It is sickening for me to recall. I remember sleepless, tear filled nights and anxious Monday mornings and the wreckage that comes from this kind of implosion. Just as a battlefield explosion creates carnage, this event left me beaten and bloodied, reeling from the blows that were delivered. And just like a battlefield, everyone runs for cover.
In those life and death moments soldiers pull together and live, or only look out for themselves and die.
We died.
It was one of those life events that will define you forever. You will not ever be the same afterwards, because you were alive, and now you feel dead.
If you are the same afterwards the only conclusion I can rationally come to is that you were dead before, and you are still dead, so you are the same.
Only the Life Giver can restore you after a moment like this, only He can heal the death dealing wounds, only Him. Only Him. And so it is, that you wake up broken and bleeding and begin again to look to the Healer. The Healer of hearts, the Healer of fellowship, the Healer of ministries.
Just like a recovering soldier, it is difficult to move. It takes time, and practice to get the muscles, which once so easily operated without thought or concern, to recover from their atrophied state and begin to work correctly again. I was wrong. I was sorry. I asked for forgiveness. Christ lifted me up, out of the death hole, and set me again in sweet green grass of abundant life.
But every once in a while I catch a whiff of that old stinking grave and the putrid rot within. In a conversation, or an email, or from the look on a face, I will come to the knowledge, call it battlefield discernment, that they heard about that horrible day. The day that death came, and evil danced on the graves.
I don't talk about that day. I don't tell my side of the story. Why go around digging up graves? Who wants to lay out and examine the rotting remains of a corpse? Will this fix anything? Will this set right a wrong?
Can anyone be justified by pulling out rotting flesh and pointing and saying 'Here is where I was wronged' Can we justify ourselves? No, we can not. We are not able to justify ourselves, if we were we would not need our Healer. No good comes of digging up corpses. No good comes of packing them away and carrying them with us to place on display. So I have left these corpses in their graves. Buried in the saving Grace of Jesus Christ, just as my own corpse.
Can I leave it there, can I say that having done all I stand in Grace, not because I am a wonderful person but because He is a wonderful God. I think so.
If you are reading this, and you know exactly what I am talking about, then you were there.
Or.... you may have been associating with a corpse consuming zombie.
Proverbs 26:22 The words of a talebearer are as wounds , and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly (KJV) another version says they are like choice morsels, they go down to the inner most parts. Have you dined at the table of a gossip? Were you fooled into thinking the flesh you were eating was whole and good and not reclaimed from a rotting grave?
It is sneaky how we think we can dine at this table and remain unaffected. Someone will mention something casually and we gobble it down without the slightest thought. All too often these morsels are wrapped in the pleasant pastry of concern, or simmered in the hearty flavors of a self righteous stew, but make no mistake - death is death no matter how you dress it up.
Chapter 9 of our homeschooling journey was hard. It was full of dying.
Our insurance company decided that they were not going to pay for our
home, which had burned down in 2008. There was a major rift at our co-op. My husband
lost his job right after Christmas....
But it was also full of new life.
We moved to a less expensive rental home which actually fit our family much better. Drason was able to help teach the boys various subjects (especially history)
and gave me the opportunity to preplan many of their lessons. I’d never had the opportunity to do this
before, so it was very encouraging and eventually time saving. Drason even
allowed boys to get involved in sports again, and had the time to help coach.
This was a much needed outlet for both Drason and our boys. God healed my heart. He reached into ugliness and pulled out something beautiful and blooming. Our Co-op didn't end, it didn't fall to pieces, rather it flourished.
From a grave, he brought life. That is sort of what He specializes in, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I was. God was good to me. He blessed me in spite of me. And that is sort of the point of this rambling chapter.
God is Good, even when we are not, even when life is hard, even when you feel beaten down and broken.
God is still there, and He is no collector of corpses.
He brings the dead to life.
Hallelujah and Amen!
Amanda
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