I read this tonight from a book I have come to cherish in the last 11 1/2 months. The first time I read it was about two weeks after Abby died and I read it cover to cover in one night. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't read books in one month, let alone one night!! It has been my own personal grief manual and I have quoted different parts of it over and over to hundreds of people (yes, it's that good!). This excerpt is from one of the last chapters in the book. It really spoke to me today after last night's meltdown ...
I knew God was calling me to submit to the journey we were facing with Hope--not to fight it or to cry out to him to change it, but to submit to his plan and purpose.
For me, submission has meant a quiet, though sorrowful, acceptance of God's plan and God's timing. It has meant giving up the plans I had for my daughter, for my family, for my life, and bringing them all under submission to God.
I wish it had been a onetime decision, a onetime sacrifice. But throughout Hope's life, as her condition slowly deteriorated, in the days of grief that have followed her death, and as we've walked through nine months of this new pregnancy, the call to submission hasn't stopped, and it hasn't grown easier. Every day, as I let go of my dreams and my desires, as I see little girls the age Hope would have been bringing a smile to the faces of their moms and dads, as I plan for another child who will only be with us for a short time, I'm once again called upon to submit. Some days I do better than others.
But because I believe God's plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it. I don't want to try to change God's mind--his thoughts are perfect. I want to think his thoughts. I don't want to change God's timing--his timing is perfect. I want the grace to accept his timing. I don't want to change God's plan--his plan is perfect. I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it. I want to submit.
We often hear people talk about the "victorious Christian life." But isn't the life of a Christian really more about bending the knee, humbling ourselves, and taking up a cross? Jesus said it is.
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." ~ Matthew 16:24-25
I don't know what the cross will look like for you. I just know it will require a death to your desires and your dreams to carry it. And I know it won't be easy. But I also know that as you die to yourself, God's life will take root and grow within you. And as you die to your dreams, his dreams can flourish.
Submission to God's sovereignty means bowing the knee whether or not we understand, whether or not we have it figured out, whether or not we agree. In that submission, we find the strength and grace to keep going. And we can even find joy in the journey.
(From "Holding on to Hope" by Nancy Guthrie, 2006)
So, my prayer tonight is that, rather than anguishing day after day over what is lost and what would have been, God would bring me to a place of acceptance and submission to the life he has given me. That he would help me let go of the dream I once had for my life, which included a son and a daughter who would have only been 2 1/2 years apart, and come to embrace his dream for me and for us ... "a quiet, though sorrowful, acceptance of God's plan and God's timing."
Awhile back I wrote a blog called, "The Journey to Acceptance" about losing the "old me," but not arriving at the "new me" yet, either. I am still somewhere in between, but I am starting to realize that this is the destination of the journey and what will ultimately will bring me to acceptance: submitting to God's plan and letting go of mine. It's time for my face to hit the floor again ...
