Trust

Sometimes it baffles me what God has required of me and my family. Because yes, I do think He chose this adversity, the loss of a child, the magnitude of grief, for me and mine.

I will still often hear myself saying something about having a daughter who has died and I stop and have to wondered...is this for real? Did I really survive the chaos of the last 3+ year and am I really now required to continue breathing? When the hurt is so huge I could cover up with it and never move again?

As I am writing this, there is another amazing little fighter at St Jude who is in critical condition. Same disease. Same diagnosis. Same doctors and many of the same treatments. Medically he is fragile as it can be and emotionally his family is worn.

I remember those days.

I cannot describe them to you.

They are the emotions that nightmares are made up of...the reason I haven't slept though the night since Piper died and the reason I wake in a panic multiple times a week.

Nightmares.

And I hurt for each family who has this to face. Who is required to grieve. Who loves as deeply as is possible and as tenuously as necessary.

When all is said and done this often feels like a nightmare. Not like something that somehow (and I wont even pretend to know why) will work out for Gods glory. That this loss was part of something bigger. That I am required to trust and rest and believe that things are redeemed.

Each face I see in my mind, each family that grieves, each startle that awakens me...all are a part of something bigger than I have yet to comprehend.

This won't change my hurt and surely won't bring a smile to my lips but it will keep me moving and breathing and someday, I hope we will begin to thrive...not just survive this.

This is what God has required of me now. Now that the die has been cast and the girl I loved has been taken away...

Trust.