Today I am just thankful.....

I found out yesterday a friend of mine lost her baby.  She was 8 and half months pregnant.  I can not even imagine the pain she must be in right now.  I know she is a strong person and I now know she must be stronger than me because God does not give you trials that you can not overcome with his help.  I am not sure I am strong enough to lose a child and survive.  I don't mean I would die but I do know that I would struggle with something in me dying.  I know that when my mom lost her baby something in her died that she never got back.  She has spent a great deal of her life looking backwards and making choices to return to the time when she had not lost a baby.  I am not sure she is the person she once was, she also lost her parents shortly after and I think the two combined tragedies combined to change her permanently.  She is in many ways a wonderful person but not the same person God meant her to be.

I have been reading a book called "Where is God when it hurts?"  by Phillip Yancey.  It is a wonderful book, it gives great insight in to pain, suffering and the changes it makes in a person life.  He gives poignant examples of people who suffered great loss in their lives and either were crushed or became better people.  It speaks of Job a lot and gives provoking thoughts on God's relationship with Job that I had never thought of before.  He tells of people who survived the death camps of WWII, some came out with out God though they had gone in with him, along the way they lost him.  Statistics show that 5 percent of the atheists that survived found God.  One story,used by a survivor, that he used to explain his disbelief in God confirmed another man's belief.  It is wondrous how people who suffer and survive are changed, sometimes so differently.  Some become lost, other become great, some become retched and others find the divine.  NO one survives and is the same, pain and suffering are the fires the tinsel us.  The fear of suffering leads us to the fear of God that is trust.  I haven't finished the book, and believe me it is a "non-putterdowner"  and I have third of it yet to go.  It is very soul searching and comforting.

I find it interesting that I have been reading it at a time when my friend has lost so much.  It did afford me some answers to how to talk to and be with people who suffer.  It made me think of so many in the community that I could be of use to that suffer and none of us think of their suffering.  My friend is overwhelmed with people now wanting to comfort her but what of the time to come when she will really need comfort, a listening ear or just someone to set and be with her?  I pray that she will have that comfort, the kind that in the end is more important in the grand scope of things.  I pray that she will seek God.  I don't really know if she has him in her life or not.  See I have failed her, I have never asked or invited her.   She is in my circle.  I must be more thoughtful and see to it that I ask all of my circles....

Today I am thankful for all of my kids.  They are alive and well in their own ways.  They don't always agree with me but they are alive to fight with me and I can still work on seeing that they accept and RSVP their salvation.  I don't think I want to go to heaven and know that I failed my own children if they are not there.  I am also thankful that to date, God has not asked me to suffer the pain of a death in my family, the sorrow of a life taking illness as many of my friends have. Though, I did loose my Grandmother to an illness but she did it with such love and grace, you know the kind that can only come from the love of God, that I didn't remember for a moment all she suffered.  Today I pray for my friend and her family, I hope she can be reunite with her son in heaven some day.... tomorrow.