This is what it means to be held.

I have had numerous people tell me about this song and I just got around to listening to it. I was talking to one of my best friend's dads over the fourth and he was just asking questions and inquiring about how I have been doing when he provided such perfect comfort. I know it is certainly not people's intent to rob me from my sadness but there are those that would rather tell me about God's goodness than to join me in this uncomfortable place, this place that hurts beyond words. I am convinced of God's goodness, that is the evidence of my existence. I believe both in a Perfect and truly good God AS WELL AS a sadness that rapes every single one of my days. I know time will help but thankfully and painfully never let me forget. I don't believe in an "either or" God, I believe in both absolutes, the absolute certainty of his holiness as well as the hole in my heart. What do we tell people? What does a believer tell the husband who just found out that his wife and little girl died on a bus in London this morning? Cute quotes and no more tear solutions don't remedy such life altering moments. I think that is what I am loving most about my Jesus right now. He just sits with me and cries with me. He knows, much more than I do, about his goodness and I am able to confess to him, "Lord, yes I receive what you are doing but I just have to tell you how much it hurts right now, how much it just really sucks sometimes. Lord, I need you to meet me in my dad's closet when I sit in his clothes and still can smell him, and it is so real that I want to believe so badly that I will hear his truck come up the drive and the sound of his little voice in the entry way followed by the sound of his boots going to the kitchen for milk and potato chips. I want to hear him complain about how he can't find the remote for the TV... and I can't and I won't." I don't get my way. I didn't get my way. Yes he is healed, but not the kind of healing I had begged for. And God is good. I can see why unbelievers probably find us annoying sometimes. We are often quick to hurry and cover up sincere hurts, doubts, and questions with bible verses and baked goods. I want the Lord to let me hurt WITH people, to find them in their trenches and to put on their heavy loads and cry their very real tears that come from very real places. I am surrounded with amazing people that love me and let me deal openly with the war that rages in my heart almost on a minute to minute basis. This community of Jesus, loving brothers and sisters give me hope for a better tomorrow and a perfect eternal home. They are everywhere and are teaching me how to comfort others, as they comfort me. I am in a messy place, a messy, honest, sad, glorious, place- one full of rich love and the occasional laughter and a few nights of normal good sleep. Thank you. Have I told you all thank you lately? Thanks, and I love you.

Held- Natalie Grant

Two months is too little.
They let him go.
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would
Take a child from his mother while she prays
Is appalling.

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It's unfair.

Chorus:
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred know our sorrow.
The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

Bridge:
If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.