Good morning…
Mary, my soulmate from Charlotte, N.C. whom I have never met, wrote to me from the beach yesterday. Her words are perfect and poignant.
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My life is Blessed…But My Son Is Dead?!?!
How can it be? I am taking in the majesty of God’s Kingdom at the beach in the winter…the ocean with it’s vastness, rolling waves, and churning power, glorious sunsets, glass-like water reflecting the sun with dolphins dancing in the waves, the Holy Spirit speaking through the wind, and birds taking flight and soaring! I think, thank you Lord, I am truly blessed to be able to enjoy the splendor of your majestic kingdom! And then it hits; but my precious son is dead! My thoughts start to go down this dark path yet God keeps pulling me back to the light. There is another voice nagging at me saying I should be sad, remain devastated, hopeless! However, I’m not! At the present moment, I’m not sad, and I will not allow myself to be manipulated by the enemy who is lurking in the darkness! I will resist! “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings” (1 Peter 5:8-9). I will consciously continue to resist and choose to hear God’s voice!
The enemy seeks to separate me from what I know to be true. My son, Dalton, died less than 2 years ago when he was just 21 years old. So yes, in my deepest, darkest, unimaginably painful days, weeks and months, the enemy has sought to separate me from the love of my God! Yet, I continue to seek Him because I know that He is “my hiding place” and “will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance” (Psalm 32:7). I have experienced 1st hand what it truly means to be fully sustained by the Lord! I have felt a wound so deep, and searing pain so intense, that it felt like my heart was being torn from my body and I could not breath, let alone imagine that I would ever truly live again, free from this unbearable agony! Yet, I am here today, to tell you that God is who He says He is and always has been! “He is the unchanging living God. What a great reason to confide in Him, and in our darkest moments to never lose sight of the fact that He is still, and ever will be, the living God” (Streams In The Desert). The pain has lessened and I am learning to truly live again!
I will continue to seek God, my unchanging, living Lord and Savior, because when I do, He reassures me that I am ok, and that He will never leave me. Make no mistake, it does not mean that we won’t continue to struggle, or that somehow our lives will be free from pain and hardships! However, I do know without a doubt, that nothing, and I mean nothing, can extinguish His light within! So even during the times we cannot see in the dark, always turn to the light within! “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome” (John 1:5).
I AM blessed!
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Even better than eyeball-to-eyeball, how blessed we are to know Mary soul-to-soul.
…Sue…
