Verse of the day...

O LORD, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done marvelous things,
things planned long ago.
-Isaiah 25:1

I just love Isaiah - he's so poetic :)

Justice, Joy & Psalms

So yesterday, I breezily asked my sister about her sister-in-law, who is pregnant with her second child. I said "So how's Lindsay? Does she know what she's having?" and my sister replied that it was a girl. Casual, breezy, and the conversation moved on...

Until midnight, when I started crying and could not for the life of me get it back under control. I was totally overcome with anger - not at Lindsay, but more at what she represents...what I should have been. I was supposed to be having a girl in December, just a couple of weeks before Lindsay. I just have these moments where I am so totally pissed off about what happened, and the fact that it happened to ME, and how totally unfair it all is.

I was talking to a good friend about her miscarriage many years ago. She told me that a friend of hers was pregnant at the same time, and that for years, when she looked at the friend's little girl, she felt a pang of what might have been. I can so relate to that...I know a couple of people due within a couple of weeks of me, and even dumb Nicole Ritchie. I look at them and think about what might have been, where I might be, where the baby would be...I just want what I lost, and I'm grieving.

Several people recommended reading Psalms. I was just looking back at what I've read, and I have consistently underlined David's down moments - the "help me, why have you abandoned me?" verses where he cries out to God.

Psalm 40:1 from the Message translation: I waiting and waited and waited for God. At last he looked, finally he listened.

It's hard for me to reconcile what happened in the context of faith. I really, truly believe that God is completely good in the midst of everything bad that happened to us. And I really truly believe that God loves us. I am trying to just hang onto that, despite the "why?" that constantly nags me...but I am continuing to ask God "why?" at the same time.

He gets angry once in a while, but across a lifetime there is only love. The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter. (Also Message, Psalm 30:5)

So that's what I'm hanging onto...days of laughter, here I come.

Currently reading

Daniel: Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy by Beth Moore

We're halfway through my women's bible study now. We've just finished all the historical study of Daniel and now we're moving into the prophetic stuff. It's way more challenging - I just finished Daniel 7 and I find all of the end times stuff confusing. But way fun too.

I found this week's lesson particularly interesting in light of this FT article that Nate sent me about the US and Rome.