Every spring and every fall we dutifully make the rounds to our clocks and digital devices, putting them first forward an hour and then back in an attempt to make the days “longer”.
As if time was in our hands.
The sun rises and sets according to the Creator’s schedule, we can neither speed the world’s turning, nor slow it down.
We can only choose whether to be present in the moments He grants us.
Read the rest here: Time Change
It took me awhile to “feel” God again after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
I would journal my thoughts/prayers/questions and answer myself with Scripture.
My heart was still so very shattered that the words often slid right off.
Read the rest here: What If There’s Silence From Heaven?
Oh, we mamas are experts at waiting.
We wait for nine months to hold that little person growing inside us. We wait for them to learn to crawl, walk, talk and read. And then we wait to pick them up at school, for piano and dance lessons to be over and ball practice to end.
As long as our children are with us, we are always waiting for something.
We never expect to be waiting to join them in heaven.
But some of us are.
Read the rest here: Waiting With Hope
I want to say up front that I am no theologian.
I am, instead, a sincere follower of the Lord Jesus Christ who reads the Bible and tries hard to understand what it says and let it inform my worldview.
I know I’ve written about this before but it comes up again and again in bereaved parent groups so I’m sharing MY perspective one more time.
Here’s the question:
If God is sovereign (meaning all powerful) then why didn’t He save my child?
Read my answer here: At The Intersection of God’s Sovereignty and Free Will: Accidents and Miracles
I’m not brave by nature.
If I have a choice, I will run every time. But there are just some things worth fighting for.
My family is one of them.
I will not let the enemy have them.
I will not allow despair to overtake us, fear to bind us, hopelessness to sap our strength.
I will not let death win.
Read the rest here: I Will Not Be Moved
Our culture consumes death like candy bars-video games, violent television series and gory movies. Halloween is one of the biggest “holidays” celebrated in America.
We are desensitized to news stories of destruction and devastation because we’ve “seen” it all.
Yet we are a society that shuns mourning.
Read the rest here: Lesson From the House of Mourning
It’s a hard, hard lesson to learn.
It’s even harder to carry it like a precious burden in the bosom of your heart.
Because while it is oh, so true, it does not take away the pain when circumstances just don’t change no matter how hard you pray, how long you endure or how much you wish they would.
God’s ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. He is not required to fit into whatever box I wish to place Him.
Read the rest here: And If Not, He’s Still God.
I’ll be sharing more soon but let’s just say I’ve had more than a few moments in the past couple of weeks when I could have felt abandoned and forgotten.
And if I’m honest, some of the people I thought would be most likely to come alongside have been nowhere to be found.
But God’s Presence has been very real to me even then.
I talk a lot about Jesus as my Shepherd King because it’s one of the most precious images I have of the One who loves me, who saved me and who carries me every day of my life.
The thing about a shepherd is that he never walks away.
He never says, “Oh, well! I’ll just leave that wayward or injured sheep to her fate. I’m tired of looking for her, going after her and tending to her needs.”
Never. Ever.
He is absolutely, positively the God Who Stays.
❤ Melanie
God is the Faithful Father watching and waiting with open arms for the Prodigal to return.
He will weave even the darkest and most tangled threads of my life into a beautiful, redeemed tapestry if I let Him.
He’s the God who stays.
Read the rest here: The God Who Stays
I realize I’m venturing into fuzzy theological territory here but I truly believe that somehow, some way the hard things, the traumatic trials, the heartbreaking tragedies of our lives will be represented in Heaven.
But just like Jesus’ glorified but still scarred hands, they will no longer be ugly, misshapen reminders of pain and defeat; they will be beautiful, glorious testimonies to God’s amazing grace and enduring love.
They will shout “Victory!” over every single thing the enemy thought would defeat us and destroy our faith.
❤ Melanie
Sometimes people ask, “How can you cling to Jesus when He could have saved your son, but didn’t?”
I give the same answer Peter gave, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Read the rest here: There’s Hope in Every Scar
If we can keep the vision of how much mercy has been poured out on our own hearts and in our own lives, it is so much easier to pour it out on others. We don’t have to manufacture it-we only have to be a willing conduit of the mercy already overflowing from God’s heart to our own.
When the deputy delivered the news that Dominic was gone, my heart broke wide open, its contents spilled on the floor.
But I knew it would not remain empty for long.
It would be filled with something.
And I begged God to fill it so full of love, grace and mercy that bitterness, unforgiveness and anger would be squeezed out with no room to stay.
Read the rest here: Mercy
thelifeididntchoose 