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2008-08-08 - 12:23 a.m. previous entry next entry
Finding God in the rain (Audrey Caroline...)
I know! Another mid-week entry!! :) Thanks so much for the sweet comments on my last entry with the new diary photo and little video clip!
I know I said I wanted to write about other things that I had no time to update about, like Jaya's birthday last Sunday, and things.
But. It's after midnight and oh how I need to be in bed by now! I'm not here to write about my usual stuff, though I promise I'll catch up on it soon. I'm not even here to write MUCH because it's too late to let myself.
Tonight and last night I have been re-reading a blog (http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com) I found in March or April this year. I keep writing this next sentence and then deleting it over and over because I am trying to sum up the blog in a nutshell for you, and I can't! I don't want anything I say to put ANY single person off going there and sitting down for several evenings in a row and a couple of boxes of tissues, and reading the whooooole thing from start to finish. I would not necessarily recommend it at this immediate time to my sweet friend Megan who is ABOUT to give birth, or anybody else in that precarious a position! Angie (who writes the blog) is married to Todd, who sings for the Christian band, Selah. They have three little girls, and recently carried another precious baby girl almost to term after discovering at the 20-week scan that she would not possibly survive. They got to spend 2.5 hours with Audrey which was so precious to them! The key, hit-me-with-a-sledgehammer thing about this blog is Angie's incredible talent for writing - I have seen writing talent on blogs and she is just the best writer I have ever had the privilege of reading. Just in the way she communicates her feelings, her children, her longings, her pain, her experiences, and her faith in Jesus. And, oh, the latter thing - it's got me hungry. There is incredible music playing the whole time I'm reading (Selah, and MercyMe - two bands I am going to have to include in my CD collection, amongst others).
This song (I found it with lyrics at YouTube, below) has been on my mind all day, and yesterday too. I guess it is so appropriate for Angie and Todd, and everything she writes echoes its sentiments. But for me, for MY life.... It's sort of a song I feel slightly scared to sing out loud! Okay so I should stop waffling about it before anybody even knows what song I'm talking about or what the words are! I am just writing as thoughts enter my head, not very well-thought-out for people reading me. Here is the song. Just let it play, do do do. For me, it's just one of those "let it wash over you till you get goose bumps" songs. Waaaaay more so when reading Angie's blog and seeing its absolute match to her life.
Another song on the playlist there is "All My Praise" by Selah, and WOW, the words just get me right there every time I hear it, because not only is it a beautiful, beautiful song, but it was sung by Audrey's own daddy, years before she was even conceived, and he sings "I will follow you through dark disaster and sing "Hallelujah" through the pain. Even in the shadow of death I will praise you. And even in the valley I will say - Holy, my God, you are worthy of all my praise!" It just give me goose bumps, seriously. It's sooo powerful. I couldn't find a really good version on YouTube but here's one with lyrics to save anyone searching:
Just lately I am getting that feeling again of "missing" Jesus. Hunger like I can't quite ignore or satisfy by anything I do. I'm more familiar with it every time I feel it. Do you know that I have been a Christian nearly 13 years?!?! That is just craziness. I can't believe it has been that long since my whole heart changed and I became FLUNG out of the pigeon box that was my life, and all I thought there ever was (and was fairly satisfied with that, some of the time, since I knew no better), into the vast vast skies that stretched without end, to spread my wings and fly for the first time.
Free.
I know this about myself: I find myself in God most passionately and intimately when I worship (singing and praising with my voice and my body and my whole heart), and through nature. I don't know why, it's just how I am. Many people are the same, but I guess lots aren't as well. I know it about myself. I feel so stagnant lately - not that I'm far from God at ALL, which is wonderful! But I am increasingly longing to lose myself in his presence in the midst of his creation - watching a beautiful sunset, water in some natural form, just greenery instead of roads and pavements and houses and buildings everywhere, and people people people. I just want to get away and lose myself in God.
