Five Minute Friday: Reaching Out

Prompt of the week: REACH

GO:

So often we are told to reach for the stars, or reach for our dreams. We are told to chase what we want, and work for what we long for. Shoot for the moon, and don't settle for anything less than perfection.

While it is good to have a goal to work towards, and there is nothing wrong with dreaming, Jesus has called us to do so much more than reach for the stars.

When Peter was walking on water and lost focus and started sinking, he didn't reach for any stars or dreams. He reached for his savior. When I was lying in a hospital bed wracked with contractions, I couldn't do anything to chase my dreams. I could only reach heavenward.

But we can't stop there either. We must reach for our savior, and once He has grasped hold of us, we are then to reach outwards to others. We are told to extend the comfort we have received from Christ out to our hurting brothers and sisters. We are told to hold out to our enemies the same kind of forgiveness we were given when we were enemies of God. We are commanded to go fishing for men, and you can't go fishing without doing some reaching out beyond yourself.

I praise God that He enabled me to reach out and cling tightly to Him in my darkest time of need, and I pray that God would equip me to reach out and extend the same lifeline to others who are in darker times of need because they don't even know which direction to reach.

STOP.

Time

I was reading today over at A Bed For My Heart her thoughts about people saying it gets easier with time. I began thinking about time, and the time (though still short) since I joined the club no one wants to join - the bereaved mothers club.

I will say the pain doesn't feel as raw now. It doesn't sting quite as deep. The tears don't flow quite as easily or freely (at least in public - they still flow often and abundantly when I am alone!) as they once did.

I still have days I don't want to face the world, but I am learning to talk myself into doing whatever needs to get done instead of letting myself wallow over-long in my grief. The grief has not gotten any lighter, but I have gotten stronger and better at shifting the weight just so to keep it balanced. My heart and my arms still ache for the little one who should be a week old now, but I am learning to embrace the joy of each day as well.

I definitely wouldn't say it is easy now. I'm not even sure it is easier than it used to be. But I do know for sure that the only way I get through it at all is through Christ who strengthens me. It is often quoting scripture to myself that helps me out of the miry pit of wallowing. In my weakness, He is strong and carries my burdens with and for me when I can't dream of doing it myself. His goodness and mercy have filled my aching heart with joy.

Time alone will never make anything easier. Only sharing my burdens with the one who makes all things beautiful in His time will make them easier to bear. Only finding strength in Christ alone will make me strong enough to make it through. Only driving out the bitterness and anger and replacing them with the peace, joy, and love of God will heal my aching heart.

Five Minute Friday: Change

 


Prompt of the week: Change

GO:

It is amazing how quickly your life can change; how a woman can change from longing and hopeful but scared to hope too much, to ecstatic and filled with love and joy in a matter of seconds when those 2 pink lines pop up on the pregnancy test.

Or how she can change from ecstatic and filled with love and joy and hope, to devastated and broken and wondering how this could have just happened when they can't find a heartbeat.

How a missionary can change from being a doctor helping treat victims of an Ebola crisis to being a patient himself.

How an audience can change from seeing a comedian and laughing alongside him to seeing the ugly depths of depression.

How a young man can change from planning his college career to dead on the sidewalk full of bullets in a matter of 3 minutes.

Yes, life can change in an instant, and never be the same again. There are moments that leave you reeling. Change can rip your heart right out of your chest.

But what each life so desperately needs is a change. A change where the heart of stone melts into a heart of flesh.

What this sad and sin-soaked world needs is a change. A change in each individual's heart that will prompt change in a family, a community, a nation, a planet.

And I rest in knowing that NOTHING can change God's love. Not racism or bullets, not depression or suicide, not illness or disease, not stillbirth or aching hearts. God's love is greater than all of it.

God's love is the only thing that will never change. God's love is the only thing that will ever bring the change that we need.

Due Date

Today is the day.

August 18, 2014.

They call it the estimated due date because you never know when baby will actually arrive. Big sis JuneBug surprised us 3 weeks before her due date. One of my sisters surprised my mother by waiting almost 3 weeks after her due date! What women expect on their due dates is either to be waddling around with a watermelon belly about to pop, complaining about back pain and swollen ankles, or else shuffling like a zombie snuggling a teeny-weeny wrinkly newborn, changing poopy diapers and feeling like a 24/7 feeding station.

Instead I walk normally, with a (mostly)flat belly, well-rested. My body is not in pain, and on the outside I look just like anyone else.

But on the inside....

I can't help but thinking about what should have been. What could have been. What we are missing out on. I would give anything to trade an aching heart for an aching back and swollen ankles. I would give anything to trade these red-rimmed eyes from crying for red-rimmed eyes from waking every 2 hours to feed a newborn baby.

On this day I dreamed of introducing JuneBug to a new baby sister, instead she is snuggling her "baby sissy bear" (thank you projectbear.com !) and asking when God will send her a "real" sister or brother.

I'm debating between trying to do something special and meaningful today, or just wallowing in my sorrow and shutting the world out for a while.