This is Grief

The thought dons on me regularly: Trent is still Trent. And then I begin to wonder for the umpteenth time where he is. Where heaven is. Where God is, where God dwells face to face with His children. And then I miss him, again. And then I wonder about what heaven is like, and what he's doing and experiencing, and about the things that he knows but I can't even begin to imagine.

And then the fear sets in.

I read that the first year of grief is covered by so much denial that you can't really even feel it; that the reality barely begins to sink in. The second year is harder, they tell me. And then this week I met a couple who lost their child several years ago. The tears still rose in their eyes and the day at the hospital was still vivid as they told me about it. But then they looked at me strange when I began to talk about my joy of Trent being in heaven.

I fear that I am missing something here. Aren't Christians supposed to be excited about going to heaven? I fear that doubt really will sneak in. I fear that one day I, too, will begin to think that God is not good and sovereign and that this world really is the only forever. Where are the stories of those who believe in the Promises of Scripture during times of deep suffering? I can't find them. I don't want any more nicey-nicey faith stories. I want the warriors. Those who stood fast to the Word of God. I barely even see the Word of God in those grief stories, let alone the gospel, or sin, or eternity. Where are you Christians? Who is fighting this battle with us?

I fear seeing God for the first time only to have not believed whole-heartedly every single word that He said. I fear being so content with what I can see here that I quit lamenting over my son being gone, because ultimately it was sin that lead to death, and I was able to somehow find that normal.

"Do you see him now?" Lucy Pevensie asked Trumpkin in Prince Caspian when they all stood on the shore of that river before the great Aslan himself. Yes, he saw him now.

I want to stand before God proclaiming that I never doubted His plan. That I did fight. That I did believe. That I knew He only did things for my good and His glory in my life. That I did trust His hand that was leading. I want to stand before Trent, holding him in my arms, telling him of what God did with his life and death, how I missed him, how I always knew he was in heaven and was rejoicing that he made it. That because of it I fought the fight harder. I long to let go of all that hinders here so I can run the race well, for the prize that matters.

I don't want to be entertained anymore, world. I don't want to be comforted by the only hope being that grief gets easier with time, or that my faith is so "nice" and it's good to see that I think there's a god somewhere out there. I don't want my tears to be in vain. I don't want to become apathetic. I want to live with my eyes wide open to eternity that will come only too soon.

I want to live smiling because my son is in heaven and I trust the God who was gracious enough to bring him there to be gracious enough to pour out His mercies in my life until the day that He chooses to bring me there. I want to feel the depth of the raw pain that God ordained. I want to know Him in the deeper parts that can only be known through this suffering. I will not trade perishable rewards for eternal ones. I will settle for nothing less. No tarnished wordly trinkets can compare.

I only want Jesus and all that He promised.

Just Breathe

Grief is like a vice. I feel it squeezing in too tight sometimes. I feel it wrapping itself around my chest, then crawling it's way up into my throat, the dull ache and the too common stinging in my eyes until the tears are barely contained. I try to shut off the thoughts that bring it on, then I realize that it's no use. I might as well think them and go forth. I might as well feel the pain and cry the tears. And when it's over, then I can just breathe. In, out, in, out. Just breathe.

Another first today. The first day of going back to work in eight months. My employer has been so generous to allow me as much time off as I needed, and I probably wouldn't have had to even gone back today. But it was time. Time to just face it, do it, cross off another first. To feel the love and the hugs, to answer the dreaded "how are you" question, to drive the same drive, pray the same prayers, park in the same parking lot, punch the same time clock, walk the same halls as the day the phone call came. And all those ladies . . . if only they didn't have to be so wonderful, if only there weren't so many mother's with their arm's open wide who have been broken, too, for us the past eight months. Who have lifted up prayers and well wishes and really wanted to know how I was. Some smiled, some cried, some know my God, some don't, some agreed, too, that the world should have stopped when my son died.

I didn't realize how much I was stuffing until I turned back onto our road heading home after my shift and realized that I would walk in the door this time and hug all of my children who are still here. This time wouldn't be like last time. This time when I walked in the door I wouldn't have to ask if my son was dead or not. I wouldn't have to call my Mom or Traci or Jerry or go to Duluth. I could delight my children with fudgsicles instead and go play outside in the sunshine with them. I could live. If I could just stop crying. Just breathe, just breathe, just breathe. One. Breath. At. A. Time.

Better Than a Hallelujah

The honest cry of a breaking heart is better than a Hallelujah

Amy Grant, "Better than a Hallelujah"

Writing is a release for me. Freedom, in a sense, to let things go. A record to see where God has taken me. My struggle with blogging has always been to write for myself, with the glory going to God in it, without the fear of man. So I shut the comments off, again, and allow myself to be where God has me. It's good to lay these thoughts down. It's good to stop carrying them, thinking them, trying to remember them, to quit being scared of forgetting them . . .

