There are days that I think I am good. I am ready to accept that God chose to heal my Daddy and Sister-in-Law fully in and for all eternity and I know, that I know, that I know that they are with our Lord and I am going to smile in my heart and once again lift my face to my Heavenly Father in reckless abandon with arms outstretched and I am going to show the world my faith through my ability to not be rocked by their absence in our life… but then something happens and the pain hits like a brick in my chest.

I miss them.

I never saw my Daddy that I did not hug him. I miss his hugs. I miss feeling him hold me tight while having my head buried in his arms and hearing him talk and laugh through his chest. His words came from his heart always.

This morning I got up after a sleepless night and walked downstairs to the coffee pot and flipped my little Scripture calendar while I waited for my cup to fill and that’s when I did it. I read the verse of the day and then I called God a liar.

The verse:

I, the Lord, am your healer.

Exodus 15:26

I grabbed my cup and like a stubborn child I muttered, “I’m not saying I’m sorry” even though I knew I was… and then immediately the Holy Spirit said to me… “it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18)”

I found a book by Charles Stanley in my pool bag that my Daddy had given me to read after he had finished it. He began reading it during his chemo treatments. As I picked it up to read as I waited in the doctors office for tests I read,

“You may have spent the last year wondering  if you will ever  be able to live a normal  life again. The answer is yes and also no. If we allow God to carry us through times of adversity, we will be changed in ways we never thought possible. A new depth and dimension will be added to our lives. What we once viewed as being normal will be replaced by something that bears a greater value because it comes to us in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. This changes us and makes us more sensitive to God and to those around us who are hurting… While it is hard to leave the memory of a loved one behind, we realize that life is worth living, and we must live so that Christ can live through us. 

No one who has ever loved deeply and then lost that love wants to move on immediately.  But in time, and with God’s help, that person understands that God’s plan for his or her life is not over; it is just taking a different path than the one he or she thought would be traveled. When we realize that God is healing and restoring our hearts, we want to move on and even farther than we have gone before.

There is no need to doubt the goodness of God. He is ever faithful, and we can trust Him…”

Sometimes I just want God to let me throw a tantrum, but He just simply won’t. He keeps supplying my every need… even when that need is my sanity or a gentle rebuke that He is NOT a liar. I know He is not. I know. He knows that I know. He also knows I am hurting. I am thankful that the GOD who lovingly handled the accusations from frustrations of Elijah and Job also lovingly handles mine.

As I was cleaning out my office last week I came across my journal that I filled with the account of my trip to the concentration camps in Poland. In 2006 I spent a week with men and women who had been prisoners in Auschwitz, Majdanek, and others.  I spent a week with a man who had watched his father, mother, and sister be turned to a gas chamber while he and his brother were turned to work. I couldn’t feel so sorry for myself after re-reading the account of this experience.

This life is hard. This world is dying. Sin is having its effect. If not for the grace and mercy of God restraining the evil that He does we would all be destroyed. And we wouldn’t need His wrath to do it. Our own choices and being the victims of others choices would be completely sufficient for cataclysmic world decimation.

In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

That statement of fact from the mouth of our Lord and Savior is just as true today as it was two thousand years ago.

You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father…

John 14:28

These were the words that my Jesus spoke to His disciples right before he would suffer death… and I know that one day God will heal my heart and I will be able rest in the rejoicing because I know that my Daddy and Phillis have gone to the Father and because I love my Jesus, my Heavenly Father, my Daddy and Phillis… I WILL ONE DAY ONCE AGAIN really rejoice.

I have faith that it will come.

My God IS NOT a liar.

A believers grief is a funny thing… joy and sadness all at the same time. This afternoon as I sat outside for a few minutes before I began supper I decided to have another cup of coffee as I read through my Sunday school lesson… this is where the Lord met me once again,

“If we do not grieve when tragedy comes, we become less like God.
Grief is not sin. It is not wrong to feel pain, and it is not wrong to feel grief when we experience pain.

When grief pressed Job to the ground he turned the ground into a shrine and worshiped there. When tragedy strikes us, we can turn our circumstances into a shrine and worship God in them. We can make a shrine in the depths of our darkness and worship God there. We can fall on our faces in submission and adoration. We can adore Him wherever we are and in whatever emotional state we find ourselves. That is the lesson we learn from Job in this scene (Job 1:20-22).

When our hearts are pressed down, we can cry out to God in our pain and He will hear us.

Job 1:21 is one of the most meaningful expressions found anywhere in literature. Spoken from the depths of a broken heart, it reveals one man’s ready acceptance of the will of God.”
~ James T Draper Jr

No. He simply will not ever leave us and He simply will not ever forsake us… even when we call Him a liar.

His love is loyal.

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