Today, I don't know how to feel. I haven't cried. Actually I feel kind of numb - like it hasn't really set in yet, or maybe it is God's peace. I ask God, why?! Where are You? Why won't you fight for us, for my son? What I hear back (even through my husband) is - -
HOPE!
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God!”
Hope is a word I've had to think about and pray about a lot in the last 5 years. Without hope we would have no power to absorb the wrong done to our son, to believe that God will take care of our needs as we deplete ourselves in the endless fight,or to
keep walking in forgiveness andi n love (a constant struggle.)
I picked up my daddy's old leather King James Bible this afternoon - the one that's chocked full of his hand-written notes from sermons he preached, and his personal Bible study. I read every single verse in the Bible - OT and NT - with the word "hope" in it.
I think that's over 100 verses.
A thought occurred to me. Ordinarily, when we express the concept of hope, in the worldly sense, we are expressing uncertainty. For instance, we hope that we get to a meeting on time. We hope that we don't need a root canal. We hope our team will win. But that's not the biblical meaning of hope. Biblical hope is a "confident expectation and desire for something good in the future. And that kind of hope has nothing to do with logic, or odds, or human effort, or any kind of science. That kind of hope is beyond the purview of lawyers and judges. The Bible says "HOPE IN GOD!" - not "cross your fingers."
So we have to keep on hoping because our hope is not in ourselves, a lawyer, the CA Judiciary, The Supreme Court, or any other earthly construct. In God alone have we put our trust. I never knew what that meant before this. I read Psalm 118:8 yesterday afternoon. My daddy has it underlined in his big leather Bible. "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans." AMEN!
Listen to this from Psalm 118 in The Message - I was praying this outloud yesterday.
Pushed to the wall, I called to God; from the wide open spaces, he answered.
God’s now at my side and I’m not afraid; who would dare lay a hand on me [or my family]?
God’s my strong champion;
I flick off my enemies like flies.
Far better to take refuge in God
than trust in people [judicial system, judges, lawyers...] ;
Far better to take refuge in God than trust in celebrities.
Hemmed in by barbarians, in God’s name I rubbed their faces in the dirt
(GREAT VISUAL!);
Hemmed in and with no way out,
Like swarming bees, like wild prairie fire, they hemmed me [us] in; in God’s name I rubbed their faces in the dirt.
We were right on the cliff-edge, ready to fall, when God grabbed and held us. God’s my strength, he’s also my song, and now he’s my salvation.
Hear the shouts, hear the triumph songs in the camp of the saved?
“The hand of God has turned the tide!
The hand of God is raised in victory!
The hand of God has turned the tide!”
Sometimes in this process I've imagined that if we just hoped hard enough, or if we got lots of people to join us and we all hoped together, that hope would sprinkle its magic pixie-dust on our lives, and what we hope for will somehow just 'become' real.
But hoping in hope itself is like having faith in faith; it is a circle that goes nowhere and ultimately does nothing.
This life is hard - it's a battle (something most of us have learned the hard way.) We get tired. We do get discouraged for a time. We become anxious. We have sleepless nights. We never blamed God. We have never lost faith or hope in God. Neither has Sean. I do ask and beg - WHY? WHEN? WHAT? HOW? And He answers, "I am close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in spirit." We still chose to believe His Word. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;"
So now what? We aren't sure yet. But we are sure of this. We can endure because He’s close. We can move forward because He keeps us from crushing into despair. And we wait in anticipation because He understands our broken hearts. Dwight has spent a lot of time studying the beatitudes. Blessed are the brokenhearted, for they shall be comforted. He's comforting us. I feel that.
I still don't know why. I still don't know how. I still don't know when. If God's ways were so easily understood that I could reconcile them in my mind, I guess I'd be Him. It is simply beyond my capacity to fathom how the horrible events of the last 5 years is a step toward the fulfillment of God's divine plan. It makes no sense to me... because I'm not him.
But I know He is Lord of my life, of Dwight's life, and of Sean's life, so we must and do chose to trust him. The song I sang last week, He Hideth My Soul in the Cleft of the Rock, is referencing verses in Exodus. Moses asked God to let him see His glory. He was saying, as are we, as do any of us who trust him, how can a good God do unexplainable things. How can it be that You, the Master of the universe, King of Kings, can cause or allow pain and difficulty in the lives of Your creations? And he says, No, I cannot explain to you why people suffer, you are too human to understand. However, everyone has the ability to experience My back, the retrospect of my glory. After I have passed by you, you will appreciate the glimmer of goodness in what I did. You may still question my ways; since you are not Me, you can't fully understand. However, you'll find comfort in the knowledge that I am a loving Master and parent and I know what I am doing. Retrospectively, you will appreciate what transpired, enough to feel that there was some gain, growth, and value in the devastation.
I've told many that good has also, inexplicably, come from the horror of the last five years. I won't testify here as to what that good has been, but it has been the case and I believe we will continue to reap good out of this whirlwind going forward. I don't know what or how, but I do know God loves us, he's for us and not against us. Anyone who has or is surviving tragedy and despair in their lives, and has faith in the Father, will probably tell you, as do I, that while it is unbelievably difficult it is also a growing experience. I think we become better people for it and that our faith is stronger as a result of it - I hope so. Other problems in this life are now put into the perspective of the greater picture and maybe now we can handle more, certainly more than I ever in my wildest imagining thought we'd have to deal with. Losing is so wearying. I don't know what will happen in the future. We aren't even sure yet how to proceed. I don't know if our son will ever be free, or in prison the majority of the rest of his life. I can't look on God's glory or know His plan. He just puts us in the cleft of the Rock and covers us with his hand as He walks by in our lives, and someday, in retrospect I pray we can accept what happened and know "all" things are working together for our good because we love our Lord.
We're staying in the cleft.
