All This Time

This week has been like a week leading up to someone's death. Though the kids are not dying, we are losing them, and we won't see them for a while (if ever, hopefully someday). I have really struggled to remember that God is in control. I know in my heart that He is but there are days when I want to find someone to blame. Whether that be the state department, those in authority positions with agendas that damage families and a whole list of others that have been involved in this mess. However, even blaming someone I get no satisfaction, I get no closure and I feel more and more alone, lost and isolated.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my pain and the pain of the beautiful little girls, that I cry out and wonder where God is in all of this. I can preach that He is always with us, but in the thick of things sometimes I lose sight of where He is. Once I think I can't find Him or that I've turned from Him, I begin to panic. I know that  I will NEVER be able to make it through this loss without Him and His guidance and unconditional love.

I will be the first to admit that when I am going through a tragedy I push everyone away, whether that be making them upset with me because I'm snappy, or whether that's me just ignoring them until they leave me alone. One of my fears in life is losing everyone that I love. That fear is ever real to me each time that we lose children that I thought would be ours forever. On a side note I get that foster care is temporary but once you love the child and have had them for longer than a year (in the twins case four years) there is this feeling that they will never leave.

I push people away because then I don't have to worry about losing them because I've done it myself. That plan fails every time because we aren't meant to make it through this life alone. I isolate myself and find myself backed into a corner scared and alone. In the process of pushing everyone away sometimes I push God away, not by ignoring Him, but by putting my pain ahead of His plans for my life. When I am laying in the snow outside I am filled with joy and I feel the presence of God through His beautiful creation that joy is when I connect with Him but when I'm in the midst of pain I seem to forget that joy and wonder where He is now.

As I have said in the past I worship through song, and there are a lot of songs that I come across that may have been out for years but at that moment they fit my life. The newest one is called "All This Time" by Britt Nicole and her lyrics touch my heart in such a way that it changes the way that I am thinking about things. The chorus is as follows:
All this time from the first tear cried, to today's sunrise and every single moment between, You were there, You were always there, it was You and I, You've been walking with me all this time.

This song literally had me in tears because it was my conviction for asking where God was when I knew where He was, and it was a blanket of comfort because God holds every single tear that I have cried, and when I can't hold myself up any longer, when I have no where to turn because I pushed everyone away, His arms have been open. When I'm so weak that I isolate myself so that no one has to see my pain, He is there and He can see the pain. He is with me ALL the time, whether I ask Him to be or not.

If I can share nothing more today than this, its that you are NEVER alone. You can push everyone away but the love of Jesus Christ will just keep on coming. No matter what you have done in the past, no matter what pain you are in He is the healer and He will take care of you. It reminds me of the Footprints in the Sand poem. The man who is walking on the beach says that when his life was rough there were only one set of feet and God told him that it was then, that He carried him. When you feel out of control and like your life is a mess, He is the God who truly sees and He knows your pain because He's been here all this time.

This coming weekend will be horrible, but God will be there with me all the time. I have a God who loves me so much that He is willing to carry me when I am broken and weak, and when I have pushed people away, and when I have not made Him a priority, we are still His priority. The love of Christ will bring my family through this just as He can bring you through your situation as well. He is here all the time and He has never left, not even for a minute.