Coffee Love
  • Coffee Love
  • My Profile
    • I Believe
    • Stories from the Mists
    • Stay the Course
    • Respect, Honor, Gratitude
    • Favorite Links
  • Scattered Feathers
    • When You Need the Music
    • Coffee Love Images
    • Take it to the Roots
    • Love Notes
  • My Recipe Book
    • Appetizers
    • Bread
    • Casseroles
    • Crockpot Love
    • Meats
    • Veggies
    • Desserts - oh my!
  • Junk Drawer
    • Worth Sharing
    • Helpful Hints
  • Contact Me

A Devotional to Share

3/27/2012

0 Comments

 
Walking in the Dark ... by Jean E. Syswerda
"I've been walking in the dark for a number of years now. 
I began this shadowed journey on August 1. 2005, when my youngest granddaughter, Ava, died in her bed at home. I was there when my daughter, Shelly, ran screaming down the stairs with her baby's lifeless body in her arms. I watched in shock as Shelly performed CPR with no results. I couldn't pray real words. I could only keep whispering, "O Jesus, O Jesus," in an effort to call on Him in this time of horror. When the   emergency personnel told us there was no hope, I held my daughter, sitting on her front lawn in the deep summer heat, as she cried for her baby.

Despair was my enemy.
That day began a walk in darkness for me as a grandmother. I groped my way through those first days and months. My grief was two-pronged: I grieved for Ava as my precious, youngest grandchild, but I also grieved for my daughter and her husband and the sorrow that they faced at the loss of their little girl. Despair was my enemy, and he set up camp in the hole Ava's death had left in my heart.

Comfort in Scripture.
In those early days I hung on to every word of comfort in Scripture as a lifeline. As I read, I began to realize how
different my approach to life was from the men and women in the Bible. I took a good life as my due, as appropriate and suitable for me as a believer. I wouldn't have voiced it, but I lived as if I deserved ease and comfort. When something bad  happened, I had to try and figure out why. Who caused this tragedy? God? Satan? Sinful forces in a broken world? The faithful in the Bible didn't seem to have that same outlook on life. They appeared to be more willing to take the good and  the bad as natural parts of life on earth.
David, especially as expressed in the  Psalms, took life's difficulties, ranted and raved about them, and then turned to God for comfort and strength, leaving the questioning, the whys and the wherefores behind. He continued to trust God in the middle of life's problems.
As time went on, I began to realize that any answer I could find to my questions wouldn't satisfy.
Even if I had some divine revelation of why Ava had died, I would still grieve, still  think it wasn't fair, still go through life broken by my loss. So, like David, I began to turn to God for comfort and strength to face the day rather than search out all the answers. I prayed that God would do what I promised I would allow Him to do. At Ava's funeral, standing near her tiny white casket on that windy August day, I spoke these words:
"Now that you are gone, nothing will ever be the same. We will never be the same. We are being changed, pruned, but still loved by our sovereign God. We offer up ourselves to God to accomplish His work in us."

I Hang on to God's hand.
I'm still walking in the dark. I cling desperately to God's hand in an effort to make my way in an Ava-less world, a world I no longer recognize. And as I hang on to God's hand, I ask Him to redeem this terrible event by redeeming me. I ask Him to use the grief and pain and fear to change me, to make me less like myself and more like Him. The old me is slipping away more and more each day, being replaced by a new me that knows without a doubt that I can rely on God. And the darkness isn't quite so terrifying as I learn to trust that God is there, even when life doesn't make sense, even when the worst nightmare a grandmother could dream turns out to be a reality.
So  often when our lives spin out of control - at least from our viewpoint - we think that God is to blame and that we somehow should be spared such agony. But the One who gave
His only Son up to an agony worse than we have ever known  reaches His hand down to take ours and lead us through the darkness. He doesn't always give the answers we desire. He doesn't always change our circumstances as we may wish.
He turns out the lights in order to teach us that gripping His hand on our journey, that trusting in Him, is better than any light."
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    So why "Scattered Feathers" ? ? ? 

    You can read it here

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Past Posts

    January 2023
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    October 2010

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Website designed & developed by Margaret McCoy

​
God is God over the storms in my life & world -
and I am His.
Trusting in Him. Holding to His Promises as He holds me.

​
Learning to laugh, to love, & to live ... again - without Rick, but with God

Life goes on ... even when we don't want it to.

Great grief is indicative of a great Love.

Rick, my Sweetheart.
Margaret, his Beloved.
Always & Forever.
​
Picture
©Margaret McCoy, the Queen of Kamelot Coffee 
  • Coffee Love
  • My Profile
    • I Believe
    • Stories from the Mists
    • Stay the Course
    • Respect, Honor, Gratitude
    • Favorite Links
  • Scattered Feathers
    • When You Need the Music
    • Coffee Love Images
    • Take it to the Roots
    • Love Notes
  • My Recipe Book
    • Appetizers
    • Bread
    • Casseroles
    • Crockpot Love
    • Meats
    • Veggies
    • Desserts - oh my!
  • Junk Drawer
    • Worth Sharing
    • Helpful Hints
  • Contact Me