Choosing to See.

Where is grace when cancer gnaws, and babies are sick, and people need healing, and when lonliness aches a hole in us raw?

Where is grace - and good - when loved ones die, when marriages implode, when aching arms stay empty when all they want to do is hold new life, and when faith once lived raw and real starts to fade slowly to the backstage wings in this story of life?

Where does the joy hide, and where is this God who is good, and how do we live fully when life is full of hurt?

Could it be, that like all beliefs - you simply live them? Even if you don't necessarily feel them? Could it be that living with losses, we can still say "yes" to what God freely gives - to His grace and to His joy?

And could it be that we can trust Him and His goodness enough, to hold open our hands freely to receive whatever God gives or allows?

I'm quite certain the answer is yes.

Because I am seeing loved ones and friends living this way right now.

Amidst deep uncertainty and heavy grief, I see them choosing to say yes to joy while they are at the same time embracing pain.
I see them trusting in the God who they know - while still completely uncertain of the unknown.
I see them accepting that there are things that we simply don't understand. But He does.
And I see them wearing smiles and peace amidst the sadness and their losses.

And maybe during these times of pain and sadness and uncertainty - it is the best of times to remember the little things - the multitudes of little goodnesses and little gifts that we are given all the time - every day, but that we would so easily forget unless we wrote them down.

Maybe when we find ourselves groping for answers, we can choose to see.
We can choose Him.
I know we can, because I see others who are grieving - living in this way.
Gretchen, Meghan, Jodi, Robyn, Shandy -- and so many others. I see you.
I see you choosing Him.

"I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God. That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave...Maybe so." ~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts.

* * * * *
"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world." ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

2676. Newborn babies - little warriors fighting for life.
2677. Friends who joy in other's joys - all the while they themselves sorrow.
2678. Friends who love - no matter what.
2679. Simple things, not taken for granted.
2680. Health - completely forgotten until it's gone.
2681. New Mamas living lives of faith for their babies while they sorrow in their own losses of their own parents.
2682. Three boys of my own - reading together. Gifts given on loan.
2683. My man and my marriage - love and security for my boys.
2684. This journey of life with all of its twisting and turning.
2685. A Savior we can trust - who knows the end of the story!