A Step Towards the Cross

Lately I have been stuck in a rut.  A deep wretched rut, but somehow in the middle of my darkness I have once more taken a step towards the cross. I have had these long internal struggles in my head where I felt like the whole world hated me and that I was a complete failure.  But actually I am not a failure, and a lot of people do not hate me.  It is just the devil having a good go at me spiritually and I am learning to distinguish between God’s voice – the everlasting quietness of his voice and the devils loud voice that seems to have power over everything.  The truth is the quiet still voice is the one that speaks more volume than that loud voice in your head where you feel like the whole world has turned against you.

It has now been a little over a year and half since my son died, I am feeling stronger.  I am feeling surprisingly ok.  I guess when there is darkness the sun will eventually shine through.  Many of you know that I have been struggling a lot the past few months. Bolting like a hurt deer away from ‘danger’ when in actual fact it was not danger but the loving arms of Jesus that was trying to beckon me to the cross, and just to lay my burdens at the foot of the cross.  The foot of the cross where all things can happen for the glory of God’s kingdom.  It is well with my soul.  Knowing that my son is safe in the arms of Jesus.  And that Jesus comforts me in the midst of my tears and collects them quietly in little bottles marked with Celine’s grief.

Grief is a long difficult often times painful journey.  You most often don’t know what will happen on this road, and where it may lead you to.  I certainly didn’t expect to meet someone who lost her son in similar circumstances to mine, and she too was not allowed to see her precious little miracle.  It takes courage to want to change your attitude.  Often times my friend has told me change your attitude and thinking of why me, to just loving the world, and you will slowly start a journey of awakening, knowing that what has happened has had its reason.  A hard lesson to learn. Maybe a lesson worth knowing.  Maybe a lesson not worth knowing?  But I know from personal experience that if you take a step away from the spot light and learn to focus on the cross rather than your own hurts, life will suddenly make a lot more sense.  It is hard to put into practice.  But when you do you get remarkable results.

Losing my son, (and my daughters) was and will always be one of the hardest things I have to endure in life.  I have to learn to see things through a different looking glass, rather than the looking glass where my focus is on the past.  I have to look through the looking glass that zooms into my present, and see all the things that I did achieve and that I have managed to achieve since his death.  I call it the before and the after.  The before I was a bubbly woman, full of life and laughter, and quite out going but still introverted.  The after I became a quiet withdrawn person, the smile harder to achieve, and harder to see things in a different light.

In my life when I hit a rough patch, after the storm, my eyes begin to focus again on the Cross, and what the cross means for me.  The cross is where I had to lay my burden down and it is where I had to give up my son so that he may have a better life than all the suffering that we face daily on the plains of the earth. You learn to seek meaning in life, when everything has gone pear-shaped in your life.  Last night I went to a concert – a Jules Riding concert.  His testimony spoke volumes to me.  It reminded me how I planned my own exit of this earth after my son died, but somehow the people, the intercessors in my life prayed for me to have just that small glimmer of hope.  I went from wounded heart, to a more functional heart, where the wounded heart was stuck back together, although loosely.  The tears still come.  The pain is still there.

The deep longing, the deep ache.  The pain. The guilt.  The fear.  The hopelessness, the sadness.  The darkness that seems to engulf a large part of my life.  But somehow, somewhere, I can pull through if only I take a step towards the cross, and learn to forgive myself for not doing more to save my son’s life. For not going sooner to the hospital.  Learning to accept that I am not a failure but that I achieved small victories in my life by the grace of God.  Learning to see through a looking glass that clearly focuses on the present and not through the rose-tinted looking glass that focuses on a dream like state.

I am a mother. I know I am a mother.  I gave birth silently to an angel and he went back up to heaven to sing amongst the best choirs that are far better than the earthly choirs. My son is happy.  And I guess Sebastian would want me to make a go of my life, and be as happy as I can be.  I don’t think he wants me to sit around and feel like I lost everything in the world.  When in actual fact I did not lose anything – he’s at the feet of our Father, at the foot of the cross, and he will be there waiting for me at Heaven’s gate.

By God’s grace I have come this far, and learnt to smile through my tears, and acquired a peace in my heart that it is well with my soul.  It is well.  It is well because of the cross.  It is well because I can be free in the knowledge that my son is alive in the spiritual sense.  A step towards the cross, at the foot of the cross I sit and I learn to lay my burdens there. And there I weep as the deep longing ache of wanting overcomes me, but gently arms wrap around me and I know it is well with my soul for God is with me, the greatest comforter of all!