don't cry. or do. whatever.

If you want me to be funny, read my last post. I tried, anyway.  I don't see a lot of funny coming in this one....sometimes it sneaks through, but don't place any bets on it this time.

So.  It's a beeeeautiful day outside today.  I tried to do a little reading outside while the boys rest/nap, but the wind was a teeny bit chilly for me, because I'm becoming old.  So I came inside and opened the blinds and pretended I was outside.  I also pretended I was a lot skinnier and having fun on the beach with my friends.  Which I will actually be doing in about 4 months.  But I probably will still be pretending to be skinnier.

Anyway, I digress. I'm trying to read through the Bible in 90 days, if you've been absent from the blog for awhile. I'm failing.  I'm reading it every day, though.  And I'm all the way into the Psalms, which I suppose is pretty good considering I really did start in Genesis, on Jan. 1....yes, of this year.  So anyway, I'm really only about 10 days behind, because I just couldn't read big huge chunks of the 1sts and 2nds (You know, samuels, kings, chronicles). I couldn't do it. I'm a baby.  So I finished Job today.  And I've always liked the book of Job.  Mainly because all this bad stuff happens to Job, but he doesn't implode or become a recluse or anything.  He survives.  But there's a lot of good stuff in there.  Like how God even talks about dinosaurs (or dragons.  or big beastly things.  scholars? no, scholars aren't beastly. i'm asking their opinion. I like to think, based on a pro-dinosaurs are in the Bible-scholar I've heard speak before, that dinosaurs are what some of the beasts in Job are...) Anyway...and how Satan is weird and is just roaming the earth.  Just roaming around like he has nothing else to do...stupid. Roaming. And God asks him if he's noticed Job...Job who is ever so faithful. And Satan is like, "uh yeah. No wonder Job's so "awesome"...nothing bad has ever happened to him. like ever."  So God says, Okay. You can mess with him. I give you permission.  (that's another thing...God gave Satan the go ahead.  Because He's God. So He gets to be in charge.)  So anyway, Job loses all his children and his livestock (as in, they die.)  And other stuff. And he is sad and mourns and grieves but doesn't curse God.  And then he gets all these sores on him, but he still doesn't curse God, even though his wife tells him to.  But he does lament and wish he'd never been born.  And the his friends tell him some messed up stuff and disagree with him about everything pretty much concerning how he won't curse God.  And finally, at the very end, God is like, Hey Job.  Brace yourself like a man. I'm gonna question you and you will answer me.  Do you know how to mark off the earth's dimensions?  have you seen the gates of death? can you make the constellations do stuff?  do the lightning bolts report to you?can you capture (Behemoth, Leviathan, DINOSAURS! okay, i'm not an expert.  but these WERE some sort of gargantuan things way back in the day). ANYWAY...God's like, So. Job. Can you do any of that stuff?  And obviously, all of it is stuff GOD can do and/or has done.  And Job's like, I can't even talk to you.  I spoke once, but I don't have an answer.  I'm not saying anything else.

And towards the end, Job notes that God can do anything.  That's kind of God's point.  Yeah, Job had some really crappy stuff happen to him. REALLY ROUGH STUFF.  Hardcore, make you cry until you throw up kind of stuff.  But sometimes, that stuff happens.  God knows it's coming.  I mean, He could stop it if that were His plan, right?  But sometimes, He allows that stuff to happen.  Yes, suffering and junk just happens in the world. It's part of life.  But if God wanted to let us live a life free of suffering, He totally has the power to do that.  But He chooses not to.  I'm sure there are some ailments that could befall me that the Lord has said "Nope. That's not going to happen to her today."  I'm sure when Ridge was born, God could've made sure that the genetic weirdness inside him causing him to have MLT was obliterated. But that time, he allowed that hardship to go through.  He had a plan. He knew what was on the other side.  He knew that with Job, too.  At the end of Job, in the epilogue, we read, "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the former part."

Amen.  Sure, Job never got his kids back, and he lost all those animals and servants...but the Lord did bless him with more kids (I'm not saying there wasn't still heartache and loss from all the stuff that came his way previously. There was.  Heartache doesn't just go away, I know that. I'm not being insensitive.  Unless I'm being insensitive to myself, because clearly we've lived through some junk.)...Anyway, really really really hard things happen. And they make us really really really hurt. And we cry until we don't think we can breathe.  And we are sad. And we are angry at times. And we don't know who to even talk to because who could possibly really understand?  But at some point, the hardship is over.  It may not end how we want it to, but it does end. eventually.  And for those of us who have lived through the hardest time of our life so far, and are now seemingly on the other side...and who have new struggles because of those previous hardships...and who still have days filled with tears.....for those of us who have walked through that darkness, but seen the hand of God at work in the midst of that...for us...for me...I can say, "The Lord has blessed the latter part of the Carys life more than the former part."

There are hard days.  There are days we have obstacles to overcome that didn't exist before our struggles with Ridge's health.  But there is no greater truth for me at this moment in my life than the truth that the Lord has done and is doing a mighty mighty work in our lives BECAUSE of that dark time we lived through.  Every day is a gift!