As JP and I have made our way together down this journey to
have a family, I have come to conclude some things about life and its
unexpected twists and turns. One thing I
have come to know for sure is that sometimes bad things happen to good people,
period. We, as humans, try to justify
and rationalize every little thing that comes our way, from finances to career
moves, losing loved ones or in our case, trying to have a family. I am a thinker, in fact, I am an “over
thinker”. I go over and over conversations,
situations and motives in my mind to the point of exhaustion. I even over analyze potential circumstances
so that I am prepared, “just in case”.
I have tried to figure out why something is or has happened so much that
I don’t sleep. As humans, our attempt to
analyze the “why” of a situation is our feeble need to be assured that we are
not being punished for something we have done in our past. We have been taught from an early age that if
you are good, you are rewarded and if you are bad, you are punished. The extension of that thinking is that we all
believe that when something bad does happen to us, it must be a direct result
of something we did and are being punished.
This is simply not true!
I read a great book this summer that put this entire line of
thinking into perspective for me. The
god that I believe in does not sit arbitrarily on a majestic throne with a
sparkling scepter waiting to decide who to bless and who to punish. There are plenty of people who are considerably
more faithful than I who have experienced life changing devastation as a result
of unanswered prayers. To that end,
there are also people in this world who I believe are far more wicked than
myself and they have experienced the joy of an answered prayer, only to go on
living their lives as before. Your level
of righteousness is not in direct proportion to whether or not God chooses to
answers your prayers. The fact of the
matter is that in most situations, there are others involved who choose not to
do what they should and that affects our lives negatively. For instance, the young mother killed by a
drunk driver was not being punished, neither was her family. Instead, someone made a choice to drink and
drive and as a result, an entire family had to suffer the consequences. Our lives are affected so greatly by the
choices of others, both in a positive and negative manner. God specifically created us with the ability
to make our own choices, good and bad.
We have moral freedom.
We can choose to be kind or selfish, caring or hurtful, honest or
dishonest. If we choose to behave in a
way that we know is morally wrong, God is not going to stop us. God created us with our own free will, to do
with our lives as we please. When we are
living our lives seeking after God’s own heart, we strive to make the good
choices, being kind, caring and honest with others. God will not stop you from hurting others or
making choices that hurt yourself. He has
told us that certain things are wrong and we will suffer consequences from
making such decisions. We can either
take His word for it or learn the lesson afterward.
I’m not here to say that God does not perform miracles,
because I can think of 4 people right off the top of my head, who by all
accounts should not be alive today. What
I am saying is that when we don’t have our prayer answered that we are
desperately pleading God for, it has nothing to do with our faithfulness to
him. We can not think that, period. It is purely self-destructive and absolutely
wrong. When things happen to us, when
tragedies come our way, it is so hard not to ask why. We will never be able to give meaning to the
senseless and horrible things that happen to us. What we can do, after we have allowed our
hearts and minds ample time to process the situation and grieve, is ask
ourselves what we are going to do about the difficult circumstances we are
facing. We can either let it define us
or just be a part of our story.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I have spent a lot of time
being angry and even more time being sad.
God doesn’t expect us NOT to deal with the problems we face. He made us with these powerful and sometimes
overwhelming emotions. Nothing that we
feel is new to God and I am certain that he can handle all of the emotions we
experience, especially anger. Our chaplain
from California told us that a healthy relationship, whether with another
person or with God, is one in which you are comfortable and free to express all
of your emotions, even anger without retaliation. God works the same way. If you are angry at him because of something that
you have endured, tell Him, He’s big enough to handle anything you throw at him. We were never promised a life free of pain
but we were promised that we would be given strength and courage to deal with
the pain.
Another thing I have come to further understand is that those
who love you are also hurt by the things that break you. I don’t want to say that I enjoy seeing our
friends and family in pain but it has brought comfort to my broken heart to see
that our friends and family are hurt by our suffering. While others are hurting for us and with us,
we are able to get a small glimpse of how much we mean to everyone which shows
us that we are not alone. To be prayed
for and loved by so many has been so helpful to us. Quite honestly, when I see others cry over
our situation, it helps to solidify my feelings of not being alone in this extremely painful time. If you are willing to cry for and with us,
you have shown us how important we are to you and that is something no one can
ever take away from us.
We prayed for Jensen to come home with us. Nicole chose not to do what she should have
done. This was not caused by God or anyone's fault. It simply happened. We prayed for strength and courage
to survive this unspeakable horror that we have been through. We may not have received the miracle we had so
desperately hoped for but what we did discover is that we have amazing people
around us for support, God beside us for courage to face another day and
strength within ourselves to hold each other when needed. This is definitely not what we asked for but I
refuse to spend another moment wondering why this has happened to us. Instead, I chose to ask what am I going to do
about it and the answer is simple. I am
taking one day at a time, praying for Jensen and Nicole and waiting for our
forever baby.
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