Better Than a Hallelujah

The honest cry of a breaking heart is better than a Hallelujah
Amy Grant, "Better than a Hallelujah"

Writing is a release for me. Freedom, in a sense, to let things go. A record to see where God has taken me. My struggle with blogging has always been to write for myself, with the glory going to God in it, without the fear of man. So I shut the comments off, again, and allow myself to be where God has me. It's good to lay these thoughts down. It's good to stop carrying them, thinking them, trying to remember them, to quit being scared of forgetting them . . .

Lately I have found that the high of rejoicing is turning to a stoic contentment, contentment to steadfastness, and steadfastness to a hope that is still full of much underlying joy, all tinged with a deep missing of Trent and the sorrow of grief. It's always there, and I assume it always will be. I feel a deep resolve setting in. I refuse, in my genetic stubborness, to let God's glory get out of sight as the days, weeks, and months pass by. I refuse to let this become normal. How is it normal that your son dies? Do we not get used to sin being normal, then, if our only hope is to strive to learn how to function normally after losing a child?

The reality of eternity is already losing it's impact, though, as much as I thought it never would or could. It has barely even been my first thoughts the past few days. I woke up this morning and realized that already eternity wasn't as vivid as it was eight months ago.

Eight months. It's been eight months today. I can remember when it hadn't even been eight days. I remember sitting in the front pew at the funeral looking at Trent's body beside me in the coffin, thinking, "It's been six days already, Trent's been in heaven for six days." I am sure when it's been eight years, and more, I will be thinking, "It's been eight years already." I don't want eternity to lose it's impact. I don't want to live without heaven being my forethought in everything. I don't want to live as if death is normal.

God said,
"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am HE, I am HE who will sustain you. I have made you, and I will carry you. I will sustain you, and I will rescue you."
Isaiah 46:4

I went to my knees again this morning, down on the floor, face to the ancient wooden boards. I went in obedience. I long for obedience, and I detest myself for being so dull to hear and obey God's voice. What did He say? Am I really being faithful? Have I really listened? I long to see the grand plan of all of this. I don't know how one twelve year old boy, one night of talking at the dining room table and one changed heart after many years of prayers, then one skiing trip followed by {probably} many more years of tears can result in God's glory. I don't know how the Holy Spirit moves to cause repentance through that, let alone salvation.

Salvation occured yet again under our rooftop over the weekend. As I slept in my bed upstairs, God was doing His work dowstairs. Teenage girls sat giggling while deciding which movie to watch next, and then the topic changed, and an eternity changed. I am baffled. I am amazed. I stand in awe to be a vessel of that kind of work.

I spent the day lamenting. Uncontrollable tears for years of pain that I can't understand, tears for the fear of people that I can't do anything to change, tears that wouldn't stop. Tears for people that I can't reach, souls that I am not even sure that God wants me to try to reach, as odd as that seems. People where I have no ability to even minister when I am in their midst.

I lamented for the trappings of their lives, the trappings of their own choosing in a way, and the blindness that sin causes. I cried because I have felt the pain of that trapping, and because I long for their freedom, and because I am terrified that I am being trapped as well. As polite Christians we don't say names, we don't point out each other's sins, we barely even dare to call sin, sin anymore. But it's still sin, and sin still traps, and God does not bless disobedience. Until there is open repentance and confession it will continue.

Events of the past eight months have been rolling through my brain. Faces of teenage boys come to mind. One young man at the funeral, who had been on the skiing trip with Trent, crying uncontrollably, admitting to me that he knew he would be in hell if it had been him. His mother, looking on, praying I am sure, as she must long for salvation for her children as much as I long for salvation for mine. I haven't seen him since. I don't know if God chose to save him or not.

Another young man, another friend of Trent's that had been on the trip that Friday, who was also at the funeral. I have seen him several times since, I have asked him repeatedly where he would be, where he is with God, and I have gotten the same answer. And still he refuses to accept grace and salvation. He can't accept grace and salvation until God grants it to Him. So I keep praying for him, this boy whom I could love as my own. Why some, and not others, God?

I think of pastors, four of them and their wives, who have not had the time in eight months to ask how I am, who have not allowed us to share our joy with them, to share God's good work with them. Then there's the church lady who has only cared to ask about who my sister is dating now than how severe our hearts are breaking, how God has moved, how He has sustained.

Cousins, friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neices, nephews, fellow teen-age football players: their faces come before me. I wonder where they are spiritually. I wonder if they remember the songs, the sermons, the power of that day. I wonder if they have considered their own eternity.

I think of the people who continue to search for Trent's name nearly every day on the world wide web and find the blog. I wonder about others that are sent here by some simple search for making soap or feeding calves, and find the gospel instead. I wonder if I present the gospel clearly. I wonder about how God moves. I wonder how my breaking heart makes a difference. I long for God to use it to make a difference.

There was a missionary who spoke at our church the other day. One thing, especially, that he said has stayed with me. He talked about mission minded churches, and stated that the only way that a churches light {of the gospel} could shine all the way to the other ends of the earth was if it shone strong and bright at home, which is the source.

I thought about how easy it is to "shine" our gospel across a pretty computer page. Or to send money to the orphans in India. And then I wondered if I shine bright close to home. More and more God has revealed my "missions" field as my children and husband. The day will come, Lord willing, when again I am called to sign up for every project at church, but for now I am called to shine where I am at home.

Days without the distraction of a computer has left more time for prayer and for visiting. I have been inducted into a group of women in our community who have lost children. There are too many of us in our little town. God has renewed my heart for them in these past couple of weeks.

Grief is lonely. Sometimes lonely is easier than awkward, though. Who else could understand (well, besides aunts, and a few certain other's)? To overhear two mother's who have lost children discussing phone calls and hospitals and funerals and month's of grief would be an odd conversation for an outsider. Especially mother's who are happy that their son's are in heaven.

Now I'm rambling, which must mean that it's time to go make some peanut butter cookies with my little dumpling's who are still this side of heaven.

God loves a lulluby
In a mother's tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

God loves the drunkard's cry
The soldier's plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

The woman holding on for life
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

The tears of shame for what's been done
The silence when the words won't come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing
Better than a choir singing out, singing out
We pour out out miseries
God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah (Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)
Better than a Hallelujah (Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)