Capture Your Grief ~ Day 24

Day 24 ~ Consciously Becoming

Prompt: So many of us split our lives into a timeline of before and after our children died. Who were you before your children died? Who are you now? Who are you now in this present moment? What are you feeling? Have you been irrevocably changed by the death of your children? How are you different now? Do you love anything about the new you? Do you want any old part of your back? Who are you becoming?

I don't think of myself in terms of before and after Phoenix, but I recognize the changes in myself since we loved her and lost her. My faith has changed. Before I prayed big prayers and had such incredible assurance that I continued to pray boldly even when prayers went unanswered. I asked and believed for miracles. I prayed for everyone and everything. My loss shook me like nothing else had before. It struck the closest to my heart.

There's more hesitation in the asking and the praying. There's been distance. It's been harder to get in the Word, harder to journal my prayers, harder to pray confidently for others, harder to worship in abandonment, harder to feel that closeness. It doesn't come as easily. I have to work at it.

I know He's near, but I'm still struggling at times to reconcile my feelings of betrayal. Because I fully believe in His power to do miracles, but my miracle didn't come. How do I reconcile His ability to save her with the fact that He didn't? What prevented Him from acting? I know His heart is for life and I know He conquered death, yet the reality of what happened doesn't align with what I know is Truth.

In many ways, I've relied on my faith, on Jesus, to get through this. I still believe in the Truth of His word, which has carried me through, but relationally, I became closed off toward Him for a season. Now I am becoming more open toward Him once again. As I have recognized my need, I have sought Him out more and more. 

Without that connection and infusion of the Spirit in my life, I've been increasingly short tempered, impatient, rude, and so on. It's been a bit ugly to be honest. And so I've been pressing in once again, because I have seen my need. I don't like who I am when I'm distanced from Him, so I'm choosing differently. I am choosing to become the most whole and healthy person I can be by pressing into the only One who can make me so.