my mom
recently sent me a book by ann voskamp (whose name i had never before heard
of), and i've just started reading it. i have lived by a certain [non-novel]
book philosophy for the past ten years or so, and it's this: when someone gives
me a book, i don't always start reading it directly. i pray that the Holy
Spirit will speak to my heart and lead me to read a certain book at a time when
that particular book will help me most. and he does.
one thousand gifts: a dare to live fully right where you are has been first on the coffee table and then on my bedside table for the
past week or so, but i didn't pick it up with the feeling that my heart was
ready for it until the other evening. and i was met with the most beautifully
refreshing honesty in the first chapter that, although it talked about great
grief, left a smile on my lips. anyone who knows me well knows that i never
sugar-coat anything, have trouble with people who do, and that i crave and
thrive off raw, bare honesty and realness. this way of thinking and living
often leaves me with disapproving looks and awkward moments of silence in this
swedish
we're-all-about-individualism-and-everyone-stands-alone-but-we're-really-scared-to-death-to-say-what-we-really-think-and-believe-because-then-we-might-not-fit-in
culture. but i don't care. boat-rocking seems to have become part of who
i am, and i'm quite okay with that.
digression aside,
ann voskamp's words of refreshing honesty resonated with me from page one, and
i look forward to blogging about my own thoughts and feelings that are stirred
up as i journey through this book.
on many occasions
already since levi's death, i have been asked how i can continue to praise,
thank, and worship a God who could allow my precious little baby to die, a God
who can allow suffering in general. and even long before levi's name was ever
on my lips, i'd conversed with non-believing friends regarding their
"inability" or unwillingness to commit their lives to a God who
doesn't stop children from dying and who allows world catastrophies to occur
and evil to seemingly prevail. i'm sure you've been on either one or both sides of
such a discussion at some point in your own life as well.
and as legitimate
and discussion-worthy the questions posed by my friends are, i cannot, by any
means, presume to answer them all. throughout my life, though, and especially
now as we live in the shadows of the terrible loss of our little levi, one
question continually comes to mind, and ann voskamp so eloquently puts words to
it:
Can there be a good God? A
God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights, and
bugs burrow through coffins? Where is God, really? How can He be good when babies die,
and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? Where is grace
bestowed when cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless places in us
soundlessly die, break off without reason, erode away. Where hides this joy of
the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully
live when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty
and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed
dreams and all that empties me out?
or personally,
why did God allow our levi to die while he allows crack mommies on the street
corner give birth to babies who will die from neglect or be traded around to
different orphanages all of their lives? no, i have asked that question and
many others like it, mind you, amidst moments filled with anger, ear-piercing
screams, and gut-wrenching sobs. but, no, that's not {really} my question. the
question i constantly return to is this: who
are you (speaking to myself)? who are you to think that you know
better, to think that you are smarter, wiser, better than God, to think that
you deserve more or better than what you've received? who are you?
i know that such
thinking goes against everything our selfish, self-absorbed, "gimme,
gimme, gimme"--yes, i was taken to the new ABBA museum here in stockholm
last weekend--western world way of thinking and living tells us, but it should.
no one, in all honesty, feels good living from a philosophy that the world or
God owes them something. but satan tries oh so hard to get us stuck in that way
of thinking, to twist the truth around so that we focus on what we
"should" have, what we've been "denied" instead of how
blessed we truly are. ann writes:
From all of our beginnings, we keep
reliving the Garden story.
Satan, he wanted more. More power, more
glory.
Ultimately, in his essence, Satan is an
ingrate. And he sinks his venom into the heart of Eden. Satan's sin becomes the
first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply,
painfully, ungrateful for what God gave.
Isn't that the catalyst of all my sins?
Our fall was, has always been, and always
will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for
something more, something other.
Standing before that tree, laden with
fruit withheld, we listen to Evil's murmur, 'In the day you eat from it your
eyes will be opened...' (Genesis 3:5 NASB). But in the beginning, our eyes were
already open. Our sight was perfect. Our vision let us see a world spilling
with goodness. Our eyes fell on nothing but the glory of God. We saw God as He
truly is: good. But we were lured by the deception that there was more to a
full life, more to see. And, true, there was more to see: the ugliness we
hadn't beheld, the sinfulness we hadn't witnessed, the loss we hadn't
known.
We eat. And in an instant, we are blind.
No longer do we see God as one we can trust. No longer do we perceive Him as
wholly good...
We eat. And in an instant, we see.
Everywhere we look, we see a world of lack, a universe of loss, a cosmos of
scarcity and injustice...
...Do we ever think of this busted-up
place as the result of us ingrates, unsatisfied, we who punctured it all with a
bite? The fruit's poison has infected the whole of humanity. Me. I say no to
what He's given. I thirst for some roborant, some elixir, to relieve the
anguish of what I've believed: God isn't good. God doesn't love me.
oh how sneaky
satan is with his lies and twists of truth and reality! but back to my
question: who am i to want more, better, different? i am not God. i do not know
better than he does. i do not see the big picture. i am not in control, and i
certainly do not deserve a baby or a nice flat or quality, organic food on my
table. i don't even deserve to be happy.
BUT, and it is an
all-caps, life-changing "but," i must choose to see things as they were meant to
be, in the garden. i choose to believe that God loves me and calls me his
friend (i.e. jeremiah 31.3, john 15.15), that his ways and plans are
different/better/higher than mine (isaiah 55.8-9), that he does see the big
picture because he created the world (i.e. isaiah 46.10, ephesians 2.10), that
he IS in control (i.e. romans 13.1; psalm 22.28), and that every good thing i
receive from him is a blessing (james 1.17).
does that future
include siblings for levi? yes, i believe it does. does it make the thoughts of
trying again less scary? no. but in these truths, in my faith, i choose to
believe that my God is a GOOD God who cries with me and blesses me abundantly.
and so i, like job, can say with great hope, a good dose of pain, and a little
humility, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" job 13.15.
**books have been
a fantastic blessing that have helped us grieve the loss of baby levi. i'm
working on an extensive blog about ways you can help others grieve, and these
precious gifts will definitely be on my list. stay tuned!**
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