intimate with grief

      Wasn' t able to post last Wednesday, we lost power for 12 hours due to a really bad storm. I worked  Tuesday and Wednesday in the Neuro ICU. Living the tired and then the complaining came how it's the me who can't sleep with the no air and the 100 degree weather! Had to put my make-up on Wednesday morning by candle light sweating. Felt like I was living "little house on the prairie" for a moment.(lol)
      When the power went out the most violent storm was taking place, it was around 10pm on Tuesday night. I had not been home long. I was on the phone with my brother mumbling how horrible my day was in the ICU when the lightening snapped, crackled and popped and then the phone went dead.   It was then that a weird feeling came over me as I heard the sirens screaming like they were at my front door.   I felt pure fear taking over me. I sat there in the dark thinking, " I don't want to be the me."  The one who begs for the more of Jesus but the one who is the fearful.........of what He might bring my way the next.
      I couldn't see as I reached for my cell phone to use it as a light to find candles etc. I started thinking about all the storms lately that had destroyed people's everything some even taking loved ones lives.
       I was quickly distracted by the increasing loudness of the sirens that did not stop. The storm continued to almost gain momentum and the thought crossed my mind if we needed to get the kids and run.
     I had a very subtle urge to stop and pray for the one who the sirens screamed loudly for. I quickly mumbled out a simple little prayer and missed the nudging of the "Holy Spirit," to bend the knees low.
      It is always such a faint little nudge, how easily it's the me that switch's the thoughts right back to my world.
     I sit late into the night with the flicker of candle light. The kids cry and say they are the scared. Maybe it's the all of us that is afraid of the what the Saviour might bring the next! Maybe it's us the adults and children alike afraid to trust..........trust the WILL of God?  I sit and I think about all of my short comings and how  ugly my sins are. How it was the me that changed my assignment before I left the work tuesday.  Knowing that I could not handle the mother of the dying child one more day! I murmur a quiet little prayer asking for the forgiveness one more time. Yes His words are written on my heart.....so why is it that I am the afraid?
     Maybe it's simply my unbelief........."I believe"....................oh God please help me with my UN-belief!

             It wasn't until the next day that I learned how the sirens were only a few feet away at a church......the kind where the youth were staying for a week to do community service....It was the storm that knocked the power out for hours and the darkness that came that the no-one could possibly see in the storm...... the teens who laid on the concrete in front of the church to watch and feel the rain fall on their face. The dad with the three boys the one who volunteers....the people who refer to him as "salt," (the most amazing man of Christ that loved working with these teens), who took his time off to be a counselor for a week....who was trying to round them up to come inside from the storm where it was the safe...who didn't see the teens that laid...........the others who jumped up the fast when they saw the lights from the ATV but the one who stayed.....where is God ? Where is HE?
       The families that will never be the same.
      A 15 year boy who had spent his last hours volunteering at one of Charlotte's low in-come neighborhoods.......a (volunteer-counselor) only 43 who is a parent himself and a lover of Jesus! Why?  I scream out!  But who am I?  The one who craves the easy who lives in my me-ism little life. Knowing that we all have dreams........."dreams for our children."
        What are our prayers for our children? What are our dreams for our children living in a dying world that is the uncertain? Never questioning their safety as we send them off to do good church activities.

     Like a crown of thorns that is etched in our minds.
God is here.........dwelling among us even in all our pain...understanding that it is the us who are not the acquainted with grief.  As Oswald Chambers said:  (We are not the "acquainted with grief," in the same way our LORD is. We may live through it, we may have to endure it.....but we have yet to become intimate with it.

We try and look at grief through the lens of reason......forgetting so quickly that we are living in a fallen world! And SIN being what nailed our PRINCE to the cross that day............our sins! It is sin that can destroy the Jesus in us.......unless we are dying daily for Him.

I see the cross and it reminds me it was Him who sweated blood............. And it is US who approaches the cross day after day the unworthy! We try so desperately to grab on to even a piece of His cloak and hang on long enough while we beg for HIS blood to cover our very me-ism sins. He allows the dying of us and the rising with HIM.......He holds on tight to us as we fight to get out of His grip. Knowing that we have to surrender every single day of our lives to die with Him daily...to walk even in our fear. Although the world keeps turning and His people keep aching we must have the courage to stand up and say "not my will father but your will."  And hold on to Him even tighter letting His blood cover us removing our "ugly sins," until that day where we will be with Him in the forever!

He is a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.......(Isaiah 5:3-3)

all of grace,
Robbie