Sorrow

I have had a hard time going to sleep the past few nights.  Tuesday night I went to my room to watch a movie before I went to bed.  Everything seemed to be fine and I was focused and the movie and enjoying it.  As soon a the movie was over, something just hit me like a ton of bricks.  I just started crying.  As I cried, I just said to myself "Nooooo".  I wanted so badly to scream it though!  It took everything I had in me to keep quiet.  Chad and the kids were all in bed.  I would have scared them to death.  So, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and ended up just leaning over the sink to cry for a while.  Soon after, I went to bed, with tears in my eyes.

Last night was similar.  I was watching a TV show while I laid in bed.  After it was over, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed.  As soon as I walked in the bathroom and shut the door, the tears just fell.  When I got in the bed, I just laid there thinking of Chandler as tears continued to fall.  I wanted so badly to just drift off to sleep but it's so hard when your mind seems to be all over the place. 

I'm not sure why the past few nights have been like this.  On most nights, I'll usually go to bed and pray and a few tears will fall.  But, the past few nights have been so different.  I've just wanted to bawl my eyes out and scream.  Maybe it's something I just need to do sometime.  I'm not sure you can really plan something like that though.

On a different note:  I woke up this morning to get ready for the day.  I was checking email and messages and received a very nice note from someone.  It's always so uplifting to hear from people.  Also, my devotion for today was so good.  It's one I want to read back on as often as I can, so I'm going to post it here for my kids to read one day too.

Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.  (Ecclesiastes 7:3)

     Sorrow, under the power of divine grace, performs various ministries in our lives.  Sorrow reveals unknown depths of the soul, and unknown capacities for suffering and service.  Lighthearted, frivolous people are always shallow and are never aware of their own meagerness or lack of depth.  Sorrow is God's tool to plow the depths of the soul, that it may yield richer harvests.  If humankind were still in a glorified state, having never fallen, then the strong floods of divine joy would be the force God would use to reveal our souls' capacities.  But in a fallen world, sorrow yet with despair removed, is the power chosen to reveal us to ourselves.  Accordingly, it is sorrow that causes us to take the time to think deeply and seriously.
     Sorrow makes us move more slowly and considerately and examine our motives and attitudes.  It opens within us the capacities of the heavenly life, and it makes us willing to set our capacities afloat on a limitless sea of service for God and for others.
     Imagine a village of lazy people living at the foot of a great mountain range, yet who have never ventured out to explore the valleys and canyons back in the mountains.  One day a great thunderstorm goes careening through the mountains, turning the hidden valleys into echoing trumpets and revealing their inner recesses, like the twisted shapes of a giant seashell.  The villagers at the foot of the hills are astonished at the labyrinths and the unexplored recesses of a region so nearby and yet so unknown.  And so it is with many people who casually live on the outer edge of their own souls until great thunderstorms of sorrow reveal hidden depths within, which were never before known or expected.
     God never uses anyone to a great degree until He breaks the person completely.  Joseph experienced more sorrow than the other sons of Jacob, and it led him into a ministry of food for all the nations.  For this reason, the Holy Spirit said of him, "Joseph is a fruitful vine. . .near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall" (Gen. 49:22).   It takes sorrow to expand and deepen the soul.  from The Heavenly Life

The dark brown soil is turned
By the sharp-pointed plow;
And I've a lesson learned.

My life is but a field,
Stretched out beneath God's sky,
Some harvest rich to yield.

Where grows the golden grain?
Where faith?  Where sympathy?
In a furrow cut by pain.  
  --Maltbie D. Babcock


Every person and every nation must endure lessons in God's school of adversity.  In the same way we say, "Blessed is the night, for it reveals the stars to us," we can say, "Blessed is sorrow, for it reveals God's comfort."  A flood once washed away a poor man's home and mill, taking with it everything he owned in the world.  He stood at the scene of his great loss, brokenhearted and discouraged.  Yet after the waters had subsided, he saw something shining in the riverbanks that the flood had washed bare.  "It looks like gold," he said.  And it was gold.  The storm that had impoverished him made him rich.  So it is oftentimes in life.  Henry Clay Trumbull

I am certainly experiencing great sorrow.  I don't know why God has done this.  It's hard.  It's painful and it's something I do not want to be going through.  I pray and I'm not getting any answers.  But, I am going to keep praying.  As painful as this journey is, I'm going to keep the faith.  I have to.  I can't imagine doing this without faith.  The faith I have is the only thing that keeps me going.  It's because of my faith that I can be so certain of where Chandler is right now.  He's safe, "in the arms of God".  That's where I want to be one day.  I want to be wrapped in the arms of God with Chandler right there beside me.  The storm that is raging around me is unlike anything I've ever experienced.  I can't imagine that this storm can be used for something good.  I don't know what blessing will come.  I may not know it until I reach heaven one day.  That's the hard part:  waiting to find out why it had to be this way, and wondering how long will it be before I can get answers.  Will God give me answers while I'm here on this earth?  Will I have to wait for the answers?  I don't know.  Right now, I just know I have to go a day at a time through this storm, with the faith that I have and with the help of others praying me through each day.