Healing through Music

            I just can’t do it. I have tried and tried to write something inspiring tonight, but I am not inspired, I’m sad and a little tired. Today marks the 1^st month anniversary of Isabella Grace’s birthday and the day she passed into that place I long for, perfection! I wanted to write about all that I am grateful for. I am grateful for a lot, but I am not ready to vocalize that yet. I struggled with the silence of God for a while when everything first happened and I want to write about that, but not tonight. Andrew Peterson wrote an amazing song about the silence of God. Check it out on YouTube sometime. Another song that has been a source of encouragement in my life is Shine by the David Crowder band. They have an awesome video they made using a Lite-Brite on YouTube, check that out also.

            Music has really been my encouragement and the source I find God’s voice speaking to me the most right now. He has blessed me with words to finish two songs I had started writing before Isabella was born but I just couldn’t find the right lines to finish it before she came. After her birth and death I heard the words in my head within a few days. He has also blessed me with a new song that helped me vocalize my frustration with this situation. My band got together for a practice session this past Saturday and we started working those songs up. I am so happy to sing these songs; the last song is just a blessing to hear with my band, thank you eXalt! One line from the last song I wrote says “Won’t you show up, please help me escape. This pain’s to real please make it all go away, the louder I cry the more silent you are! But maybe the truth is You’re not that far.” I think this is really how I feel. God seems so distant in so many ways but I know in my heart He is not that far.

            I don’t have much else to say but I want to leave you with a poem I wrote the night Isabella passed away. I still hold these words to be true. I look forward to being with her when the great veil of this world is pulled back and we finally see the beauty and majesty of eternity with God. I love you Isabella, happy one month birthday.

Her Father’s Touch

I’ll never get to touch her hand

or hear her call me daddy

I’ll never get to play with her hair

or bounce her on my knee

I’ll never get to dance around the house

with her in her beautiful dress

I’ll never get to watch her put on make-up

for the first time and make such a mess

I’ll never be forced to play dress up

and sit with her and drink invisible tea

We’ll never sit and talk for hours on end

or say “Yes” when she ask “daddy am I lovely?”

I’ll never get to see through her

her mother’s radiant smile

And I’ll never see her marry

or walk her down the aisle

There are so many moments

I’ll never have or do

I’m just not sure

how my family will make it through

But for everything I’ll miss

about my beautiful baby girl

God will be her perfect Father

and she’ll live in a perfect world

She’ll never have to face one fear

or cry herself to sleep

‘Cause she’ll be in her Father’s arms

she will never have to weep

And just as King David knew so well

he would be with his child one day

I too will go to her and she’ll show me around

and together we will stay

I will miss my little girl so much

But it helps to know she has her Father’s touch

Hard to Get

I want to start by asking your forgiveness tonight. I am angry, I probably shouldn’t write tonight but I need to let this out. I am angry but probably not at the thing you would think – I’ll get to that in a minute. I am also perplexed. I don’t understand God. Now before you try to console me with all your wisdom about God don’t forget Job’s three friends were firmly convinced in their view of God. They were proved to be wrong. So please hold your tongue for a minute and let me vent. I don’t understand God and I am not alone. Job did not understand God. Habakkuk cried out from his watchtower because he just did not understand what God was doing. God is hard to get and he plays hard to get. Look at all the religions of the world out there, a grasping to understand God and make God what they want him to be. It is so complicated that most of them had to split him into multiple personalities (gods). The truth is we would all be completely lost in our understanding of God if he had not provided some level of detail about Himself to us. He did it in two forms. The word of God (the Bible) and God in human flesh – Christ Jesus, for the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Even with that level of knowledge that we have been privileged with by God, God is still sometimes just plain hard to get. You may doubt what I am saying but you do not have to live in my house and listen to my wife wailing in the bathroom trying to keep the rest of us from hearing her mourning. There is a part of grief that I can try and try to explain away with the deepest of theological discourse but it does not take away the pain and the knowledge that God was more than strong enough to keep Isabella from passing on so early. We were robbed of so much. Yes, I know we were given so much. We had much joy in preparing a place for Isabella as I know God has had as much joy in doing the same. But that doesn’t take away the emptiness in my heart that is my daughter and her quick departure from me. God is not easy to understand. I am not convinced he means to be. I am not convinced an eternity with Him will bring an end to my amazement at how complex he is.

I have said my peace. I know God is sufficient and I know God does not have to give me anything or any answer. I also know that God loves me and I truly believe God grieves with me because this is not how the world was meant to be. We live in one messed up crazy world and truth be told, it is messed up because we made it that way. God did not force us to sin against him; in fact, Satan did not force us to rebel against God. We chose to rebel and we do it everyday as a race. Earlier I said I was angry. I’m not angry at God, I don’t get Him, but I’m not angry, at least not this second! I’m not angry at my wife, I’m not angry at our delivery. I am angry at sin. I am angry that my sin (in general) has caused such a divide that God is so hard for me to get. I long for those days when I can walk in the garden with God like Adam and Eve did and to experience that level of relationship that they experienced before they rebelled. I long for an intimacy that will help me find God less hard to get.

I end tonight with a song Rich Mullins wrote. It fits my mood perfectly. Rich was a man of God that I could only dream of being. He had a true gift for writing music. He had realness and openness in his lyrics that I think is only second to King David’s honesty. I want to be real like David and Rich with God. God knows my thoughts. I want to be open like this yet to remain like Job. To question, to cry out and to wait for the answers that may never come, but all the while to remain faithful to God and not curse Him. He is good and His love endures forever.

