One of my best friends that knows me a little too well, told me this week, "you need to write". Thank you, Camille, for knowing me a little to well.
I woke up this morning at the river in the SC Lowcountry. The first thing I could smell was pluff mud and pollen and the first thing I saw was a live oak covered in Spanish moss, hanging over the dock. I woke up this morning broken. Like every morning for the last 19 days, mornings are raw. I fight mornings. But today was different. My birthday. A day when I'm supposed to want to celebrate and eat cake and make meaningless wishes as I blow out candles. A day when everyone around me wants to celebrate me, and all I could feel was this enveloping loss. Grief. An aching in my soul that seems incurable. I started wrestling last week with this verse.....this verse that I clung to from the moment I first realized that David was broken. This verse that I prayed and recited and recited and prayed. And in the last several days, God has revealed to me that what I thought I was praying, what I thought I was believing, was wrong.
"I remain confident of this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Psalm 27:13-14
For years I have leaned on that verse, waiting on God's goodness. I have been waiting on Him to show me His goodness. The day after David passed away, a sweet friend of mine texted me this, simply this, "GOD IS ONLY ONLY ONLY GOOD". And today, when I woke up, full of sorrow, sorrow in both knowing that my loss is tremendous and deep and sorrow in having even an ounce of the feeling God felt on this very same day, in the loss of a child, I not only woke up to sorrow. But I woke up to His goodness. All of this time, while I have been waiting on God to show me He is good, He has consistently been good. And I have consistently chosen to wait on what I knew He could and would do, rather than recognizing that God is not good because of how He responds to our prayers, but that God is good because of how He responded before we even prayed. He is good because we have access to Him through prayer. He is good because of what He already did. Not because of whatever we are anticipating Him doing. "But if not, HE IS STILL GOOD". Daniel 3:1-24 If today when I woke up, and my heart was still in a million pieces, He still created the river, and the oyster beds strategically built into that water to filter it and those same oysters to feed us. He still loved me enough that He died today. He still loved David enough that He sent a family to love him. He still forgives. He still formed this life that is perfectly growing inside of me. He still covers us with grace and mercy. He still, every day, makes a way for us to reach Him at our best and our worst. He is still good. Even when today is not.
And it isn't. Today wasn't just about a hard birthday or the fact that I would trade every next birthday of mine just to give David another day. Today wasn't about how every thing we did felt wrong because we were minus a son. Today was about everything hard. And everything necessary. Today was about the death that was necessary for the resurrection. Without death there could be no empty tomb. Without crucifixion there could be no satisfaction of our sin and God's wrath. Without suffering, there could be no Savior who has hurt just as we have hurt. Without the cross, there could be no torn veil and direct access to the King. As just as much as today was literal, it was figurative for me. Today God reminded me that without brokenness, there can be no rebuilding. Without tearing down, there can be no building up. Without refining there can be no gold.
Today I cried. I cried a lot. I cried out in gratitude that this awful thing that happened so many years ago, is the greatest gift I could have ever received today. Today I cried out in mourning for the loss of a son. Today I cried out to my Father, who is holding me every day, and reminding me that He will rebuild. He will restore. He will provide. Today I cried as one too few sets of hands laid on my belly and felt littlest brother kick for the very first time. I want to understand God's plans. I want to know why His plans for David were so different than His plans for these other Kubnick babies. But today, as I look at the FULL picture of salvation, and I am reminded that the bloody cross showed no precursor to the miracle that would happen on Sunday, I can see just a speck of the picture, and God knows. And just as He turned the crucifixion into the resurrection, He will use this pain. In His way. In His time.
Friday is so hard. But Sunday, Sunday is coming. And because of Sunday, I have hope. Today is hard, but our Sunday is coming. This life will be hard without our David, but one day, some day, we will have our eternal Sunday, and we WILL see him again.
We have hope. Hope eternal. We are lost without Sunday. We are damned without Sunday. And Sunday is coming. And in these weeks, in this holy week, in this crucifixion and resurrection weekend, we are learning to praise God who takes away, so that we can learn to truly praise God who gives.
