It is well

Sometimes you have to believe before you can see. Even when things seem total opposite of what was promised or hoped for. Today marks the end of 7 months of wondering, praying and hoping.  7 months ago, I decided not to go to Kenya this year in hopes that I would be pregnant. What an incredible story it would have been, right? So symmetrical, so poised, so human.

"I released one seed for another...I was obedient and it paid off...I trusted and God rewarded me...I heard a word and it came to pass at the exact time I wanted." 

See the problem with all that is the word "I" is primary. It's all about me. My timeline, my agenda, my vindication, my saving face.

And today, that "I" died. Shattered. My husband, Alabaster, my closest friends are off to Kenya in 2 days and I'm left behind...seedless. No baby, no inclination if I will ever get the chance to give the above name to anyone...ever. No tangible reality that even this blog I have created will even have purpose one day.

I have so many questions. 

I have no answers to give when asked why I'm not going. I'm left with a deep emptiness, brokenhearted, confused, lost.

I wonder if this is how the disciples felt when Jesus took His last breath on the cross. All the promises of eternal life, all their hopes of serving a revered king, all the words of majesty, dead on that cross.

What did they do those next 3 days? What did they do Day 1? Were they angry? Betrayed? Lonely? Confused? Lost? We know they hid, we know they feared, we know they doubted.

Day 2: perhaps denial and hopelessness turned to passive resignation, rationalizing. Trying to be above their raw misunderstanding.

How do we move in the Day 2s of our lives? 

When our worst fears are realized, when the opposite of what we prayed for or hoped for or thought God said, happens. What do we do in the opposite places?

I don't have any sophisticated answers, but I do know this:

Running away is not an option. Acting like I'm not hurt or sad or confused are also not options.

So I stay. I wait. I trust. I try to believe. I praise.

In Day 2, I become one with the dark. It doesn't become a place I visit, it becomes home. It becomes the place I learn to obey even when it hurts, even when it means I die to myself every second, every minute, every hour.

In Day 2, in the dark, I choose to hold on to a God I don't fully understand, to a God that is totally different from me, to a God that speaks in parables, to a God that fully knows me more than I know myself, to a God that knows the beginnings from the ends, to a God who transcends time.

In Day 2, God is othered and that is both a heartbreaking and freeing reality. (even as I write this we experienced an earthquake (the last I felt was 6 years ago) and I'm reminded again of how other I am to God's power and magnitude).

So I hold on to the photo above. I drew his name in the sand 2/1/2019 as a declaration that I believe God is a promise-keeper, a God of miracles, a God who doesn't deceive or overpromise or underpromise. Who doesn't lie or cheat. A God who can make good on His promises not because we deserve it or try hard enough, but because that's His nature, the only thing He knows how to do.

Nathaniel, I don't know if I'll ever meet you, hold you, bestow this name upon you. And today on my Day 2, I grasp this reality.

In my Day 2,  I am learning to say in quiet, strained, tearful whispers:

it is well with my soul.

This is what it means to see in the dark.