I crave a moment in nature with God at the moment. I feel desperate sometimes out of nowhere! I lie down on the armchair so that I can see a little square of blue sky with clouds through the window (carefully angled to blot out the buildings from my view), and I praise God. I smell the rain through an open window and instantly my heart soars and I lift my hands in worship. I just can't help it. I LONG for God right now. I long to get back to the "roots" of it all, just my Creator God and what he made (including me!). Just me and him. And to love him.
Reading Angie's diary over again has reminded me to see everything in a different perspective - a beautiful perspective; a thankful, joyful perspective. It reminded me again how precious my children are, and how fragile their little lives are. Who am I to know when they will leave me? Every DAY at the moment I beg and pray for God to let me keep them for my whole earthly life here. I can't fathom ever losing a child. I love them more than I can bear as it is. To turn that love inside out in pain surely can't be survived? But Angie's writing is proof that it can be survived. I know (she knows) that she could not have survived without God's constant presence, through all of her emotions and turmoil.
I find myself pondering on the words of that "Bring the Rain" song -
"Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain"
It's strange to me how I can say the words "Jesus, bring me anything that brings you glory!!" with SUCH overwhelming passion and my heart just bursting with sincerity and longing... and at the same time be scared to open up that door in case he decides to allow me to experience something almost unbearable in order to refine me like precious metal, and bring glory to his name. I WANT to be made pure, and refined by God's hand sooo badly, and more than ANYTHING I want to bring glory to Jesus - my precious Jesus, my Saviour and my heart's desire. I just long to glorify him. But at what cost?! I don't know if I'm as sincere as I think I am when in the next breathe I say, "Oh, but..."
Now, Angie is GLORIFYING him. So if he brings me to something heartbreaking like he has Angie, then I can only pray that he will enable me to rise up and glorify him as well as she is doing.
My longing to be with nature right now, coupled with reading about losing a child and thankfulness for my own children, led me to take the boys to the cemetary today, to visit Cameron's grave. I haven't been there in a few months. I really can't get my head around the fact that he has been gone FIVE years in September. That gap would have transformed him from child to young man - he would be sixteen now, and he was ten when I last saw him. Massive gap. I remember how my heart hurt all the hours of every day for what felt like years upon years and it seems another lifetime ago. Now it's matter of fact that Cameron isn't part of this world I live in any more, and has been for long enough to feel very normal to me. I remember the hardest part was KNOWING that time would come when him being gone would be normal, and just not being able to bear getting nearer to that time day by day. I wanted to keep him in the present, but you can't stop sand slipping through your fingers.
Well. All is as it should be. He is where he belongs at exactly the time he should be. I can. not. WAIT. to see that boy again! I absolutely rejoice in the knowledge that I will! :) And I praise God for his perfect wisdom in the timing of it all. I just do.
So we went to the cemetary. The boys ran about while I pushed Nathan in the (broken) tandem pushchair. We picked a few pretty yellow wildflowers growing along the path, to put on Cameron's grave. I wished I had been to a florist and bought some flowers for a beautiful display at his grave, but never mind. I will, soon.