Lately I have found that the high of rejoicing is turning to a stoic contentment, contentment to steadfastness, and steadfastness to a hope that is still full of much underlying joy, all tinged with a deep missing of Trent and the sorrow of grief. It's always there, and I assume it always will be. I feel a deep resolve setting in. I refuse, in my genetic stubborness, to let God's glory get out of sight as the days, weeks, and months pass by. I refuse to let this become normal. How is it normal that your son dies? Do we not get used to sin being normal, then, if our only hope is to strive to learn how to function normally after losing a child?

The reality of eternity is already losing it's impact, though, as much as I thought it never would or could. It has barely even been my first thoughts the past few days. I woke up this morning and realized that already eternity wasn't as vivid as it was eight months ago. Eight months. It's been eight months today. I can remember when it hadn't even been eight days. I remember sitting in the front pew at the funeral looking at Trent's body beside me in the coffin, thinking, "It's been six days already, Trent's been in heaven for six days." I am sure when it's been eight years, and more, I will be thinking, "It's been eight years already." I don't want eternity to lose it's impact. I don't want to live without heaven being my forethought in everything. I don't want to live as if death is normal.

God said,

"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am HE, I am HE who will sustain you. I have made you, and I will carry you. I will sustain you, and I will rescue you."

Isaiah 46:4

I went to my knees again this morning, down on the floor, face to the ancient wooden boards. I went in obedience. I long for obedience, and I detest myself for being so dull to hear and obey God's voice. What did He say? Am I really being faithful? Have I really listened? I long to see the grand plan of all of this. I don't know how one twelve year old boy, one night of talking at the dining room table and one changed heart after many years of prayers, then one skiing trip followed by {probably} many more years of tears can result in God's glory. I don't know how the Holy Spirit moves to cause repentance through that, let alone salvation.

Salvation occured yet again under our rooftop over the weekend. As I slept in my bed upstairs, God was doing His work dowstairs. Teenage girls sat giggling while deciding which movie to watch next, and then the topic changed, and an eternity changed. I am baffled. I am amazed. I stand in awe to be a vessel of that kind of work.

I spent the day lamenting on Sunday. Uncontrollable tears for years of pain that I can't understand, tears for the fear of people that I can't do anything to change, tears that wouldn't stop. Tears for people that I can't reach, souls that I am not even sure that God wants me to try to reach, as odd as that seems. People where I have no ability to even minister when I am in their midst. I lamented for the trappings of their lives, the trappings of their own choosing in a way, and the blindness that sin causes. I cried because I have felt the pain of that trapping, and because I long for their freedom, and because I am terrified that I am being trapped as well. As polite Christians we don't say names, we don't point out each other's sins, we barely even dare to call sin, sin anymore. But it's still sin, and sin still traps, and God does not bless disobedience. Until there is open repentance and confession it will continue.

Events of the past eight months have been rolling through my brain. Faces of teenage boys come to mind. One young man at the funeral, who had been on the skiing trip with Trent, crying uncontrollably, admitting to me that he knew he would be in hell if it had been him. His mother, looking on, praying I am sure, as she must long for salvation for her children as much as I long for salvation for mine. I haven't seen him since. I don't know if God chose to save him or not.

Another young man, another friend of Trent's that had been on the trip that Friday, who was also at the funeral. I have seen him several times since, I have asked him repeatedly where he would be, where he is with God, and I have gotten the same answer. And still he refuses to accept grace and salvation. He can't accept grace and salvation until God grants it to Him. So I keep praying for him, this boy whom I could love as my own. Why some, and not others, God?

I think of pastors, four of them and their wives, who have not had the time in eight months to ask how I am, who have not allowed us to share our joy with them, to share God's good work with them. Then there's the church lady who has only cared to ask about who my sister is dating now than how severe our hearts are breaking, how God has moved, how He has sustained. Cousins, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neices, nephews, fellow teen-age football players: their faces come before me. I wonder where they are spiritually. I wonder if they remember the songs, the sermons, the power of that day. I wonder if they have considered their own eternity.

I think of the people who continue to search for Trent's name nearly every day on the world wide web and find the blog. I wonder about others that are sent here by some simple search for making soap or feeding calves, and find the gospel instead. I wonder if I present the gospel clearly. I wonder about how God moves. I wonder how my breaking heart makes a difference. I long for God to use it to make a difference.

