It is well (It is well)

So much has transpired in the past week I’m not even sure what to write.  Perhaps now is the time to explain why I write.  

I have been criticized as of late for not talking about what I’m feeling but blogging about it.  That it has annoyed some friends and loved ones to read about my life on the computer rather than to hear from me on the phone.  

In the immortal words of DJ Kool, let me clear my throat.  

A.  I detest talking on the phone.  For reals.

B.  The written word is how I figure out what I’m feeling.  It just is.  If you want me to talk to you, you will get a hodge podge of verbage that really doesn’t tell you anything other than I may be crazy.  You would think that my knowledge of my inability to say the correct thing would prohibit me from talking a lot.  

You would be wrong.  

So I say a lot of stupid stuff.  I’m a dreadful person with whom to argue.  I think fast and don’t fight fair.  You know how you think of zingers ten minutes after the fact?  I think of them on the spot and because I’m pretty observant as well, my zingers can sting.  I’m a real peach to be married to. 

Let’s say you sent an email saying “Hey, I don’t think we will be able to come over tomorrow for a playdate.”  I would probably reply, “OK. Cool. No worries.  Check you on the flip side.”  If you were to call me, there is a high probability that I’d say, “Well, fine.  I really didn’t want to have to deal with your bratty kid anyway and your face is ugly.”  (OK, that was me using hyperbole.  I probably wouldn’t call your kid bratty.)  

There has really only been one time in my life that someone has angered me so much as to render me speechless.  And that was a very.good.thing because I probably would’ve said things that would have irrevocably broken that relationship.  

C.  Ernest Hemingway said, “The writer must write what he has to say.  Not speak it.”  By writing out my grief, my frustration, my passion, it gives it a sense of weight.  And then I can just move on.  Really.  Once I’ve written about something, I’m sort of done with it and don’t even want to talk about it too much.  

I really don’t like to talk about my flair.

And as of late, my flair has been particularly heavy.  

Friday was hard.  I saw J’s face every time I shut my eyes.  As I was on the elliptical, I cranked up the resistance and ramp to as high as they would go.  It was almost as if I was trying to feel the difficulty J feels when moving his legs (J has mild cerebral palsy).  I spent close to 10 hours on the elliptical last week.  I lost 4 pounds because that is what happens when you live off protein shakes, cheese sticks, and do the elliptical for an hour and a half each day.  

I kept replaying the past six months in my mind, trying to figure out just where Sloan and I zigged when God zagged.  

Sloan kept telling me it was all part of the same journey.  That we hadn’t made a mistake.  And it was like I couldn’t hear him.  We argued.  We shifted blame.  We pointed fingers.  We cried.  We let the kids watch a lot of TV.

I was in a fog.  I went to the grocery store and forgot half of my list but did return home with a semi-automatic Super Soaker and a Slip and Slide.  We ate cold cuts or take out all week.  Because you can’t eat a Slip and Slide.  

It wasn’t so much the grief that overwhelmed me.  Having lost a placement before, I knew that the grief would be like the tides, rising and falling.  You know, as the hymn says, when sorrows like sea billows roll.  This side of heaven, I’ll never be okay with this.  There will always be a piece of my heart in China.  I will always long for J.  Just as I long for Emma.  

What was and is completely foreign to me was this doubt.  This mistrust of myself and of God.  Was I not praying the right prayers?  Did God try to tell me to go to the Congo but all I heard was Chinese baby?  Did I not listen to my husband?  Did I rush things too much?  How much was this going to cost my family?  Was everyone sitting around laughing at me because we obviously didn't know God's will from a hole in the ground?

But then my friend reminded me that I was misjudging God’s character.  Jesus is not a god who looks back.  So I’ve been repenting.  A lot.  For thinking that God judged me as a puppy who messed on the floor and his plans were to rub my nose in it.  He loves me so dearly that even my thinking that of him grieves Him.  As we prayed over this new direction, I kept thinking, “What if we are wrong again?  What if I think I’m following Jesus but really I am chasing my own tail?”  

I've never really been afraid before.  I do not like it.  I would prefer to not feel this emotion ever again.  If you can figure out a way to make that happen, let me know.  

But God is far more apt to redeem my mistakes than I am to make wise decisions.  So there is freedom to step out in faith and trust that even if I misstep, Jesus will not let me fall.  He will still hold me and guide me.  Even though it is common to say “I’ve found Jesus!  So and so led me to Jesus!”  Let me state this unequivocally:  Jesus is not the one lost.  He is not hiding out in the best hiding spot, giggling, as he imagines us all with our compasses and Camelbak water bottles, fumbling around, calling out his name only to hear echos in the canyon.  

False.  

Yes; we are fumbling around in the desert.  But He is stalking us.  There’s and old poem by Francis Thompson that describes God as the “hound of heaven” and I think that is about right.  

So I am granting myself some grace.  Moreover, I am repenting of my believing that loving J was a mistake.  I can guarantee that I would not have an ache in my heart for special needs kids like I do had it not been for a particular boy with a pointy nose and chapped cheeks.  Jesus used him to change me.   This hurt, this loss, has not been without my heart becoming more aligned with His.  So I will rejoice in this loss.  

I will sing that yes, it IS well with my soul.  We sang it in church on Sunday and my body shook in joyful tears, snuggling my Gracie as I sung, 

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.