Arthur and I talked about the children who are buried there - he wanted to know everything about them, and what their markers said, and why the items on their grave were there. He is reaching an age where he's transitioning from really not being able to comprehend "before birth" or "after death", to a different level of understanding on that subject - it's a confusing time for him though. It's hard to explain things clearly enough, or without making him worried about some aspect or other. He now knows that when people die their bodies are buried under the ground (which I purposely didn't explore the last time we were talking about death!), but he's bothered by the idea. Once we were at the cemetery though, he didn't seem bothered. Just asked lots of questions and explored graves respectfully. He helped me dispose of some old browned flowers at Cam's grave, and he put our tiny bunch of flowers in place instead :)
Then Matthew ran too far and wouldn't come when called, so he went in the pushchair too. And it started to spot with rain a bit, so Arthur suggested we sit on a bench under a tree near the children's graves. I stood back and looked at my THREE sweet, beautiful, precious children, sitting alive and alert, taking in the world around them, chatting and laughing, chewing parts of the pushchair (!) and feeling the bark of the tree, against the backdrop of a row of graves belonging to little children and babies, including Cameron - who I loved so much that I remember being anxious that I could never love my own children as much (I do, by the way! :) ). And I just couldn't get my heart and mind to fully comprehend how very blessed I am, and what precious rewards my children are - for what?! What did I do to deserve such rewards?! God is so gracious to me. Here are my attempts to capture that moment for prosperity in pictures, as it was such a special moment in my heart:
After that, the spotting of rain cleared up, and I pushed the little ones in the pushchair to see a digger that wasn't in use, at the far end of the cemetary where they were making new space for new graves. Arthur ran on ahead, and after we looked at the digger, we looked at the freshly turned earth on a new grave. The tiny marker said the elderly lady died only 5 days ago. For some reason that just quickens my pulse (fear? trepidation? what?) to think that she was here 5 days ago, and now under the ground. I know that's how it goes, but it still shakes my core a little when I come face-to-face with the reality of it.
Anyway. We headed back to the car, as it was time to go back for lunch. We took our time, and on the way I tried to soak up the surroundings, the greenness, the quietness, just seeking God. I found myself dwelling again on the song called "Bring the Rain". I started singing it, and we were maybe 50 yards from the car when I turned around and saw the strangest thing - I couldn't make sense of it. Where we'd walked from, there were such SHEETS of rain falling that the men working within and beyond it were just fuzzed out with the greyness of falling water, but where I was standing there was no rain falling at all. So weird. It really wasn't that far away! I was so puzzled, and kept looking up at the sky above me, and then back to the sheet of rain so nearby. When I looked back again, the sheet of rain was closer than before, and suddenly I realised it was COMING, not just sitting there looking pretty and curious! I have never really been in rain like that before, that sits over there where you can look at it, and yet no rain is falling, and then it comes in. I ran for the car with the boys, and by the time we reached the trees that we were parked beyond, I turned back and the sheet of falling water was RIGHT the other side of the trees from us, and yet still there was no rain falling on us! I fairly threw the boys into the car and as I put Nathan in his car seat the rain swept over me. It drummed on the roof of the car so loud that we had to raise our voices to be heard. It drummed on me as I fumbled with car seat straps, and as I ran the pushchair to the boot. I stood under the shelter of the raised boot after I put the pushchair in the back, and just watched in absolute awe. It was, to me, like a visible image of how God can POUR OUT his Holy Spirit on us - how sudden, and how all-consuming (rivers were running in the roads within 30 seconds of it starting!), and how refreshing, and how INTENSE. The boys were making noise in the car so I went into the back with them, and left the boot open so we could watch the rain over the back seats through the open back of the car. Matthew, Arthur and I just leaned over the back seats on our knees, absolutely awed by the torrential rain - the sound, the spray on our faces, the smell, just the SIGHT of it. Incredible. I was just filled with joy and praise, and I couldn't find words to say until I just began to sing, "Let it rain" (you know the one that goes, "Let it rain, let it rain, open the floodgates of heaven..."), just the chorus over and over. I looked at Arthur and he had such a happy little smile on his face, swaying side to side gently, to my singing, and watching the rain. I told him how close I felt to God, and he asked why. I told him I always feel that way when I see the things that God made - the rain, the green grass, the tree, the flowers, etc. And that it makes me love him and want to say thank you for those wonderful things.
Almost as soon as it had started, the rain stopped again, and we buckled up, closed the boot, and drove home for lunch.
But what a wonderful time out of our ordinary-ness. For me, that was time with God that I have longed for. I hoped such a time would fill me up a little, but I feel hungrier for God than ever. I am going to try to carve out more time for God. I need him, and I just love him and want to spend my time in his presence.
I found this verse during "Bible Time" with the boys the other day, and attempted (unsuccessfully - *sigh* my brain seems to have no cells left for this kind of thing!) to memorise it:
"But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8
Thank you, Lord. I just love you so much.
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