There was a missionary who spoke at our church the other day. One thing, especially, that he said has stayed with me. He talked about mission minded churches, and stated that the only way that a churches light {of the gospel} could shine all the way to the other ends of the earth was if it shone strong and bright at home, which is the source. I thought about how easy it is to "shine" our gospel across a pretty computer page. Or to send money to the orphans in India. And then I wondered if I shine bright close to home. More and more God has revealed my "missions" field as my children and husband. The day will come, Lord willing, when again I am called to sign up for every project at church, but for now I am called to shine where I am at home.

Days without the distraction of a computer has left more time for prayer and for visiting. I have been inducted into a group of women in our community who have lost children. There are too many of us in our little town. God has renewed my heart for them in these past couple of weeks. Grief is lonely. Sometimes lonely is easier than awkward, though. Who else could understand (well, besides aunts, and a few certain other's)? To overhear two mother's who have lost children discussing phone calls and hospitals and funerals and month's of grief would be an odd conversation for an outsider. Especially mother's who are happy that their son's are in heaven.

Now I'm rambling, which must mean that it's time to go make some peanut butter cookies with my little dumpling's who are still this side of heaven.

God loves a lulluby

In a mother's tears in the dead of night

Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

God loves the drunkard's cry

The soldier's plea not to let him die

Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

The woman holding on for life

The dying man giving up the fight

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

The tears of shame for what's been done

The silence when the words won't come

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing

Better than a choir singing out, singing out

We pour out out miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah (Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)

Better than a Hallelujah (Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)

Hi-Ho Silver

When we were kids, a long long time ago, my sisters and I had horses {lots and lots of horses}. Most of the horses ran out back with the cows on the 160 acres of our farm. There were the few friendly ones that you could actually touch and ride, but for fun, we used to take lariats and buckets of corn and catch the wild ones. What a thrill to actually get that rope around their necks and then hold on for dear life until you could stop the mighty steeds by wrapping the other end of the rope around a tree to hold them. And then the struggle that followed to try to drag them all the way back home to hope that they would stay contained in our little pasture.

The best thrill of all, though, was the day that you could actually walk up to such a horse and pet them without first roping them. The day that they trusted you to handle them and lead them and care for them was monumental. We thought all kids grew up that way with such adventures to entertain themselves without colored television or Atari's.

My current horse, Lightning, is a descendant of those long ago horses. Her mother, Magnum, a black and white paint, was the prize catch of the farm twenty five years ago. In a round about way, after all of the animals eventually got auctioned off, we found Lightning as a foal living wild in somebody else's pasture and were able to buy her when she was five years old. Supposedly she had been professionally trained, which we have questioned more than once since the previous owners delivered her to our farm.

When we were little girls, our riding skills pretty much consisted of just being able to stay on top. Today, I am content with the same thing: just being able to stay on top. I used to long to have real saddles, and bits, and barns which I thought would make me a real cowgirl. But, it turns out, even though I now have those things, I have not strayed very far from how I grew up. Neither in location nor horsemanship.

The saddles sit on their shelves most rides, and no bits are to be found. The horses once in a while get a stall in a goat barn until a real horse barn makes it's way to the top of the list. We grab the hackamore's, jump on bare backs, and hold on tight. It turns out two young ladies have followed suit. And every once in a while, just to make me feel like a teenager again {I am sure}, Lightning even obliges me with the long-forgotten hi-ho-silver-and-away rear. Thus far, knock-on-wood, I have still been able to stay on top.

Behold

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James 5:16b

You may recall my story about loading the pigs a while back. Well, last week was the week to load the steers. The 1000+ pound steers. Usually the truck can come early in the morning before Rob has to leave for work, but this time they had to schedule for late morning. So my first prayer was that Rob could get off of work for an hour-or-so to relieve me from having to chase cows. Answer number one. My second prayer, and Rob's too, was that they would load easy as we have had our share of cow-loading-horror stories.

This walk with God has become interesting. I realize that He doesn't have to answer my prayers the way that I want Him to, and often times when I put Him in a box and will only accept one specific answer I am disappointed. But when my hands are open, and my expectations are for whatever His will is, I always find myself amazed.

All that we asked for was that the three steers would load well, which makes our day easier, plus gives us yet another chance to share God's answered prayers with the truck driver who is beginning to notice the little miracles of loading critters on our farm. And, just for some more icing on the cake, Cole came out to see if we needed help as the trailer pulled into the driveway and became a witness, yet again, to answered prayers. I said to him, "Cole, I prayed that those steers would load easy, and so did Dad. Let's watch and see what God does." So we both stood in the farmyard and watched.

A little coaxing on our end was to be expected, of course, to get the beasts into the trailer. The truck and trailer backed up into the loading chute as Rob directed them into the opening, and, no kidding, before the driver put the truck into park the first steer was already looking into the open door. Rob stretched out his arm and simply said, "Behold!"

