Sitting in the Mud.

They say it comes in waves. It crashes into you, and you come up sputtering and gasping for air as the next wave bowls you over again. It is relentless and it is hard to breathe. I find myself calling out to the Lord. Why is this happening? Why us? Lord save me from this storm. This is the hardest journey I have ever had to walk, and frankly it sucks.

But it’s been beautiful too. Feeling the body come around us is incredibly humbling. Learning to accept help and set aside my pride. Seeing the way that God is already using this to grow our capacity to know Him and each other, seeing that He is already furthering His kingdom.

And then it’s hard again. I am crying, screaming, and begging God to choose someone else. And I feel my husbands arms encircle me, and his gentle voice telling me that it’s going to be okay. That I am going to be okay. He tells me that we are “sitting in the mud” of our grief and sorrow. And it’s exactly where we need to be because Jesus meets us here.

He sits with us as we mourn the loss of our ignorance. As we come to terms with our mortality. He is sitting with us as we envision our future now filled with appointments and treatments; so different from the dreams we were making on our anniversary just days before this all began. Jesus is mourning with us, because this is not what He wanted for us; this is not what he intended for His children.

So we sit in the mud, tear-stained and broken but in the arms of our Savior.