Thirty years later and the guilt eats at me. Whenever my son's suffering
increases I begin battling the same questions...The ones I've asked myself year after endless year.
"Why didn't I pray more?
Why didn't I hear God when I prayed about the vaccines?
Why Britton?
Where is God?
Why didn't God stop me?
Why doesn't He heal him?
Are we being punished?
Does God even love us anymore?
I decided to be transparent about the progression of blame. Because we all do it. We blame ourselves and when that overwhelms, we blame the greed of whoever is next in line (Big Pharm is always a valid choice at my house.) If that doesn't help, we go straight to the top and blame the King of the World. At least that's my progression. You might have a heart white as snow, but me...not so much.
I want to make the choices that are best for my son. But... I fail, again and again. I remind myself that it's most important that I make the choices that are best for my soul. Cause when I get to the end of this life, I pray to have made the choices that God would have me make. That's my goal...my out there, pie in the sky...goal.
"Please God help me make the right choices!" Every day, I ask...
I expect we all pray a similar prayer on a regular basis. Whether it's about autism, seizures, or whatever is happening in your life. Maybe it's about raising a rebellious teenager, or keeping your marriage together, or stressing because there's no way to retire? Taking care of an elderly parent? Maybe it's all of it?
A few Sundays ago, Britton asked me to type during church, and here is what he encouraged me with.
If you a struggling because your life is not what you had always hoped it would be. If you look around and your friends and your neighbors seem so put together and you wonder where you went wrong? Just remember that our God looks on the heart. What he is working on and leading us through is not how to make us more comfortable. It is to create a clean heart, that longs for Him. That's no small task... Psalms 139:23 Search me O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way I should go. Psalm 73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the Rock and firm Strength of my heart and my portion forever. Sometimes I feel paralyzed by the life I've been asked to live. I complain to the God who was beaten and tortured on a cross...for me. I complain "that it's too much to ask of anyone." My face burns with embarrassment and I usually sit in silence, waiting for the lightning to strike. But thank goodness it never comes, because His mercy is so unfathomable...He knows exactly who I am, what I'm capable of, and every single weakness. The thing I find the most interesting about that is...He knows me, but do I know Him? Because no battle, no storm, no situation can take me under if I will remember who my God is. "Waymaker, miracle worker, promise keeper, Light in the darkness, My God. That is who You are!" I make my flesh say it with my mouth, so my HEART can remember not only...WHO GOD IS...but that I am His. When life gets too dark to see. It's the solid when nothing else is. I hold a tight grip on my belief in God's goodness and His love for me. It makes a difference in whether I hold my ground in the storm...or it blows me back, far far back. I wanted to remind you too. That some seasons of life have far more storms, far more battles, and far more confusion than others. Reminding yourself WHO GOD SAYS HE IS...is like lifting a ten-foot sword of light into the darkest situation. That believing God is who He says He is, and that He will do what He says He will do, is the ultimate anchor in any storm. I'm going to leave you with some of the phrases of Who Our God is...reciting them, can clear the darkest sky. It's how I shut down the blame game and remember that I am who HE says I am! I am His...and so are you! God is: Revelation 22:13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” 1 John 4:16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. Luke 18:27But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” Colossians 1:16For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. Deuteronomy 7:9Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, John 3:16“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Zephaniah 3:17The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.  To shop for my book! |