Rich Mullins – Hard to Get

You who live in heaven
Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth
Who are afraid of being left by those we love
And who get hardened by the hurt
Do you remember when You lived down here where we all scrape
To find the faith to ask for daily bread
Did You forget about us after You had flown away
Well I memorized every word You said
Still I'm so scared, I'm holding my breath
While You're up there just playing hard to get
You who live in radiance
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin
We have a love that's not as patient as Yours was
Still we do love now and then
Did You ever know loneliness
Did You ever know need
Do You remember just how long a night can get?
When You were barely holding on
And Your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in Your sweat
Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While You're up there just playing hard to get?
And I know you bore our sorrows
And I know you feel our pain
And I know it would not hurt any less
Even if it could be explained
And I know that I am only lashing out
At the One who loves me most
And after I figured this, somehow
All I really need to know
Is if You who live in eternity
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time
We can't see what's ahead
And we can not get free of what we've left behind
I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears
All the words of shame and doubt, blame and regret
I can't see how You're leading me unless You've led me here
Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led
And so You've been here all along I guess
It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get

Why this blog?

   Well, I've never attempted anything like this before. I am not much of a writer and this is probably not how you start your first blog out according to conventional wisdom, heck - I don't think I've ever read a blog before. The good thing is I've never really been conventional. I am a pretty open person in many ways and yet very private as well. If you expect to get some deeply profound thoughts from me, you probably will be disappointed. If you expect to be encouraged by my immense faith, you will probably be disappointed. However, if you want to see into the heart of a grieving father who deep down inside still knows God to be good, then you may find some sort of blessing through this blog. I hope you find a man who is real and honest about his faith and his struggles.
   The reason this blog exists, for those who may not know, is to journal my emotions as I deal with the loss of my baby girl Isabella Grace. Isabella's family looked forward to her joining us for 9 months. We were so excited especially after the first trimester was over as we had experienced a miscarriage about 6 month before Isabella was conceived. Her day of arrival came and she was birthed and with very little indication that anything was wrong. Once she passed out of the womb and into our world our hopes changed drastically. She came out unresponsive, limp and with a cord tangled around her neck about 6 times. We are not really sure what happened as we had a healthy heartbeat all the way up until we could no longer hear it as she passed through the birth canal. As she began to enter the world she had a pink top on her hairy little head. However, as she continued to push her way out we saw that there was a serious cord issue. Everything was done to save her, but no physical response would ever be given to us.
   She was so beautiful. I can never describe how beautiful a baby she was. In addition to her beauty was the fact that she was a girl. We chose not to find out the sex this time, we had two boys long before Isabella. We wanted to be surprised. I am torn with emotion because deep down I wanted a little girl. I wanted that experience of raising a daughter. I wanted to dance with her, teach her about boys and tell her how captivating she was to me as I know that every little girl wants to be captivating to their daddy's. They want to feel beautiful and I wanted to be able to express that to a daughter. It is a very difficult thing to know that I will miss so many life moments with Isabella Grace. I also never got a chance to see my baby girl's eyes. That tares me up even now, never having seen her eyes. But I did get a few things that help ease the pain. I was able to hold her for a very long time. Looking back it will never feel like enough time, but nonetheless, I held my little girl for a long while. Thankfully, we have pictures of her as we had a photographer present at the birth. I will cherish these pictures always.
   Of course, I struggle with many issues now that will take me a very long time to work through. It is funny, I never could quite understand Job from the Bible. It is sort of surreal when you read about all the loss that Job experienced. And the fact is, Job is NOT a comforting story. Job has so many "Why" moments in his story. I understand that now. I think the reality is I didn't think I was like Job's three ignorant friends and I thought I was more like the somewhat understanding Elihu. The reality is I was more like the three ignorant friends. I may not have blamed Job's troubles on his sin, but I did have trouble relating to Job as I think his friends did. I think we all sort of are like that until we truly experience loss. Maybe not, but that is my impression. I think now I understand Job a little better. I may not have had as much loss as Job, but I now understand loss better and what it means to have the "Why" questions.
   I also understand something all to real that Job experienced - the silence of God. I hear that silence in many ways now. Because that silence is in my "Whys". I want to know so many questions as Job did. God may not have stayed silent forever with Job, but I get the impression that Job did not hear from Him for a while. And what is not comforting about Job and his story is that his "Whys" were never really answered by God, at least not to Job. If all of our stories ended like Job's, life would be pretty depressing. However, for Job there was one answer that he held tight to before he even heard from God. Job knew that his redeemer lived and that in his flesh he would see Him and not another. Job 19:25-27
²⁵ “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
      and he will stand upon the earth at last.
 ²⁶ And after my body has decayed,
      yet in my body I will see God!^[b]
 27 I will see him for myself.
      Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.
      I am overwhelmed at the thought! (NLT)

Job held on to hope even in despair and that is really what helps me deal with the silence of God. Job is able to say this before he ever hears from God. Deep down inside I know God is not silent and how can one who has been so silent to God expect God to be so powerfully audible to him. It is a contradiction my head knows well, but my heart cries out "WHY" even still. But I will rest assured tonight that I know my redeemer lives and in my flesh I will see him. Whether or not I ever get answers in this life or even when my flesh finally sees Him, I know that He is good.  The fact is that sin and death may not be God's Will, but God does will those miseries into His redemptive story.

Amen, Yes Lord, Come quickly!