I began to stretch out my lungs in a capacity
to scream at God
I was to write down every insecurity I have in this faith
and then in those declarations He was to respond with gracious
wisdom and insight, in a soft peace He was to bring comfort and
say “My child, I am with you”
He did not.
I poured out my laments and rose up a banner of doubt, I pointed out the greatest questions of why and how;
I demanded immediate release of pressure that
is working up through my guts into my memory impressed
mind that has failed me time and time again
when loss is pinned up into the blue skies
I wrote down the way I felt when I would imagine her casket slithering into the ground
as they would project their well-intended sympathies declaring an ever good god
“how dare you belittle my wounds with band-aids,
how dare you glaze over my emotional destitution with clichés”
Those who have lost and lose feel they can relate to one another,
bitterness is predominant in these relations, but I would be lying
to say that God has failed me
To say that His hand has not saved, although at the time it very much did not,
His hand has rescued and continues to pull my heart out of the mire and muck
of my insolent sorrow
IF we believe there is a god who sees the beginning and the end
we are forced to accept that he is all knowing
IF this god is all knowing then why would he be absent
in our deepest pleas, why would he allow tragedy that speaks to no redemption, why
would he not answer
I cannot begin to describe why He allows immense suffering.
I have recognized that it is through hardship that Christ is most near,
I have experienced that in brokenness we are made full, but my mortal cries
rudely impose on my proclaimed hope:
What a selfish god..
That he would use my pain just so I would see Him better!
How egotistical, that he longs for me to be more like him so
because of this, I endure suffering
There is no existing being that could remedy my anxieties!
No, my soul cannot find rest in a deity or theology
My anger not satisfied by a man’s excuse for brokenness.
It is in this human truth where my voice is overwhelmed by an Almighty truth,
my doubts insignificant in the overarching grace of a true God,
who is not scheming, who is not manipulating my circumstances,
but who is RESCUING my already condemned heart from its current state
It is in this that every soul is asked to consider Christ as his redemption, and his portion.
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
Lamentations 3.19-24
I have established this:
With Christ I have everything | With out Christ I have nothing
this means that loss, in its immensity,
is actually quite small and powerless although it reigns
heavy and dominant over our souls.
loss does not take us further from God,
it brings us nearer.
In actuality, the more we have,
the more that separates us from Him.
but loss, if not handed over to Him, can begin to build
a home in our lives. It will gather up every situation, good and bad,
and hold it captive – becoming not a ‘loss’ at all but a
selfish burden gained within our souls that is living off of despondency
I intended to call out to God,
to state my poetic laments and in return
find a solution – comfort and peace – but it is all too soon
to be taken from desperation to joy so I will
say to myself:
the Lord is my portion, I will wait for him,
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion
So as my heart breaks with those who are experiencing their own loss,
and as it breaks at the reminder of loss itself,
I will lift my eyes to a God who is not proven to be distrait
but all knowing and sovereign still
Accepting This 