Topsy-Turvydom

I'm going to be blunt here. This post is going to be one of the longest and possibly most transparent ones I've ever written. It won't be poetic, because let's be honest, none of my posts are. It won't be beautifully pieced together. But hopefully it will be real and applicable to someone out there. I've titled this post topsy-turvydom because that is a word I've used to describe my life for the past three years. Topsy-turvydom simply means "a state of extreme confusion and disorder". The word that shouts out at me in this definition is EXTREME. This weekend has been full of EXTREME revelation and I'm leaving here tomorrow with a little more understanding and acceptance than I had before I came. For you to really understand this though, I have to start at the beginning. I hope that you will bear with me long enough to get to what the Lord has shown me this weekend.

I came to college thinking I had it all together. I thought that I knew who I was in Christ. I thought that my faith was real. I thought that my faith was completely founded in Him and nothing could shake me. I thought that I could take on the world. Wrong. You see, I thought all of those things but none of those things had any foundation, any piece of truth to them. I THOUGHT that things in life had made me strong and my faith in the Lord strong but in reality, my faith was supported by a thread and I was holding on to quickly unraveling strands. To give me a stronger rope, the Lord had to set me on a faith full of struggles and pain.

I can describe my life in the past three years with three words-funerals, hospitals, tears. Thanksgiving break of my Freshmen year of college, my aunt, one of the godliest women that I knew, unexpectedly passed away. She was such a staple in my life. I once wrote a paper about how I admired her most for all that she had been through and still somehow had such a strong faith in the Lord. It was heartbreaking to see the pain that this death caused my dad and my cousins, and my grandparents. Three weeks to the day, during my first set of finals, my grandmother-my aunt's mother- passed away. We hadn't even really gotten over the shocking death of my aunt and we have to begin learning to accept the death of my grandmother as well. Needless to say, the holidays that year were not a very joyous occasion. My grandfather spent a lot of that next summer in the hospital battling one thing after the next-illnesses to confusion to depression. I spent that summer trying to be strong for my dad, because that's who I was-the one who kept composure.

Sophomore year brought a set of different problems. Smaller, family issues always rose to the surface. I pride myself in having broken three cars in a two months' time. I was leaving for summer missions and I didn't have any form of transportation, but the Lord provided. That summer was difficult as there were many changes in my family. Just weeks before I was to leave for the summer, my grandfather had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital for his dementia. It was one of the most terrifying situations I have ever been a part of. Sometimes that place still gives me nightmares. Then comes Junior year with the craziest mix up of things yet.

October 2, I will never forget that date, we had spent the whole morning doing local missions projects around Athens and we were enjoying pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and a marathon of Boy Meets World when I get a random text message from my brother that said "know that I love you". Getting a text from my brother isn't really a random occurrence but the way he phrased things caused me to worry. A minute late, my older sister called and I knew something was wrong. My father had had a heart attack. That situation in itself is still amazing to look at because the Lord truly had His hand on everything. The artery that was blocked is what they call "the widow maker". (There's a bayer aspirin commercial about it now). They call it that for a reason. Usually when "the widow maker" is blocked, you don't realize it until it is too late-hence the name. Did I mention that my father lives about 30 minutes from the nearest hospital. As he recovered, I began to fall into a downward spiral increased by the fact that there was more to come. A few weeks later, I got into a car accident and totaled my car. Come December, I found myself again in the hospital with my great grandmother. After spending a few days with her in ICU, she passed away. I never got around to visiting her in the nursing home. I still regret that. The day after her funeral, my grandfather is back in the hospital and he has no clue where he is or even of what year it is. Come back to Athens in January and a few days later my uncle, again on my dad's sign, is diagnosed with multi organ cancer and the outlook isn't very bright. We thought he had six months to a year, but as I'm in New Orleans with the most amazing family that the Lord could have surrounded me with, I get a call that says he might not even make it through the night. He did, but only a few weeks after that. Come June, I think things have calmed down and my father ends up back in the hospital with his heart again.

That's the last three years in a quick recap. Now to the part that matters. I was bitter. I didn't think I was. I thought I dealt with each situation as it approached and I thought I had conquered this whole "suffering" thing. There I going thinking again and of course, once again I was WRONG. I had really just been sweeping it under the rug, awaiting that chance to unleash my anger and fury out at the Lord. Tonight, the speaker told us the story of Lazarus in a different light than I had ever heard it. It was amazing and eye opening. The thing that he said that resonated with me the most, was that yes God loves us, but it's not about us and He doesn't love us more than His glory. So yes suffering isn't fun, but it's not about what it does to us, it's about how He is glorified through each situation. Christ wept with Mary as all of her anger and sadness erupted as she knelt at the Lord's feet. His tears weren't because He felt helpless, they were because He loved her yet He KNEW that HIS FATHER'S glory was more important than her suffering. The Lord sees the bigger picture. He can see 5 frames to our 1. Sometimes that's comforting and other times it's frustrating. Tonight, I found myself kneeling as Mary did full of bitterness, anger, sadness, completely speechless and just weeping. No, I didn't have Christ physically with me weeping, but I felt in that moment that it wasn't about me. All of this pain, wasn't about me and how I handled it. It was about the Lord and how HE was glorified in it. As I sat there, a song began playing in my head and I only remember these lines from it. It says "God is with us. He will go before us. He will never leave us. He will never leave us."
Tonight, the Lord showed me that He had been using all of these heartaches to take those strands that I called my faith when I came to college, and turn them into thick layers. I THOUGHT my faith was strong before. I THOUGHT  I could make it through anything before. Now I KNOW that my faith is solid in Christ and firm in His Word. Now I KNOW that I can make it through any heartache or trump with the Lord holding my hand and taking each step with me. It's not about me. It's not about my suffering. The Lord suffered a whole lot more FOR me when He took my place on that cross. It's about the Father's glory. But that doesn't mean that the Lord wants us to suffer alone. He gives us His Word, His Spirit, and encouragement through family and friends. I write all of this because I wasn't bitter. I wasn't upset. Or at least I didn't think I was. I honestly felt fine coming into this conference and in was through other people's stories that I realized I wasn't fine and that I had been holding all of this back. I want to leave you with the challenge to be still, listen, and respond as God speaks to you in whatever way that may be and also with a piece of scripture that I have found extremely encouraging-"You have given me many troubles and bad times, but You will give me life again. When I am almost dead, You will keep me alive. You will make me greater than ever, and You will comfort me again."  Psalm 71:20-21


Take comfort in that-but know it's not about you or your suffering, but what the Lord is doing to glorify Himself.