when it isn't natural

I’ve been living in this weird place lately, where I think of my friend Dennis and grieve his death and am hurt and angry and lost in the corners of my mind, but then the next minute I’m back in my life full of dogs and adoption and my husband and shrubs to plant. The busy-ness of the day to day often take me out of the sadness, but I know, for Crystal, she is there always, minute by minute. I visited her today, and we had a good laugh, in between some very serious moments. The life God gives us is like a kaleidoscope, ever turning. If we are smart, we point it toward him, the light, and see the beauty in all of it, but many times we look down and miss so much of what he has to offer.

I’ve made it a point recently to look up, worship him in my sadness, praise him for the life I have, and focus on his presence and peace. I haven't always been so dedicated in my devotions or prayer life, but for the past few months, I've kept a prayer journal. It helps me remember what the prayer needs are around me. You know, we do this thing, and I'm guilty of it too, where we say, "I'm praying for you," and then we promptly forget about it. Or we say, "You're in my thoughts and prayers." And though many of you are strangers and you wouldn't know if I was or wasn't praying for you, I feel as though I shouldn't say it if I'm not going to do it. Thus, began the prayer journal. If I say I'm praying for you, then I have written it down in my journal to remember.

Many of my prayers lately have been focused around Crystal and her daughters. Any woman who loses her husband is certainly to be showed sympathy, but we are only in our 30s, and she has young kids, and that makes it more difficult. They don't understand his death. Heck, we adults don't understand his death, completely. I don't think I shared before that Dennis took his own life. It's scary to type out here...in black and white for people to see. There must have been pain and fear and a feeling of overwhelming confusion for him to carry it out, and we don't understand it all.

I can't wrap my mind around it.

But I know God will bring us through it.

I'm giving all my sadness to him, all my hurt and grief and confusion. I'm praising him and his will and trusting that he has the plan. I don't understand why an adoption hasn't worked out for us yet. I don't understand why Crystal is left lonely. And I'm not meant to understand right now. I'm meant to trust and worship and give him my faith.

It isn't easy. The tears still come. The selfishness comes out. I want, I need, I can't have.

Little by little, he's working in me, and on me. I trust that we will know his purpose. I trust that I will be a mother. I trust that Crystal will be taken care of in this life, and Dennis in the next. I am working in worship, prayer and clinging to the Jesus who has given himself as my savior. In the past month, he has drawn me to him, with ever so subtle tethers. Little by little.

Dealing with things that aren't natural go against the grain of who we are as people. It would be natural for me to get pregnant and have children, but my children will come in what some might consider an un-natural way. It would be natural for Dennis to grow old with his wife and children, but it is not to be. When life isn't linear, we struggle.

Thank God, he is the one that is SUPERnatural. Beyond what we can comprehend, understand, compute, relate to or explain. I can take a breath, let him flow in and fill me.

I can look up, let the kaleidoscope turn, and know the beauty of his love. And I hope you can too.