“How do you feel like you are doing? Matt asked. “You seem…different. Good different.”

“I feel different. I’m not sure how to put it into words. Something has shifted. I can’t quite explain it, but I feel different.” I found myself stumbling over my words as I attempted to describe what I had been sensing over the last month. “I feel like my passion for life is seeping back in.” We were both crying. Matt pulled me in for a hug. 

“Woooo.” I exhaled and my shoulders relaxed. “It has been a long time coming, huh?” I asked.

“Yes it has.”

“I know that this doesn’t mean I won’t ever struggle again. It is just good to feel good. It has been a while…thank you, Jesus.”

“Thank you, Jesus.” 

After seven years of daily sadness, this was a day that surprised me. When you live day in and day out dealing with and working through grief and anxiety, feeling happy and content is surprising, even when you are doing all the hard work to get there. Grief doesn’t play fair, it doesn’t keep a schedule or have manners. Grief shows up however and whenever, like the tide, “it comes and it goes and there is no controlling it.” But today, I was on the sand, basking in the sun, enjoying the breeze, cold drink in hand, listening to carefree music that made me sway to the beat. I wanted to savor every moment and take in every second, lapping up the beauty around me in a fresh new way. 

The scenery had not changed. I had not moved to a different “beach.” The sand, wind, water, and sun were all the same as they had been yesterday and the day before that, and the month before that, and the year before that and the six years before that. Despite going through long seasons of crying out to God for the scenery to change, and long seasons of feeling bitter and angry that nothing had changed, and seasons of questioning if there was something I had done to cause all of this? Seasons of unhelpful, unanswerable questions would rattle around in my brain and keep me awake at night…”Was God secretly angry about something I am unaware of? I know he cares for Finley even more than I do, why doesn’t he heal her, or at least let her sit, or talk, or let her baby teeth get wiggly like “normal” kid teeth do? Why? Why? Why!?” The “whys” would plague my heart, causing anxiety to rise and logic to wane. Yet, here I was in the same place, same scene, but somehow it all seemed to change. Or maybe I had changed?

I have cried buckets of tears over the last seven years, pouring out my grief to Jesus, most of the time in anger or bitterness. I used to believe that I had to hide my hurt and anger from God. Now, I know he is the safest place to bring those emotions to…even if it is towards him. I felt so angry, hurt and rejected by God for all that I was facing. “Didn’t he see how hard I was working?” “Couldn’t he just give me a little improvement to show me my effort was good?” I know it is silly. I “knew” that God didn’t need my forgiveness because he has not done anything wrong. I knew that Finley’s Cerebral Palsy broke his heart just as much as it breaks mine. 

Even so, I slowly stopped praying for Finley’s healing, after years of praying it felt empty, pointless. Praying felt like grasping for the life we knew before disability, where 3 month olds babble, 4 month olds roll over, 6 month olds sit, 12 month olds crawled, 16 month olds walked and began to talk and fed themselves, where 2-3 year olds were out of diapers, and by the time they were 5 I didn’t even know when they had pooped because they could wipe their own behind and didn’t feel the need to announce it to me. I stopped praying for a miracle because it left me feeling empty and hopeless. I longed to just enjoy our precious daughter as she was and not what I wanted her to be. 

By the grace of God I was able to bring my weak, broken, angry, heart-heavy state of existence to the feet of Jesus time and time again.  He tells us to come as we are. I had nothing to offer that I deemed “good.” Only anger, bitterness, cynicism, and a broken heart. It seemed wrong and unjust to show up to Jesus in such a state. Yet, he is never surprised by our wayward, disheveled hearts. He welcomes us with open arms, calling us back to him. Calling us home. His arms are where we belong no matter how we feel or look. His arms cause our eyes to see our circumstances through his view, instead of our own. In the arms of Jesus we can trust his version of our story instead of the one our bitterness and anger wants to hold onto. 

I cannot count the number of times I stumbled into the arms of Jesus. I have not done this well. It has been far from perfect. I have stumbled, crawled, and other times just layed down waiting for his arms to come to me. But that is how good he is. His actions are not based on how good and perfect our actions are. He sees our hearts and can see through all of the pain, anger, anxiety and bitterness. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 

I know that I will face grief and anxiety again. Even yesterday my heart was heavy with sadness. We cannot live and not face suffering and hardship but we do not have to face it alone. Jesus wants to walk through the pain with us. He wants to sit with us in the dark days and in the days we are soaking up the sunshine. That particular day, the day when both Matt and I recognized that something had shifted…that day, that moment has been branded in my heart and mind. A moment where a line was drawn in the sand, a stake was driven into the ground as a marker, a symbol, a sign of God’s goodness and faithfulness, despite my poor and feeble ability to come to him, He is good. He is faithful. He is steadfast. He is the anchor in the fiercest of storms. 

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” Psalms 103:1-8 &13-14

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