No Such Thing As A Quick Fix..

Happy New Year!!

Whether 2017 was full of joy, regret, hardships, new beginnings, loss, or a combination  …We turn the page.  For some, we can hardly wait for the thrill of what lies ahead!!  While others are just thinking we’ve  barely made it through..and now to do it all over again..another 12 months.

For me… as time marches on, I want something.  In the depths of my soul I long for healing and happiness.  I want the phrase ” time heals” to be true.  I desperately want to hurt less.  I want my brokenness to be less broken.  So with every year that passes, I “hope”.

As our family faced the 4th holiday season without Warren…I’m going to be honest and tell you, it didn’t hurt less.  My broken heart is still as broken.  I missed Warren every bit as much this year as I did that first Christmas he was in Heaven.

I’m pretty sure I had hoped it would be easier…but let’s face it, that’s crazy really.  Easier just isn’t a word I would use to describe life without our first born.  I recently read a quote from a mom whose child died in the Sandy Hook school shooting 5 years ago…she says “Every day it gets harder….because every day I remember something else I miss about him.”

The truth about that statement has stuck with me…   You see, it’s not like enough time will pass and we can put this all behind us.  We will forever miss the way things used to be and wish for how they should be.

In this life, I will not be “fixed”.  I will not be “all better”…I will always have this longing to be released from the sorrow and sufferings of this world. (Romans 8:18-23)

I believe as I step into twenty-eighteen the Lord is reminding me-“I have your heart, your hurt, your broken places..and One Day,  there will be no more tears, no more death, or sorrow or crying or pain…One Day!(Rev. 21:4)

As for today, the suffering and the sorrow that are your companions will be the reminder that you need more than “fixing”…you need a Savior.”

As I lean in, give up the idea that somehow I deserve an easy life,  surrender my ways to Him..Create space for more of the Holy Spirit (which means some things need to go!) I find myself realizing, maybe being “fixed” isn’t what I want…Jesus is is what I want..and more importantly what I need…more than anything!

For those of us in this time of waiting, like Mary and Martha waiting for Jesus to heal their brother Lazarus, the long dark Saturday before the glorious resurrection, the time of uncertainty, no clear direction, no answers, no financial breakthroughs, no healing…Maybe we keep believing.  We keep looking for the glimpses of glory Jesus promises if we just believe (John 11:40)

We hold on with everything we’ve got and we exercise the strength we’ve been given & RISE UP!  “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”(Esther 4:14)

For so many, our circumstances will never change.  For me, Warren will never walk back into our lives this side of Heaven…but even if he did, after the miracle and the celebration of his return, I can assure you there would be something else..more pain, more suffering, more injustice that would keep making our lives less than perfect…so the answer to my brokenness isn’t a quick fix- It’s Jesus

The answer again this year, last year and forever is Just Jesus !

So, yes, I have a longing deep in my soul… I guess we all do, for something. And as much as I want Warren back, as amazing as it would be to feel the relief of no more pain, I am trusting that rather than being “fixed”, or life becoming “easier”, He is changing me and deepening my understanding of Gods sovereign character and increasing the depth of my faith.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength, he makes my feet like the deer’s, he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:17-19