Facing Brokenness

I'm struggling with feelings I have never experienced before.  I have never known loss quite like I am experiencing over my foster child being reunited with her biological parents.  This precious baby that joined our family at 10 days old and stayed with us through her 1st birthday is gone.  I could type paragraph upon paragraph on the great strength God has given our family as we have been on this journey of fostering, over 2 1/2 years now.  I could brag about all the things we have learned and of the stories and evidence of His presence in our lives daily, but today I can't go there.  Today I am angry and although I know all of God's great promises, I struggle finding comfort in them.  I have been holding up pretty well, making sure to give God glory every time someone approaches me, but today I need to be real.  Today I need to deal with the hurt I am experiencing and face the grieving process head on.  Today God is going to allow me to be grumpy, short with people and maybe even withhold my smiles.  He will let me throw my fits and listen to my cries full of hurt and anger.  He will sit patiently while I work through my many emotions and when I am all done He will love me no less.  He will hold out His amazingly strong arms and invite me to rest in His embrace.  I will remain resilient through this experience.  I will continue fostering if that is God's plan for my family.  I will, in fact, come out of this pain with more strength and maturity in my faith than when I started.  But today I must get real and deal with the feelings in my heart.  I can't brush them off and pretend they aren't there.  I have to work side by side with God to walk down this dark road with Him, and be so thankful I have a God First Friend willing to join me.     

As a Christian it is hard for me to admit this struggle I face.  As a blogger who has trusted in God's provision to give me things to write, telling you all how to handle your days with God as your Number One, I feel almost as a failure admitting my difficulty today.  Mary has lovingly reassured me that it's okay to be honest and tell you this is the hardest thing I have ever done but that I am trusting in God to get me through.  I will have sad moments and times when I am angry or confused but that is all part of the process.  The road to complete oneness with God.  When I let go of myself  to depend on Him completely, becoming His and not my own.  So today I don't have a magical answer for you or a great blog to lead you out of your circumstance.  I don't have answers for anything........my brain feels like mush.  But I am here to tell you that when moments similar to mine make their way into your day.......wrestle with them.  Sort out those feelings......cry, yell, stomp your feet, talk to a friend and talk to God.  Leave your hurt at His feet and grow through your brokenness into a stronger person, a mature Christian.  Unfortunately most of our growth comes out of the brokenness from loss and pain that we experience through our life.  When we trust God with those circumstances we will come out of them a better person, more dependent on God, and a steadfast believer.......it's when we try to handle them on our own that we end up worse off.  Today, through my hurt and sadness I choose to die a little more to myself and learn to depend on Him even more.  But I probably won't go without kicking and putting up a fight......that's just me being real.

I think of it constantly, and my spirit is depressed.  Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing:

The Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise.  The Lord is all I have, and so in Him I put my hope. 

Lamentations 3:21-24