For the last week and a half, I haven't been able to stop reliving one of the most stunning moments of my life. I couldn't figure out why it was on my brain, and then I realized it had been one year since it happened.
I've written about my friendship with Christina and how it's grown both of our faiths and our whole lives, but I appreciate September 1st, 2015 more now than I did then.
Sometimes when I'm at PCC, I remember standing in the aisle trying to pick a flavor of sparkling water, and finding out some of my most desperate, pleading, raw prayers had been answered. I remember talking to Christina on the phone - a rarity for us - and hardly understanding a word that she'd said. I remember thinking the only response that made any sense at all was Praise Jesus.
Sometimes I go back to that time in March 2014 when Christina's pastor and counselor asked her to gather people to pray specific things over her for a season and she invited me into that. Because I'd already been praying for her, with a love far above the capacity of my own. I'd been praying for her in the first messes of our getting to know each other, through her time as a weary counselor as a Christian camp, through the time she stayed with me right before her already crumbling world completely shattered.
There was a before, but it was really setting us up for the after.
I remember praying for the best case scenario, while praying strength through the back up, and help in coming to terms with the worst. I remember feeling so conflicted about these tiers, because I absolutely believe that God can do anything, but I also know that sometimes what His plan is not ours.
I remember when it looked like the worst was inevitable and still trying to believe that God was able to do the impossible. If you have ever prayed for something impossible with all your heart, you know. You know how to wrestle with hope and conviction that God is sovereign and Jesus is King, but understand that even if He doesn't move how you most desperately desire Him to, He is still after your good and your joy.
I remember when the worst was happening right before our eyes and it looked like God was about to do a miracle.
I remember those 24 hours of waiting, when we'd find out if it was a sick joke, or absolutely real.
And I remember with every fiber of my being receiving a message:
It's over.
Relief. Beauty. Awe. Glory.
It's been a year since then, and the darkness hasn't been magically transformed into rainbows and sunshine. I don't think the darkness will fully lift until the new heavens and the new earth are established and the Son of God is the only light we need. And I also think that if things had been the worst, we all would have been held and we would still be here a year later saying that "Until now, the Lord has helped us", ebenezer!
The moment is in the grocery store is an ebenzer for me, a moment that I can hold on to and point at and said "Look! Look at what God has done" But even beyond the miracle He did there, the work he did in my heart was tremendous. He led me through a place of wilderness, of coming to terms with the even if not, the even if He does not respond to me the way I desire. It was not a "If You do this, I will love, trust and praise You", it was a "If You do this, I will love, trust and praise You, and even if not, I will do the same".
Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job 1:21
I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, 'I am lost.'
I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, 'Do not close your ear to my cry for help!" You came near when I called on you; you said, 'Do not fear!"
You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
Lamentations 3:52-58
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