Hell. (Parental Guidance is advised.)

The world goes round.  The leaves continue to fall.  The sun continues to rise and its warmth beckons...

I am surrounded by grief, on every side.  I cannot comprehend the depths of it.  Apparently grief is known to be collective.  It layers upon layers, present griefs upon past griefs.  It comes in unpredictable waves, random ups and downs, and is always deeper and longer than I think possible.

If I have ever felt alone, it is now.  Not because the phone doesn't ring.  It does!  Not because, I don't see anyone.  I do!  But in the pit of my stomach, claws reach up and thrash around at my insides.  He is dead, they say.  And death feels like hell on earth.

How do I reconcile this with my faith?  Do cliches work in a moment like this?  When it feels like someone took a jagged knife and brutally sawed me in half, leaving my wounds gaping and raw, my other half in another world, separated by an eternity.

The amazing thing is, I have never blamed God for death.  GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF DEATH.  HE IS THE GIVER OF LIFE!  He gives life to everything.

Death is awful!!  and God knows it!!  Jesus wept! (Jn 11:35) and He entered into death, grief, and suffering so that even the pits of hell could be filled with His hope and everlasting love.

His hand is not shortened that it cannot reach! Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save... (Is 50:1)  He is aways bigger and better than we think!!

I am blessed to feel like I am in the pits of hell.  In this wretched place, I can begin to grasp the fullness of my salvation in Christ Jesus, my Lord, the depths to which his light reaches, even the darkness it is not darkness to you (Ps 139).  Separation, sin, and loss are all things He has overcome, and He's given me the keys.  He's given me the authority to loose what has been loosed in heaven and bind what has been bound in heaven.

I am here and I hate it.  Whether I like it not, death is present.  Separation is brutal.  Loss is profound.  But out of this place, I KNOW beauty will rise*.  God has sent me to the darkness, not because He's left me, or because He's not all-powerful, not perfect Love.  He sent me here to be glorified here... that His light might shine here... and that His grace might be sufficient here...

The real death happening right now is my own.  The death of myself unto the awakening of new life in Him.  He says to me, grieve now but soon you will go.  Go into the darkness in the confidence that even here I am Lord.  Even in death, I am Love.  I cannot do this.  But He is doing it anyway.

*Beauty Will Rise, Steven Curtis Chapman