Reasons

I used to be the woman who tried to come up with the reasons to why God allowed something to happen.

"This happened so that..." "Well, it seems that this is why this happened..."

How prideful! How foolish! How small my God seems to be!

After Aaron's death, I found comfort in identifying and naming unique blessings as reasons why I didn't have to let it hurt so bad. Spiritual and emotional growth that happened to explain away the confusion of the death of the man I thought would share my life and partner in raising our children.

Reasons make it better, right? When things make sense they don't hurt so bad, right?

Beloved, God is God. God is supernatural. God sees the end before you even get to the beginning. God is the Creator. He is imaginative and truthful and loving and just and pure. I think God can also be confusing. Yup, confusing and I am grateful.

I don't want a small god. I do not worship a small god. My God is the God who spoke all things into to existence and order and life. My God is the God who raised men from the dead and yet died for me. My God is the God who causes life to come from death.

How silly to think I could explain something so intricate and delicate and supernatural as the witness, whole-hearted love, and death of a 30 year old man who lived his life completely devoted to his First Love!

Maybe we had to endure this pain so that my late husband's life would lead many to Christ. Maybe I have endured this tragedy to be able to meet others in their tragic pain. Maybe my Ben has to endure this hardship to refine and tenderize his heart to his Heavenly Father.

My Daddy and me both at 4 years old

I don't know why my powerful and loving God allowed Aaron to suffer through cancer and die. When Ben asks, I tell him the best I know: God has a purpose for each soul on this earth. Once our purpose is accomplished, we are released from this world and called Home to be with Him. "Daddy was done with the work God had for him so Jesus called him Home to Heaven. We are still here so there is more for us to do! There is still more that God is going to do in and through us!"

Knowing the "why" won't fill the hole in our hearts or our lives. Knowing the Who will bring healing. My God brings life out of death and He is faithful.

"You have no idea..."

"You think you are tired now, you have no idea."

"You think you are short on time now, you have no idea."

"You have no idea how this little one will change your life."

"You think you give and receive love, just wait until this little one is born. You have no idea."

You guys. I had no idea! I had no idea how exhausted and energized and bored and creative and flabbergasted and speechless and awed and empty and full motherhood would be. I had no idea how long the days (and nights) would be and how quick the years would pass. I had no idea your heart could expand to completely fill your entire body to the brink of bursting from a smile. I thought I knew. I had read the books and talked with the parent friends. I heard it so many times: You have no idea.

I had no idea.

I'm feeling a little like that almost-to-delivery-day 26 year old pregnant woman/new mom again. I am standing on the edge of a new life, wondering what the reality will really be like. I've done my best to prepare but there is just no way to fully prepare.

On Tuesday, my one and only, the little one who cried because his favorite teddy needed to go in the wash, this little light of my life, my boy who has to be sung his lullaby to at bed time, this little 5-going-on-50 boy will leave my house, get in a vehicle with a bunch of other people's tiny humans, and go to school. I will no longer be the person who spends the most daylight hours with him. I will hear stories of what he did without me. I will have to let go a little more. And it is good and it is hard.

And as he sleeps, snuggling his entourage of stuffies (Corduroy Bear, Ben Bunny, Daddy Bunny, the one armed Christmas Monkey, and Blankie), I just remind myself that I have no idea. I have no idea how this next chapter will look. I have no idea how much our lives and the rhythm of it will change. I have no idea what the Lord will do in us through school. I have no idea what the Lord will do through us in those we meet. I have no idea how much he will learn and grow. And I have no idea how much I will learn and grow.

What I do know is this: my little man is ready, I am anxiously excited, and God is going to do amazing things through my boy. The world needs my sweet Ben: his laughter, his tender-heart, and his compassion.

Kindergarten, you think you are ready for Ben. You have no idea.