Time to write

It has been a very long time since I have written. A very long time. I have been waiting to write. I have been waiting to have something to write. I have been putting other topics to the side until I could conquer the one topic I needed to write about.


It's time to write.

You may remember the special blog I wrote imploring you to pray for my dear friend, Lynne, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So many of you responded and so many of you prayed and I never wrote another thing.

In Early December of 2008, Lynne's conditioned worsened. The chemotherapy was not working.


On March 1st I recieved a call from Lynne's home. I was expecting a call would be coming soon but the one I recieved was not that call. This call was never expected. You see, that very night Lynne's youngest son Caleb was killed in a car accident. The family that I love, the woman whom I loved, the woman who was struggling with the reality of leaving her family, of dying and leaving them without a mom, lost her baby boy, her youngest son while she herself was fighting for life and losing.

My dear friend died two weeks to the day later. Her sons and her husband, in two weeks time, were forced to stand at two caskets, recieve two sets of sympathy cards. These people who serve God with all they are literally had to walk over their youngest brother's grave to bury their mother next to him.

So here I am, writing for the first time since last March.
I haven't written on purpose. I have been waiting .
In honesty, I have been waiting for the whole "all things work together for good" promise to shell out. I have been waiting for the beauty from ashes angle, for some great wondrous thing to have occurred so I can write to you and tell you there was a point for the loss, that my dear friend died but look at the beautiful thing God did through it.
Well, it has been months and months and I have nothing to report. Yes, good things have happened. People have learned more about Christ, several have even come to know Him. These are good things, great things, eternal things, but in my humanness, in my littleness I would trade them all to hug my friend, my friend who is buried less than half a mile from my home, my friend whose body is in the ground next to that of her son who had only begun to experience life.

So here I sit, with no answer to the Christianese "I have a plan for you" equation. I can't get my brain to put and equal sign between the pain on one side and the silver lining on the other.


So now what? My experience tells me God shut his eyes for those two weeks in March, but my experience is not where I put my trust. My emotion tells me his ears were closed, but my emotion is not where I put my trust.


Friends, the only thing I can come up with is "God is still God." I have no clue how this will all be redeemed but God is still God. He makes no sense to me, but He is my God.


I was with Lynne's husband the night she died, I sat silently in true awe as he worshipped His Savior in song and thanksgiving. He worshipped as his wife died. His anchor held. God is still God.


I listened as her oldest son Josh spoke at his little brother's funeral, actually spoke and gave a message of hope in the very moment that simply breathing must have hurt. His anchor held. God is still God.


I miss my friend in a way that has changed me, but God is still God. His eyes were not closed. His ears were not deadened. He is still God.


So there it is, the only answer I can come up with. Even as I wrote that I sort of chuckled realizing that it's pretty much a non-answer, but I'm sticking with it.


To illustrate that God is still God I am including a link to a blog that my good friend Josh, Lynne's son, has written. It is about suffering. Click on it here http://www.joshuaott.blogspot.com/and as you read it, remember that you are reading the words of someone who deserves to be listened to. Someone who is not just theorizing about suffering, but someone who has deeply suffered. As you read it, and perhaps read more of his blogs, notice that he who has lost so much still worships and clings to the Almighty. He does this not because he himself is strong and faithful, He does it because God is still God.