Today a friend told me that as she was praying for me this song came to mind. I heard it and cried a little. I listened to it later and cried again.
HELD - by Natalie Grant
Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling
Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
Were asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
If hope if born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
The Lord has been speaking to me this week through the words in Psalm 146...
1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
2 I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
**The first 2 verses are the desires of my heart. To be able to Praise Him all the days of my life in all circumstances. 3 &4 struck a new chord to me during this phase of my life... having to pack up here and leave all the dreams that P & I have had together... to say good bye to friends and family... so as I read these two verses this time, it makes me realize how God is really the only true, the only constant, the only future for me. When P died, when his spirit departed, our plans became nothing. It wasn't P&E's plan anymore... from then on it was just E's plan and even then unless the Lord ordains, it doesn't happen.**
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God.
6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
he remains faithful forever.
7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
8 the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
**This is the Lord I desire to praise all the days of my life, through thick and thin.**
9 The LORD watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
10 The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
**As I read this in the morning, the beginning of verse 9 is about me and A... we are both foreigners here in this land and also on this earth for this is not our home. He promises to sustain the fatherless (A) and the widow (me). I had to look up the word sustain... Not because I don't know what it means, but just because... and this is what dictionary.com says....
–verb (used with object)1.to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of,as a structure. 2.to bear (a burden, charge, etc.).
3.to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endurewithout giving way or yielding.
4.to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from givingway, as under trial or affliction.
5.to keep up or keep going, as an action or process: to sustaina conversation.
6.to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life. 7.to provide for (an institution or the like) by furnishing meansor funds.
8.to support (a cause or the like) by aid or approval.
9.to uphold as valid, just, or correct, as a claim or the personmaking it: The judge sustained the lawyer's objection.
10.to confirm or corroborate, as a statement: Furtherinvestigation sustained my suspicions.
**This is what the Lord promises to do for me and my daughter.**
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Please pray for me as tomorrow when we wake up it will be 6 weeks til we head back to the states to start a new life. God is really working on some things on my heart, but I am really grieving all over again and this time for some reason seems harder. I've been remembering things from when we first came, the things that we dreamed of together, the things that could have been, the things that happened the month P was gone, the things that happened the week he got sick, the things that happened the night he died... grief is this huge cycle...
There have been some situations where people would talk about stuff usually having to do with medical stuff that would just make my stomach do flips taking me back to the time P was in ICU. I've been questioning again... It's hard. Knowing truth, but still needing answers. That doesn't even make sense as I type it, but that's how I feel. I'm really wrestling with God these days as I get ready to leave... I am going back to the questions from the beginning... the whys? the hows? the whats? of the whole situation.
So I ask that you pray for me.... Tonight I cry as I think, "if this is how I'm feeling, I wonder how A is and how do I even find out?" Pray for us... If A needs to express her feelings, please pray that she can in however limited way she can. Pray that I would be discerning of her needs as well as mine. I'm leaving... it's a big deal. Prayer... I covet them.