One steer into the trailer, without Rob even moving, and the second one close behind. The driver got out and started to come around the passenger side of the truck when I told him, "You better hurry up, Brian, because they're almost loaded." He couldn't believe it and quickly ran around to open the 2 inside trailer gates. Steer number three walked into the trailer, then all three walked right up front where they belonged, and the driver shut the gates behind them. Then we got to stand around and talk about God for a while.

Behold . . . my God who loves to give good gifts to His children.

I Love You, Mom

Micah is in that exciting stage of life where he is just beginning to learn how to read and write. I have to admit, with him as the baby of the family, I am not rushing it. Having taught four other children their abc's and the importance of starting every letter at the top, plus learning myself along the way what is really important in homeschool, I have backed off from rigid formal education and have just let him enjoy being a little boy as long as he can. A couple of month's ago, when he began showing great interest in sitting for school lessons, I reluctantly started teaching him from the 100 Easy Lesson's book. Somewhere along the lines he has even learned how to write. The only words he know's how to spell correctly are "I love you, Mom! Micah." I sort of like it that way.

I'm Back!

Yippee!! The computer's back up-and-running!! After many telephone conversations with the tech guys and a visit to the local fix-it shop, everything is running smoothly again. After school, chores, laundry and some snuggling on the couch I will attempt to sort through the recent 700-and-some photos and get back to regular posting~ Lord willing:))

Technical Difficulties

Hello dear friends! Just a quick note to let you all know that I am having some technical difficulties with my computer. Lord willing, it will get fixed soon and I'll be back! Terri

I Can't Even Imagine

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God!

He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.

Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord,

because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:56-58

I have found myself praising God so many times over the past couple of days for how Trent died. I'm sure that has to sound morbid. I could never have imagined myself even thinking those words eight months ago about my son. But over the last couple of days I have seen, again, the grace of God to ordain Trent's life and death the way that He did. Even in death God pours out His mercies on His children.

Over the past year and a half there have been five accidental deaths of young men just in the extended circle of our little community. Most of those deaths have been horrendous, and the parents have suffered much. And more so, I don't know that God revealed the clarity of those young men's salvation. Knowing that Trent is in heaven still makes grief hard; not knowing~ I couldn't even imagine.

Hearing of the twelve year old boy who died over the weekend has begun to sink in. I want to shut off the thoughts of that mother's pain. I don't want to think of her walking this road. I wouldn't know what to say to her if I could. I come back to the truths of God's sovereignty. I do not have to try to explain away why God does what He does, I only have to trust Him for who He is and that His plans are far better than my own.

I have been pondering First Peter the last couple of days. I have been pondering God's glory, and eternity, and how we live our lives here. I have been able to grasp {in a teeny, tiny, minute way} the honor of suffering in anticipation of God's glory that will be revealed throughout eternity for it. I can't even get the complete concept of God's glory to register in my brain~ what is it? How is it manifested? What is the depth of it?

Matthew 13:43 says that the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father . . . what must God's glory be like in it's fullness if His children's righteousness will be as bright as the sun? How will it look without sin to blind us from it? At 93 some million miles away from the sun it was still 84 degrees in Wisconsin yesterday~ what does that look like close up? What does that look like translated into glory? What would that look like even if it was only 92 million miles away?

And then, why do I not just rest in this eternal God? Oh, that He would continue to draw me near. First Peter 2:4 says that God's children are precious to Him. Precious. Not just tolerated, not servants, not only children, but precious children. He calls us to entrust ourselves, our very lives, even our suffering, to Him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23). He redeemed our souls through the blood of His own son, Jesus. Because we are His, we are called to live holy lives, set apart for obedience to Him, because He is our Father and He is holy (1 Peter 2:24, 1:2, 1:15-16).

A common topic lately that has come up in several conversations is how to live here, but still live for God. How does one live for the glory of God? How does one live eternally minded, yet still function here until Christ calls us home?

I had the privilege of talking to a dear Christian sister yesterday who has suffered much physical pain over the last decade. She was weary, and new ailments have plagued her for the past several months with no immediate relief in sight. She had no choice but to submit herself to God, to His trials, and to His timing.

She felt the pressure to conform to those around her, those who thought perhaps she was going on too much about the wheelchair she has been in and implied that it might be time to get over it. She needed the reminder that God is good and sovereign in all He does. She started to think these trials would go on for ever, that this short life and our daily struggles were all that there was, that God would not reveal His glory one day through these sufferings. As I shared the Promises with her, I was telling them to myself just as much. I needed to hear them, too. I get weary, too. I start to forget, too.

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange where happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.

And to the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:12-13, 5:6-7, 5:10-11

I can't even begin to imagine what that glory will look like. I pray that you know this Savior of mine.

A Fall Walk