life is hard

Banking on some of the creativity within our household, I’ve solicited the talents today of a young son to help me with today’s post. No, we are not embarking on a winter guest writer series; stay tuned for next summer when our clever writers will again exhibit their contagious wisdom and wit.

My youngest son, though, is pretty amazing. Yes, yes, I know we each tend to be partial to our own flesh and blood, yet I’m fairly certain even if I was not blessed to be his parent, I would still find Joshua to be amazing.

Young, master Josh possesses many gifts, such as (he would gleefully wish for me to inform you) some rather impressive, new dance moves he typically shares with the world each brisk early morning, as we wait for daily school bus.

One of his more fascinating gifts, no less, is his ability to speak the truth. Fascinating, friends, because I believe that in contemporary society, such a gift is rare. So many people feel the only way to speak truth is to shout it; so many others have little respect for the totatlity of their audience; and so many still say one thing to one crowd, and yet a different word to another. Truth is truth. And Josh, this amazing, 13 year old boy with special-but-by-no-means-debilitating needs, knows how to speak it. This week, he spoke it again…

We’ve been wrestling with a serious illness in our family. It’s tough. It’s hard. It’s hard to watch someone you love struggle.

As the last few months have passed, we’ve shared portions of the physical progression with Josh, as he, too, cares deeply for each of our family members. Yet this week one morning, instead of focusing on those new moves, he was simply not his typical self. He was so obviously, emotionally moved; and he was sad. Josh’s entire attitude and activity was thrown off that morn, and it was visible in every ounce of his being. He asked me to please come sit with him.

As I sat down, Josh shared with me that he could not stop thinking about our family member. He was rattled. Upset. When I tried to appease him some, try to pep him up a little, he immediately snapped his head up from it’s downcast pose, yelling at me. “Mom, you don’t understand! I don’t trust God with this!”

And there you have it…

You don’t understand. I don’t trust God with this.

Isn’t that the reality for us as adults? Isn’t that the truth?

It made me think of how often as adults, we don’t trust God… how intelligence gets in the way… how passion and emotion get in the way… how there are so many aspects and areas and struggles and scenarios in which we validate trumping God’s providence and care because of how we feel. And so for whatever reason, we choose not to trust the God of the universe. We don’t trust him with…

Provision. Justice. The future. The current… We too often take too many things into our own hands.

Josh and I proceeded to together conclude that this is tough stuff. In fact, when I shared that such is the struggle for every living, breathing, human being, he seemed to get it… “It’s just hard to trust when life is hard, but I know still, God loves me.”

Josh finished his breakfast, and then we went outside and danced. It was a little slower of a song. Maybe next summer he’ll be a guest writer, too.

Respectfully…

AR