Dannette The keyboard is a bit dusty over here, but I’ve been writing these words in my heart since March. And after a day on a golf cart watching my husband and his buddies swinging clubs and telling stories about their beloved lost pal, I decided today was the day. It’s time.
I guess acting a little crazy and toasting our dear friend Joe Starkey yesterday gave me all the feels and the push I needed this morning.
I’ve hesitated a bit to put words out into the world about the losses we saw last Spring, mostly because the losses were barely ours. Not compared to the ones who lost a brother, a husband, a father, a child, or even a friend. I’ve been a passenger so to speak, watching those in the driver seat drive straight thru the storm.
And all I keep coming back to are the words in a song. “There’s no place His grace and love won’t find us again.” And that’s what I hold on to as I consider the graves that have been dug around us. There really is no place God’s mercy and love can’t find us. Even in the depths of despair of the ugliest loss imaginable. God can show up there and mend the tattered edges of your soul.
Within a few week’s time earlier this year, we saw 3 young men lose their lives. It was wave after wave of loss. A dear friend, then a cousin, then we watched another bury their child. Even writing the words now, language itself can’t grasp the depths of the loss we’ve watched those around us brave. We barely dipped our toes into the seas of hurt and STILL, we beat our chests and hit our knees because the loss is palpable.
I wish we had the power to take it back. To bring them back. But all we can do is move forward. It’s all any of us can do. And so the words of the song are what I offer today. There’s NO PLACE God’s light and goodness can’t light up.
The song is called “Graves to Gardens”. And the tragic irony isn’t lost on me after all we’ve seen this year. Graves becoming gardens? I’m pretty sure those whose shoes are fresh with the dirt of loss will shun those words. I would. But we can’t forget we have a God who DID this. He lost a son. A perfect son. And to those watching it unfold around that cross when the sky turned black, they probably thought it was hopeless too. They watched an innocent man die. It looked like Satan had won. Evil had prevailed??? Or did God use what appeared a tragedy to birth the most beautiful act ever recorded in the history of the world?
BUT GOD. He’s always at work. It may look like the darkness is winning at every turn and that there is NO way the losses we’ve experienced could ever bring any good. Heck, we don’t want them to. We want it to go back to the way it was before. Just like I bet those standing around the cross of calvary did. It’s like we’re right there standing with them saying, “Bring us back the kind man that could heal us with his words and touch.” Right?
The Father is there thru it all though. Working the unbearable into something beautiful because He has a plan. Because He is GOOD. Because He is God.
The words of the song say, “You turn mourning to dancing. You give beauty for ashes. You turn shame into glory. You’re the only one who CAN.” And it’s true. There’s no power in this universe that can turn the cross of our lives into something beautiful besides Almighty God.
***
I’ve been driving by this tree for years now. And when I look at it, all I can see is US in our losses. Souls standing tall, rooted in place, and then the powerlines of life come barreling thru and carve our hearts out with loss. We’re left standing there, GUTTED. And somehow we survive. We don’t fall over though thrown off balance. Our roots and the strength we’ve built over the years are what keep us standing. The roots that tangle in community with the trees standing next to us send out distress signals and it ends up being our neighbors that hold us up. They hug deep and pull against the fingers of our roots and will not let us fall. We lean on them. They push and pull to keep us standing.
So there we are, all carved out from the insides and still alive, and it hurts. And some people happen up to us from the other side, and they see what looks like a fully formed tree. They don’t know that on the other side we are missing limbs and leaves and most of what made us whole to begin with. They don’t know what we hide.
AND THE LIGHT. Let’s not forget about the light. It gets the chance to shine into the very core of our souls because we’ve been laid bare. The light gets to touch the middle of the tree now because of the void. The void let’s the light in. Can you see it? It’s upside down and it makes no sense, but God is at work making the loss into a thing of beauty. No one asked for it. No one wanted it. But God won’t lose the opportunity to mold and shape us where life and this world has cut us deep.
And back to the song. Because the words are deep and dark, but somehow the ones singing it have found joy.
They sing “THERE’S NOTHING BETTER THAN YOU” because God IS the only one who can do it. Who can step into the pain and loss, turn the weight into something bearable, and eventually, make it beautiful. There’s no place he can’t light up friends.
