I opened my eyes with a feeling I can't describe. If you're a middle aged woman, or man, you may understand me when I say, I felt like a river wanted to be set free...oh and pregnant women will totally understand this feeling too. I had no thought, other than to get to my bathroom, and get back in my comfy bed. So grateful the light wasn't coming in my window yet. I don't know how many of y'all sleep with your phone next to you, but I do. I do put it upside down so the light doesn't wake us up in case of a late text, or Facebook notification...which has happened to us on several occasions, but it's always there next to me.
I always tell myself that it's so I can get an emergency call, or text and also because it makes the perfect "light" for my path to the bathroom now that I have to get up every couple hours. Yes, it is just the right amount of light, it is small and easy to use. However, it never seems to stay lit up long enough for me to make it to the bathroom?? This is so frustrating to me that I find myself speaking out loud to myself about what a "pain in the butt this thing is *%$#@!! Why can't it just stay on for another second so I can make it in the bathroom???"
April 27, 2019 was no different. I rolled over to get up, grabbing my phone as I got my feet to the floor, only this time I flipped my phone over to light my way & it was lit up with my alarm going off on silent? I thought, "what the heck? Did I forget something? Uh oh, I knew my sleep was going to well." ...but then in my blurry, sleep filled eyes, I made out the name on the alarm..."Hannah's 8th birthday, ALL DAY"...
I can't lie, that one single sentence broke my tear ducts and they started to flow. My tears were not what I see on the memes about how "God catches each tear," no it was more like a flash flood in the desert. I didn't know if I would drowned in them, or maybe just take a white water river raft through them. I only knew that I had opened a flood gate I was not expecting in this moment.
I quickly swished off that alarm and flipped my phone over to the ground to try to escape the room without waking up Terry...I had no idea how I would explain my sudden onset of a total breakdown in the middle of the night. I was just about to the safety of my bathroom when that light went out...I started to cuss again, when suddenly I heard the cry of my old sweet golden retriever, Trinity. She was normally on her bed which is out of the path, purposely. But it is starting to get warmer here in Texas and it's cooler for her to lay on the wood floor.
Of course tonight was the night she picked to begin her cooler spot routine. She yelped and jumped up and I heard Terry stir...I found myself pushing her into the bathroom in front of me, I usually don't enjoy her hounding me for affection when I am in the bathroom, but this time I just WANTED in the quiet place so I could get with God!! She was so glad to have the invite and she instantly turned to greet me, forgetting that I had just stepped on her tail hair and how it hurt. Nope she was just thrilled to be part of my retreat. Then in her eyes I saw the realization that her person was crying? She needed to fix me.
I apologized to her while I tried to get by her as quickly as I could. In the chaos and drama since that first feeling of needing to set the river free, I had forgotten why I was up. I made it past her and as I sat down I began to beg God to bring His peace...she rushed over to fix me with her soft head and sweet eyes...I ruffled her head and told her "mama's ok girl, go lay down."
As soon as she was settling, I cried out ..."please Poppa please take this now!! I forgot while I was sleeping that today was the day I met her!!! I don't want to feel this, please OOOOHHHH God please take this HURT..." As I sobbed these words in my mind and out loud, I heard the faintest whisper, "It's ok girl, it's ok girl, it's ok My girl...here, come here, sit with Me, let Me hold you...ok, give her to Me...she is Mine...I have her."
In that moment my faith rested back in His whispers, but my fear came back louder, "why?!? WHY?!?! WHY are You punishing me?!?!? What did I do to lose her? Why can't they forgive me?!?" He gave me the space to speak what my heart was saying to Him. To say what He knew, and has known, I was hiding in my heart when my lips were saying, "I am good, He has her." He let me hide behind those lies until I asked Him recently, again, to break my heart for what breaks His. When I surrendered more and asked Him to show me what I was holding...He showed me. He allowed me to feel the break of the heart. To really feel how His heart breaks for His children that don't know Him, or maybe they don't want to know Him...the pain of the rejection by people He loves. In that one moment, that single moment of hurt, He brought HUGE understanding to this daughter.
In that same moment, this daughter surrendered her need to feel ungrateful. I honestly felt a feeling of sadness that I haven't felt, ever in my life...a feeling of loss. A loss that I have always seen as a feeling of "without." I was suddenly seeing this not as a bad loss, as "He is with" kind of loss.
I lifted my hands and my face Heavenward...I whispered, "here is my heart, I only have this broken heart to offer You today...but You LORD can have it NOW."
I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep. I kept talking to God and finally when I let go of the idea of going back to bed this day, I said, "ok fine, I will get into my reading time with You, in Your word, but please give me something...please give me a whisper to hang my hope on today..." With that I opened my phone...this was the 'verse of the day' on my app that morning. I took this beautiful whisper and I created a reminder, to help etch it on my heart and in my mind...
He met me there...He always meets me with His whisper, if I ask and seek whole heartedly. He has never left me hanging. He never will. He tells us in His word He is ALWAYS the same. I had forgotten this truth in my moment of a shattered heart, I was too focused on my pain. Not that my pain wasn't important, because I truly believe that many times He will only be able to reach me by allowing this hurt to become so painful, my only instinct is to find relief. More often than not now days, my first response is to run to Him and ask Him to help me. He knows this. He knows me. He knows every thought, every word, He numbers my tears. I rarely let Him down, as far as running to Him for help that is, it's now so important to me...to seek Him before anyone or anything else.
