Lessons in Perspective

As I’ve been packing for this year of jubilee, a year of uncertainty and excitement and purging and dreaming, it has been a journey of memories, going through every drawer and cupboard, finding pictures and notes and mementos of a whole lot of life lived.

And even in the living and losing, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Do I want my son back? Yeah. It’d be awesome to see Emily have a brother closer in age and to see Ryan want to be wherever Noah is…but I wouldn’t change our history, because it has molded who we are presently and each of us reflects Noah’s impact on our lives. We are all stronger for knowing and loving him…

I have one of those drawers in my dresser with treasures and keepsakes, hankies and heirlooms, pictures, relics from travels, each piece with a story of its own. As I was going through it the other night, making no headway on actually purging or packing, I came across some notes I had jotted down years ago for a speaking engagement. I wanted to share them here as they are handwritten and may get lost in the move. I also wanted to share these notes because re-reading them tonight it somehow felt fresh, as if someone else needed to read it. I’m not going to take the time right now to give a play by play of what was going thru my head and heart when I wrote this, but if any of it resonates with you and you’d like to open a discussion, I’d totally be down with that…

“Peace, Perspective, and Perseverance”

Moses’ Mom’s level of trust at the river’s edge was, “Did I really just do that?!” while his sister was thinking, “Did you just stick my baby brother in the river?!”

• I knew Noah was God’s kid from the beginning – he was dedicated to God in the womb.
• Not until we went to the hospital did I begin to grasp just a glimpse of the “bigger picture.”
• At first I thought that meant a miraculous healing, one that would lead many to Christ’s unconditional love – that’s when I tried to cut a deal with God.
• As things progressed I thought it would be God raising Noah from the dead in order to reach people for Him.
• It never crossed my mind that in Noah’s death people’s lives could be reached because his life was so short in human terms. A tragedy.
  • I thought I had it all figured out how it would look…God either heals Noah or raises him from the dead, then for the rest of his days, we would spread God’s love to the ends of the earth.
• It made total sense to me and God got all the glory either way…
• When it was clear in the natural what God was requiring of us, I remember thinking I would still have faith in God and trust Him but I most certainly wouldn’t believe in/or pray for healing and miracles…
  • That’s when my heart changed…
  • I realized I had boxed God in…
  • I surrendered to God’s bigger picture:
    • That JUST MAYBE He knew what He was doing since He was the:
      • Creator of the Universe
      • Put every star into place
      • Made man out of dust
      • Knew the hairs on the heads of over 6.5 billion people, etc
    • That JUST MAYBE He saw physical death in a WAY different way than we did…(like the Garden of Eden where they were able to experience His physical presence…)
  • So, what then? Could I truly trust God with Noah in the total sense of the word?
    • If I didn’t, I couldn’t trust Him with smaller things…
  • I realized the healing or miracle wasn’t that the story turned out the way I wanted but that my limited heart could be miraculously healed enough to TRUST God and that He is true, no matter what I see or feel…

1. PEACE > TRUST GOD > BEYOND UNDERSTANDING IN THE MIDST OF AND DESPITE CIRCUMSTANCES
2. PERSPECTIVE > BIGGER PICTURE > WHERE WERE WE CREATED TO BE? > FOR WHERE AM I LIVING?
3. PERSEVERANCE > PURPOSEFUL/INTENTIONAL LIVING, A PURSUIT OF WALKING IN THE SPIRIT > ABUNDANT LIFE HERE DOES MATTER FOR THERE!

• The other day I told Em I loved her as big as the Universe. She said, “Mom, do you love me more than you love God?” I said, “No, sweetie, I don’t. I love you as BIG as I can love you on Earth, which is really, really huge, but I love God more than you or Daddy or Noah, and it’s in loving and trusting Him that I have the ability to love you exactly how you were designed to be loved…” And after saying this to her, I felt a little like Moses’ Mom probably did as she knelt next to that raging river…

(*I have a ton of journals and notes and thoughts running through my head and heart, things I want to share here, but presently don’t have tons of time to scribe. We close on our house in 3 weeks and then will start traveling right away. I want to share more on that, but for now, I just felt like I was supposed to share this…)

In the words of my Mom who said this every. single. night of my life:

“Goodnight. God Bless You. I love you.”