The Sun Never Says….

I’ve been writing and rewriting my thoughts for almost a week now – I’m not even sure if what I’ve written makes any sense and I’m not sure what drives me to write on here, but for some reason I feel like I’m supposed to share them.  I fully realize I have nothing ‘special’ to share – I am definitely not claiming to know anything and I know that there are so many others who have very specific evidence and/or information that can refute or support anything I say. I guess I’m just trying to say – this is just me, a broken person sharing some thoughts and offering it up simply as a perspective.

In less than a week, I’ve learned of a friend’s 8 month old baby fighting for his life against an unknown disease, another friend of a friend’s 4 year old son beginning a 43 week stint in chemo, another young mom asking Jesus just to bring her son home quickly so he doesn’t have suffer anymore, and a young mom to 4 children who has been diagnosed with an untreatable cancer  – and then you turn on the news and there’s the airplane crash, a mass murder of a family, abuse, apathy, the conflicts in the world — it goes on and on.

It can be crushing and suffocating to think of all of these things.

Through this journey with Kai, these stories seem to becoming up more and more frequently. And I am constantly finding myself angry,confused, grieving, and just hating, hating, hating the broken-ness of this world. No more suffering! Please, God, come on! No more! And the pain is visceral and I wouldn’t wish this pain we’ve felt on anyone, and so I feel almost like I am going to lose it when I see others suffering as well.

And then from seemingly out of nowhere, I hear myself say,Thank God this life isn’t all that there is. I question God and ask why this happens and I don’t have answers, but it just makes me convicted even more strongly that there is no stinkin’ way this world and its material things, pain and suffering could be all there is.

So does this mean we don’t engage in this life? Does this mean this life is awful or it doesn’t matter because it’s so broken? No, I don’t think so.

This life has incredible beauty and joy in it, and I think this life matters even more once you realize it’s not all there is because I think you find yourself investing more time in what’s lasting. Realizing the fragility of life and the hardness of life inspires me to live more.

But I struggle at staying inspired, that’s for sure. Most days I am with baby Maya and she is just surprising me and amazing me at every turn, but there’s this constant movie of Kai – my memories of him – that plays all day long,  just outside my direct field of vision and making me feel happy/sad at the same time. And when I glance to the “side” to see him fully, all I want to do is lock myself in a room and just watch videos of him, hear his voice, his laughter, his crying and stubbornness and kicking and screaming, all of it, I just want to do that forever sometimes.  And honestly,at the beginning, I thought about if I could just kind of ignore the life going on around me and hide away forever from people — that would be easier. But then I realized thinking that way, I felt more alone. I also realized it doesn’t honor my son’s life or my daughter’s life, but it was instead selfish and made it all about me and how I felt  and how I was sad and why did this have to happen to me — it made me cut off people, made me cut off reality… it made me cut off God.

And I think the truth is, engaging in this life is what has made me start the healing process.

I wish so badly that no one would have to suffer in this world. Oh, how I wish this so much.

We only know this one moment – right now. How can we live it? And if you are like me and still trying to figure out so many things with faith, life, this crazy world, I do believe we can find the beautiful moments even amidst the pain, and those feelings of joy and love are bigger than the broken, even if it cannot change it.

Maybe this looks like mustering up the faith to engage in life and take that leap into confronting the broken-ness to find healing and live life fully. Hope that even amidst everything that is broken, that one day it will be new and there will be no more suffering. And loving – loving God andloving each other and being not afraid to love.

I’m not good at this explaining how I am processing these “bigger” things that this journey with Kai has brought me to and I’m really tempted to delete this, but if anything you can ignore the whole post before this part and just read the next few sentences:

If you wouldn’t mind, please pray for those that are suffering. There are so many in this world including those I mentioned above,baby Malcolm, little David, sweet Kyle, and momma Amy….

And I wanted to share this poem – I read this many, many years ago when life seemed more full of darkness than light, and this has stuck with me and been an encouragement and inspiration to me.

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, “You Owe Me.” Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky”. – Hafiz

Thank you for your prayers and for all of the incredible support you’ve given our family without ever asking for anything in return. Thank you, thank you, thank you – you’ve lit up the darkness for us and brought light to our world.