Undone

Disclaimer: There are pictures but stay with me...get past that and read 'til the end!

Ever feel like your heart is undone?  Like your life is akin to your favorite, well-worn shirt?  Threadbare maybe?  But still your favorite because of its comfort and familiarity?

The list of hard things this side of heaven can be kind of long. 

One quick note about the list of hard things here:

Our list has been added to in the last several weeks.  To begin, we had to put our dog Jeffery down.  Adam has had him longer than we’ve been married and so that was a difficult day…for us and our kids too.  That same week, we were fast approaching Parker’s Day Number 5.  And the leading up to that always unravels me just a bit.  One week after Parker’s Day, Adam’s sweet grandmother, Nannie, who has been ailing for some time, passed away.  Then there was a mass shooting in our small-town library.  Two ladies lost their life, four others seriously injured, and countless more traumatized from the event. 

And what more is there to say after that?  A mass shooting at our local library.  I said it again because I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that.  The same one where my mother-in-law works.  And a second cousin too.  The place where I’ve taken my kids countless times. 

And what encapsulates all this for me, is the context of where we do life:  where our faith is strengthened and where we come together with others to sit under the teaching of the Word…  Our church.  It’s been through the wringer in the last year or so.  As I wrote to a new friend by email just last night: 

I thought I couldn’t possibly be thankful for the nutty and really painfully long year that our church has been going through…but I was reminded of this simple truth in the midst of all that: despite losses or big shifts in friendships over the past year, I have been enriched by Godly women I probably wouldn’t have gotten to know in any other way – by women I don’t feel like I have all the things in common with – and yet, I’m thankful for the sweetness of fellowship that has remained with the body at Texico.  

  

I'm undone.

I don’t even know how this all happened exactly.  Or maybe the truth rightly stated is more like this:  I don’t think I want to remember.  

... Because of the hurt. 

It hurts to watch those around us grow old and ill.  It hurts to recall the sting of when a child dies.  Or to know that hurting people hurt people.  In libraries … and churches too.  And that all of us could say but for the grace of God go I. Because we’re all fallen and anyone of us could be capable of ending the life of another…but for the grace of God go we.

And just as much has been added to list of hard things, new and exciting things have been added too.

Like the fact that our sweet boy started preschool.

And the fact that our kids THINK we grew a watermelon…(and that's a whole 'nother story...)

And that one day we went to Sumner Lake and had a picnic.

And the fact that we made a mad dash to the mountains to see my parents, granny and papaw.  And then we went hiking.

And got photobombed by a deer. 

And had ice cream in the mountains.

And then just this past week, Sawyer started soccer for the second year in a row…

And so.   With a deep, emptied out sigh of relief I am reminded, once again, of just how sufficient He is.  Facing the list of hard things not about mustering up human bravery and know-how.  Our only job is to surrender.  There is no faith tough enough – there is only faith in Jesus.  Because only he knows how to heal the hurt.  The very real, deep-rooted kind of hurt that we always seem to get ourselves into.  And then there’s the joy.  Because despite the losses and pain, we can find joy in all circumstances.  That’s just an added bonus of this being redeemed business.

From the Fullness of His Grace,

Lacey

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:7-11

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you…

1 Peter 4:12