Words

Words have never meant so much to me.  They say actions speak louder than words, but here’s one for the little guy.  First of all, thank you to anyone even reading or caring about any words I write.  There’s a lot to read and not a lot of time, just ask me how many books I’ve managed to read in the last decade.  Second, thank you anyone for your kind and encouraging words for me in response to my words.  I’ll say again, I’m not a writer, preacher, or saint.  Not being any or all of those things makes me scared that I’m not the right person to write anything about faith in Jesus.  But, by trusting in Him, I think I’m doing okay.  No angry mob outside my house yet.

Ok, so, words.  I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with words.  Whenever I would or have had conversations with anybody after Luke went up to Heaven, it was usually quickly followed with an apology text.  “Sorry if I said the wrong thing.”  No one had the words.  What words can you say to someone who can’t be helped?  It was like the pink elephant was in the house, even for me.  I didn’t know if it seemed self-pitying to wallow about him, but no one else wanted to bring it up and possibly send me spirally into an emotional abyss.  But then not talking about him just made that elephant bigger and pinker.  I thought I don’t want to be a downer by talking about my dead son or beat the horse about him being in Heaven.  But I don’t want them to think I don’t miss him or am just moving on with my life. I knew whomever I was talking to was thinking the exact same thing, and it was just awkward.  No one wanted to be insensitive, but I knew they were burning with questions, especially friends who are moms to young babies.  How?  Where?  When?  What did you do the day before?  Was he sick?  I know because I would’ve been thinking the exact same things.  This is a parent’s worst nightmare, and the fact that it could happen to baby Luke begged the question, “Could it happen to MY baby?”  Clearly, I don’t have the answer to that question.  I never thought it would happen to my baby.  But that’s the power of God’s will you don’t understand until you experience something that makes no sense that you cannot control.  Usually, that’s used in a negative context – a loss, a challenge.  But let’s give some credit to God’s Amazing Will!  It’s by His will that we have the things that we have – jobs, cars, kids, safety, food, everything.  It’s by His will that we are living and breathing.  But we only choose to acknowledge the power in that when something that wasn’t ours to begin with is taken away. 

Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.   1 John 2:15-17

Couldn’t have said it better myself.  (Obviously.)  Doing the will of God, in actions, is great, clearly.  But speaking, hearing, and accepting God’s will is the work that needs to be done first.  That is where I am, and I see most people around me get stuck.  Words can be scary.  Are they the right words?  Am I sounding stupid for saying them?  What if someone misinterprets the words I’m trying to say?  I struggle with writing this because I worry about all of those things.  Stupid things really when we’re talking about the peace and comfort that God freely gives for us while we’re on this earth and the comfort He promises us when we leave this earth.  Isaiah 55:11 says, “So is my word that goes out from my mouth:  It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  That’s an important reminder for me.  So many times, I want to offer someone comfort by asking them to seek God, but I stop myself from doubting myself, which from this is clearly doubting God.  But when you speak Christ into someone’s heart, God makes it Loud and Clear! 

An example of this:  The day after Luke passed, a girl I went to school with who I am Facebook friends with messaged me.  We were never best friends, and I hadn’t seen her since high school.  She sent me back a message I had sent her three and a half years earlier.  I had seen she had a miscarriage and was praying for her.  I remember contemplating over sending the message.  I figured she’d think I was trying to be “holier than thou” and mock me.  It went something like, “God will never give you an obstacle that He won’t help see you through.”  I believed that to my core, so I went ahead and sent it.  At that time, she didn’t respond.  I went on with my life and figured I was right that I shouldn’t have sent it.  Keep your Godliness to yourself, I thought.  That Monday when I read her message we had just gotten home from picking out Luke’s tiny casket at the mortuary and choosing our gravesites at the cemetery.  Yes, I just watched my husband write a check for three adjacent gravesites.  I wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk to God, but what she said brought me to my knees.  She said that what I said was true and helped her through her difficult time and was hoping it would help me now.  Words.  They were just words.  They were words that I thought had come back empty.  Words I struggled to say.  That was God’s will.  His will for me sending them to her, and then in an almost literal way, returning to me NOT empty but full of His love and comfort.  It’s often the words we’re most afraid of saying that mean the most to someone else. 

Sometimes it’s the words we hear that come back full of His will.  A family member and I got into an argument of sorts about four years ago.  A close friend of his had passed away.  The argument was aimed at my faith.  It wasn’t hate-filled, and I guess you could call it a conversation where we were disagreeing.  I didn’t fully know but understood the place he was coming from.  He was sad.  It wasn’t fair.  He challenged that if God took away one of my children, or even both, I’d rethink my faith in Him, too.  I’ve talked to my husband about this conversation over the years a lot.  I’ve prayed for him a lot.  I’ve prayed over the state of his spiritual health for years now.  And then this.  Lo, God did take one of my children.  And, I did, in my darkest hours, rethink my faith in Him.  Jeremy has said he hopes he doesn’t remember saying those words to me now.  I hope he does.  I hope he can feel the same peace I have found through faith.  I hope he would let God comfort him as He has comforted me.  I like to think this is God’s will for him as well as me.  Those words were true.  I didn’t know, I do now, and I choose God and I hope he does, too.

Words are only words until you let God fill them with His will and His love and His comfort.  Don’t take the power of words for granted.  They will not return to you empty or cause anyone harm, but God will use them to bless you and whoever you say them to, and sometimes whoever says them to you.  And surrender.  Surrender your worries and contemplation to God.  The Bible has close to one million words that have been filled with His provision:  use them, for yourself and for everyone.  You never know the way He will return those words to you.

Happy 8-months, Lukey!