfort. Or watching friends or family in pain or grief. I want to fix it, say the right encouraging words, provide the right verse, come up with just the right solution or say the right thing to ease the pain and bring healing and resolution. I want peace not pain.

Not necessarily a bad thing, right?

However, it often doesn't work and sometimes ends up causing more pain to the recipient because what they really need is just to be heard and told that's it's ok to be sad or angry or hurt and that no matter what you'll be there for them. I'm starting to realize that I can't fix the pain that others are going through, just like I can't fix this pain that we are going through. It just hurts. Only God can bring true healing, comfort and peace and understanding of His perfect plan. He gives it in His own perfect time...which may be today, or next week, month, year... or even not until we reach heaven's gates.

Jesus was the perfect example of how to enter into a person's grief and just 'be there.' He wept when his dear friend Lazarus died. He KNEW what would happen in the next few minutes and that everyone would be shouting with joy when Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. But the first thing he did was to weep with his friends. He grieved with them. Perhaps going through the grief makes the joy that much sweeter when it happens? I don't know. Knowing that Jesus understands grief and that it's ok to cry and weep has been a great comfort to me in the past few weeks.

So, friends and family, for all the times I've tried to "fix" you and offer words meant to comfort, but have poured salt on your wounds instead, please forgive me. I'm truly sorry. What I meant for help and comfort because I love you and care for you, has caused you pain and I am beginning to understand that now. Please feel free to gently remind me if I keep doing this to you....old habits die hard.

Going through hurt and pain doesn't mean that you don't know or trust in God's provision and perfect timing. It just means that for that moment, day, week, whatever....it simply hurts. So badly sometimes that you just want to curl up in a ball, close the curtains, hide from the outside world and weep. And that's ok.

It's ok because of the second thing God has been teaching me...we live in a broken world and we will be until Jesus comes again and makes all things new. Things are not as they should be. Governments don't work the way they should. Courts don't always provide justice. Agencies cannot always be trusted. People we love hurt us and we hurt them. We don't protect the least of these as well as we should. We live in a sinful world and God has pretty much promised that we will have pain in this life.

However, there will come a day when Jesus will make all things new and redeem his people and his creation. There will come a day when we will understand God's purposes in this long, agonizing wait. Yet, we need to realize that we may not fully know what He is doing until we are with him in heaven. And it's ok to not understand and to struggle. At the same time, I choose to praise him, even through my tears and grief, knowing that He DOES KNOW and that He is sovereign. His omniscience is not dependent upon my understanding of what He is doing.

In the meantime, Lord, please help me to remember...
... how this grief feels in order to be able to be willing to enter into the grief of others to provide real comfort.
...grief is a process. No matter how much I want to gloss over the pain, take a shortcut, say that I'm fine, go through the motions, say the right 'spiritual answer', appear to have it all together, or quote the right verse....the pain is still there and grieving needs to be allowed.
...only You can bring true healing in your own perfect time.