Rain Down

I am sitting here listening to the thunder and rain. Today has been one of those 'perspective' days. A lot has been said...a lot of things happened...and I am just sitting here soaking it all in. Trying to make sense of the senseless.



Let me explain.



Three years ago, we had some very dear friends lose their high school sons in a car accident. That was my first real brush with someone else's grief. It was unbearable. It was overwhelming. I had no idea what was to come.



A year later, another dear friend lost her daughter in a car accident. We were in her living room when she and her husband got home from the hospital. She came in and melted on the couch amongst friends. This was my second absolute face to face meeting with someone else's grief. There are not words to describe the emotions I had that day and have had ever since. I changed that morning sitting there with my friend.



Not five months later, I stumbled onto Kyrie's blog. I say stumbled but I mean I was guided there by the hand of God. It took me a couple of days to get through her story. It took me a couple of hours to get myself together after watching her memorial tribute. I will never forget watching it the first time. I dropped my lunch on the floor as it ended. The pain was so real. The hurt was so present...and I didn't even know them. I had no idea at the time that they lived just miles from me. I never knew Kyrie. Until I found the blog, I never knew her parents either. After reading her story, a series of unexplainable events led me to develop a friendship with Kyrie's family and some of the board member for the foundation. I was changed that day and have been different ever since.



All three of these stories...all three of these losses...changed me. I have used the phrase on the outside looking in before. That is how it felt. I felt like I was on the outside of a window into their grief. The kind of grief that takes your breath away. The kind of grief that stops you dead in your tracks. The kind of grief that makes you want to shout WHY GOD, WHY? (Not in comparison to the families grief)



So I asked him...Why would you do this? Why would you take someone's only child? Why would you give NO warning? Where were you when their tears were falling? Where were you when those little hands were in need? AND WHY ARE YOU PUTTING MY HEART IN THE DIRECT VIEW OF THEIR GRIEF? Why me God? What do you want from me?



Trust Daughter...Trust.



A friend asked me today why bad things seem to happen when we get close to God. I told her I thought it was because Satan works even harder to come between us when we are fully loving God. When he feels like that opening for him to come in and ruin our lives is closing...he works hard. He creates problems. He gives us temptations. Then she said...why doesn't God protect us from that? Well dear friend...I asked PR (Pastor Rick) about this is what he said.



"Protection doesn't necessarily mean "free from struggle". But it does mean God will never leave nor forsake. And the crazy thing is that we may give up on God but he never gives up on us."

~Pastor Rick Just



I feel like I was placed in the direct path of those three situations for this reason. To carry a little of their load. By hurting and crying and shouting and asking and crying some more...I carried just a fraction of their grief. I hurt for them. I prayed for them. I still pray for them. And as I said in today's earlier post...I continue tell their story.



Being in this path has made me realize the words to this song are more than true...



Didn't notice you were standing there

Didn't know that that was you holding me

Didn't know that you were crying too

Didn't know that that was you washing my feet...



He is there for all of us all the time. He is there when we think he is not. He is there when we don't want him to be. He is there when hurt. He is there when we cry...when we shout...when we question...and he is crying too. Because He never gives up on us.



Have a blessed day...

Amy