Hello April Fool's Day....

Well hello April Fools' Day…

CARINGBRIDGE BLOG ENTRY WEDNESDAY, April 1, 2009: Here we are today it is Wednesday, April 1. I wish I could claim this whole thing was a bad April fool’s joke but I can't. Days come and go and time goes by and here we are waiting. I do apologize for not calling some of you back I've just not felt like talking the past day or so. Heather was being cleaned up and moved around in the bed and she got very agitated at this and we are not sure why. Her oxygen began dropping and she was freaking out breathing against the vent and her oxygen went to 67 and was still going down. Beepers and buzzers went off everywhere as everyone came rushing in and they started bagging her. I totally freaked out as I did not know for sure what was happening and did not know if they would be able to stabilize her again. I called Bill at work and told him he needed to get here fast. Again it made me realize just how really close we are to death. Heather seems to be okay for now as she is resting comfortably and they gave her 2 mg of Ativan to calm her down. She also has spiked a fever of around the hundred and one and they are putting the cooling blanket on her and giving her Tylenol again. 

This is Heather and she died.

April fool’s day is a day of jokes, pranks and laughter but for me it is a reminder that April is here and a very sad month for us. I will never begin to pretend that Easter in April, April fools; April 10, April 20 and March 19 are anything but horrible days to me. I think many people feel that after six years I should not be feeling the strong feelings and emotions that I still have to this day. I am here to tell you that in six years this has not diminished very much at all and with the days lining up exactly as they did in 2009, I think this year is a little bit more difficult.

Of course I've had all the well-meaning sentiments said to me "she's in a better place" or "God needed another angel." I am here to tell you that those statements do not help a hurting heart in anyway. I typically don't listen to sermons or Christian messages that are posted on Facebook but yesterday one struck me and I listened to the whole thing. I would like to share what I learned from that with you now.

When you ask "why did God heal one child and allow my child to die" there is no answer!!! PERIOD!!! But all of our friends and family seem to think that we have to have an answer to this question. There are two bad answers and there is one good answer.

Jenn, Wendy and Heather Easter 1992

Bad answer number one "it is Gods will"....
There are other wills that are done on this earth that we know nothing about. If we remember Job was tested for 40 days there are evil forces and forces that God allows but that does not mean that it was God's will. It is never God’s will that someone be raped, get cancer, in a horrible accident, gets addicted to drugs or that someone is to perish in a horrible explosion. God has allowed this to happen but this was not God's will. God does not bring evil on us.

        1. God is good all the time
        2. Evil is evil all the time
        3. God will always bring some form of good when evil things happen to us

When we pray to God it is not our wish list I wish like I had $1 million, I wish I had a new car, or I wish I had a better life. God’s will isn't an exact blueprint example “raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart.” This implies that if our children do get involved in bad things that we were not good parents, which is simply not true. We can be the best parents, raise our children right and godly and they can still use their own free will to choose to do other things.

Bad answer number two we did not have enough faith....

If you only had enough faith, you would never be sick, you would never have cancer, you would never get involved with drugs and you would never have a down or sad day. This is simply not true!!! Faith is an action word; faith does not make your will less powerful. The pool of drugs and alcohol, pornography or over eating and anything else that is in excess is your will, not lack of faith. When I board a plane am I 100% certain that that plane is not going down? NO, but we have faith and we stepped onto the plane. Stepping onto the plane is an action a faith. We all need to ask God to help me overcome my unbelief as I really do believe but sometimes it's hard. Faith is also not a formula. It is not simple Y plus X equals three.

Wendy, Heather and Jenn Easter 1994

The only acceptable answer to someone hurting is "I don't know why!"

What I do know is that God is good, evil is bad and I don't know why this happened! PERIOD! END! You just said it all!! God does not have needs, God did not need another angel when my daughter died. God is all sufficient and he does not need anything from us. It absolutely makes my skin crawl when someone says your child died or my child died because God needed another angel. To quote "Rabbit Hole: he is God after all, why didn't he make another one? It is that simple God didn't need my Heather, God wanted my Heather, but God did not NEED my Heather. This is not to say that Heather's death and God’s mercy probably spared her from a life of worrying of her cancer was back, more chemo treatments, and possibly other horrible things that could have been the remainder of her life that she lived.

When Jesus found out that Lazarus had died all it says is Jesus wept. After some time went by then Jesus performs a miracle and brought him back from the dead but that. The period is of great significance. Jesus paused he waited and allowed everyone including himself to grieve. The period at the end of that sentence is the time and space that we need to heal. This time and space is not measured by man as the journey is mine and no one else's. I know that God has ultimate victory over pain and death but right now this simply does not work for me. Joy and faith in God is not black-and-white we have gray areas in which we have great deals of pain and grief. It is okay for me to say that my faith is a bloody mess right now! This is the time and space when I hurt and my faith is tested. Right now my faith is raw and painful and it just hurts; and it won't feel good until I get to heaven. In the end our prayers of faith were answered but not the way we wanted. As a grieving mother I am very tired of hearing this was God's will and be of great joy for Heather is in heaven with her king. As a grieving mother I don't have joy in my sadness and my faith is being tested. I need to be able to stand up in my grief and my sadness and have other stand alongside me with no judgment and no frou frou words that are meaningless. This means today as well as 20 years from now.

Wendy, Heather and Jenn Easter 2008

I’m sure by now as you read this blog that you understand why this particular sermon and these particular words stood out and made a deep impression on me. I don't need man's approval but in some way I feel like I did get the approval that I really am okay and I really am allowed to grieve for as long as it takes me. However long it takes me is okay and I will never be okay till I reach heaven. It is okay that Easter is not something I look forward to each year. It is a bittersweet reminder of a horrible time. We had two Easters ruined in a row; the first with waiting for cancer biopsy and the second one was in ICU praying Heather would live. I do love my savior with all my heart, I do have the upmost faith in God, but this particular holiday has very hurtful and very wrong memories for us and it will never be the same.