You're So Strong

As I walked in the door today I was visibly upset, my husband asked what was wrong. I said "I'm missing our dead daughter." Words I never thought I would have to utter. His response, "Is that all?"
Before you get all huffy and how dare he be so callous remember our reality has been altered 180 degrees and it could be a plethora of other things too: dead mom, dead twins, inability to bare more child, adopt woes, health woes.

He was right. It really is all of the above. I was driving home from church alone (a rarity) and realizing that my reality is so strange now. It first hit when I saw in print these words:

In case you can't make it out in the small print it says,

 Elliott's mother and daughter both named Claudette died last year.

 

SURREAL RIGHT?

 

Never would I think my story would encompass losing my mom, my daughter, and my twins. After Come Into My Kitchen article ran, I have received a lot of:

 

"You are so strong!"

 

Trust me when I say, I am NOT! I have numerous data to back up that statement, not the least of which is an emotional breakdown in the parking lot of my work which resulted in an ER visit with now a regimen of anti-anxiety pills. Can someone say EMBARRASSING?

But after hearing that phase and the other one that usually goes right only with it,

 "God never gives you more than you can handle!"

 or

"God reserves the biggest battles for his strongest soldiers" (a newer one I am hearing more and more) it came to me that this logic is not only incorrect it is also NOT biblical.

 

If you told me even a year ago that I would be sitting here with a daughter and mother buried next to each, I would tell you I would be locked up in a loony bin and frankly I have teetered on the edge more than once. But why am I still standing? Truth be told, it has little to nothing to do with me, but rather God's grace in me! Anxiety creeps in when I falter to believe in God. 

 

According to 2 Corinthians 8: 1-3 we know that grace gives us joy in the midst of suffering and overflows in the a wealth of supernatural generosity.

 

Pretty cool when you sit and think about that for a moment.

 

 GRACE GIVES US JOY IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING!

 

I can tell you Dustin and I have witness that one firsthand. But God never promises we will not suffer horrible afflictions, so the why me questions can stop (and the Joel Osteen quotes getting all your earthly dreams). 

God actually promises us something far greater. He promises:

 

 "my grace was made sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness,"

2 Corinthians 12: 7-9.

 

So even if my story next year is even worse than my story this year, while I won't be strong enough to handle it, I will have a Savior who is! So perhaps the saying should be,

 

"HE is so strong!"