Watermelon in January
My kid's been begging us for watermelon. We have tried to explain to her that it is winter, January, and that it is not the season for watermelon. That even if we could find it, it probably wouldn't taste very good. Things taste best in their appropriate season. She doesn't care. She wants watermelon. So, my husband trudged out in the ice and flurries that has defined our winter, and came back with an anemic, dense slice of watermelon-ish fruit. And she held it up in the air, Simba-like triumphant, and proclaimed, "I KNEW my Papa could find it!" and proceeded to devour that watercolored mess as though it were her last meal.
Hope for us has been a bit like finding watermelon in January. It's a snowshoed hunt, unlikely to yield the desired results. But we trudge on anyway and when we find pieces of it we hold it high in the air and whisper to each other- "It is here! It can be even here, even in this."
Grief seems to expose everything, like acid on paper it eats away the surface until we're splayed out like neighborhood kids playing Operation. We've learned much about ourselves these last ten days since the losing of our third baby. Things we have always overlooked as part of who we are- things we never prayed for, because it never occurred to us to. Grief is a form of nakedness I may never get used to, but it is a purging of the soul and purging is necessary.
I have been so encouraged by the outpouring of love, of friendship, of similar stories. Of how God's fingers have reached into our homes via snail mail and email and messages. Hope, all. Where is God in all of this? In all of you. You who have anointed our heads and prayed for peace in our home, you who have whispered silently thoughts of comfort in your cars on your commute, you who have reached out and sent chocolate from over oceans and continents, you who have breathed prayers of concern over pots of lentil soup, or just sat, wordless with us in our living room as we wait on results, on diagnoses, on hope.
When people ask where God could be in all of their suffering, consider it a direct command from the one who sent you. You were sent. You were sent to represent Him in that time, in that place. Because of everyone who took their sending seriously, we continue to walk with no strength of our own, to breathe peacefully, to even have occasional joy. Yes. Even joy.
Thank you, all, for being our watermelon in January and continue to pray with us that we breathe deep and true:
"Let us hold fast the confession of our HOPE without wavering, for He has promised IS FAITHFUL." Hebrew 10:23