When I read this verse, He helped me find this picture. This was the picture that came to my mind as I read His whisper. This picture is one I dearly love. There's no denying the joy and love between the 3 of us. It brings me comfort to look at these 2 girls that mean so much to me, together...a daughter and her mama with her nona...she's so happy. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this sweet face with this happiness in 2.5 years now. Not because she doesn't want to, not because I don't want to, because God's plans are different than ours. For a long time I blamed her dad and his wife. God however has walked me out of that valley of lies. They may be the ones ignoring the calls and texts. They may be the ones who have chosen to take half her blood family out of her life...but believe me when I say, these are not the real reasons. They are NOT God's reasons.
God was very bold about taking me to the real reasons why. I asked Him to make sure I understood and He gladly gave me what I asked for. In my reading He spoke of bringing everyone to Him. Him wanting His children to know Him. He reminded me that He IS bigger than any reason for people choosing to forget Him, or just choosing not to believe in Him. He also reminded me that He is bigger than the pain I fell into and He WILL save every person willing. He spoke of working through the smallest and weakest to the greatest to reach everyone. My time in His word with Him, was filled with wisdom I had not known and some I had simply forgotten under the pressure of everyday struggles. He knew I had lost that wisdom, that I had lost that piece of me in my chaos of trying to hard to "accept" this loss. I may have been telling everyone "I am good with this. God has her." But He knew that I wasn't really believing that...not in this moment.
He knew that I had set this alarm, He didn't forget...I did, but He didn't. He didn't want me to hurt, to drop the words I was using as I stumbled in the dark to get to safety...He wanted me to hand over that pain to Him, and really mean what I was saying, again. He isn't expecting me to be a perfect "Christian" woman, He knows who I am...but He loves me still.
I realized as I read and stopped to talk to Him about the words I was inhaling, that He also loves them. His biggest desire is for them to seek Him and find the love He has for them. He knows that Hannah is part of that surrender...He created her to be a catalyst for Him. He knows this princess will be back holding the hands of those she loves...following Him and leading them to Him...guiding them like a "light" in the darkness of night. He reminds me who she is...to many more, than just me.
She is His, first. He created her for a purpose greater than being my grandprincess. That's where I get it turned around. That's where my impatience grows. He will give me the space to self correct, knowing that I will "pretend" I have learned...until I can't pretend anymore because the cost is much too great. Then He will remind me that this time of pain is a time of growing, IF I surrender my expectations. In my surrender I will find that peace I beg Him for. It is waiting for me to let go, then it rushes in. But it waits for the true surrender before flooding me.
This year is another year I was without the gift of hearing her laugh on her birthday...of seeing the joy in her eyes when she opened up the gifts I took the time to thoughtfully pick out for her creative, giggling, gentle little self. I sent them any ways. I text anyways. I refused to surrender to the lies of the enemy.
Instead I sat with my family, I walked to the park with her mama and her little sister...I played with her and shared giggles and dancing in the sunshine. We stopped to take pictures of the beauty that surrounds us here in Texas...the amazing wildflowers that bring happiness to a couple of desert girls. Along the way we found the "wishes" that I have loved as long as I can remember. I shared with my girl, "each of the seeds represents a wish being wished, and a seed being sent into the wind." She asked me if I wanted to pick one and make a wish, I giggled and said yes. I stepped into the yard to pick just the right one.
I found it and picked it, I turned to see her searching for one too and I felt grateful. Grateful my girl has hope, still. She asked if she could video me making my wish, I said "sure, it's real." I asked God to bless my grandprincess and to bless each of them too. To bring forgiveness to this family and heal hearts. I blew the "wishes" off into the wind and when I opened my eyes to see an empty stem, I was surprised by a single "wish" being left on there...I said, "this is for my Hannah, may she always know God and his love." As I finished I looked over at my girl and she was making wishes and blowing them into the wind, when she finished there were 2 "wishes" left on her stem, she said one of each of them.
Sometimes, I am learning, it takes a mountain of pain I can't move by myself to wake me up to the truth that He IS God. He IS in control. No amount of crying, or begging will rush Him in His plan. In fact, it may very well bring a rush of exactly what we are trying to escape. It might bring forth some shaping that He's been waiting to do. In this world they tell us that is a bad thing...but Jesus overcame this world...so we could be free of their definitions of good and bad. It's not a bad thing to surrender people and parts of us that are hindering us from becoming who He created us to be. Pieces of our own hurt that we have buried so deep we have forgotten about them, but He wants to dig those up...not to hurt us, but to give us freedom. With the freedom comes the truth that the enemy can no longer hide in that pain and create anger and hurt. It takes away a weakness satan can use against us...it gives God permission to heal and reinforce this place. It instantly gives us God's perfect strength.
I still miss my grandprincess, I will until the day I see her again, or until Jesus calls me home...but that emotion doesn't have to control me, or my willingness to forgive, even when they aren't sorry. I will hold this crown for my grandprincess, until I see her again...In the time between, I will trust God and His love for us, all.
Happy 8th Birthday my sweet, feisty, beautiful grandprincess, I pray your day was just a special as you are...I love you forever and always...Nona
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