Today is my 45th birthday.

Typically I am not one that lets a birthday phase me. I have always felt blessed by my family and my friends, as I have aged I felt like I was doing so with greater grace for others, knowledge of God and an understanding of who He was in my life.

Of course there are the minor annoyances that come with getting older that are not fun for anyone, but for me it was just a part of life. I never really felt like I had hit a “midlife crisis” point.

Today is the second of milestones in this journey of loss. I suppose the biggest initially was getting to that 30 day mark, one month without Isaac here. Today would mark the second.

I was dreading today. I guess mostly because it marks the first of what will likely be many birthdays that I will “celebrate” without my oldest son here. I would love to tell you that Isaac was super great about honoring his mom on her special day but the reality was I was probably lucky to get a phone call or a quick text. He was never terribly “mushy” in that way, but even if Dominic had to remind him…I would hear something.

I have already been showered with love today. I do have so many reasons to be grateful. Dominic went last night and got me some beautiful flowers and a heartfelt card (my love language). My parents stopped by yesterday and brought with them food, picked up some birthday cupcakes and dropped of this amazing sign that my sister sent for me. I have had text messages and voxes and emails…so many words of encouragement.

I am grateful, I am.

But my heart is so very sad.

One of the Bible verses that I looked up today was Psalm 89:15-16

¹⁵ Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,
    who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
¹⁶ who exult in your name all the day
    and in your righteousness are exalted.

I was curious about what a festal shout was so I did a little more digging.

The Hebrew definition is teruah: a shout or blast of war, alarm, or joy

Apparently this same word is found in the story of Jerico in the book of Joshua.

God tells Joshua that he is going to give Jerico into Joshua’s hand. There is this huge wall around the city and God gives Joshua instructions to have his army march around the city, along with priests and the ark of the covenant, once a day for six days. And they are not to make a sound, just march. On the seventh day they are to march around the city seven times with the priests blowing their trumpets and then the people were to shout with a great shout (teruah) and the wall would fall down.

I have talked about this story before. I love it. Mostly because I can about imagine what it must have looked like and maybe felt like being there. Here are the people inside the wall seeing this army marching around the wall once a day, not making a sound for six days. Don’t you wonder what the people inside of Jerico must have thought? “What a bunch of crazy people!” “What in the world are they doing?!”

And the men in the army, the priests….I don’t know about you but at about day 3, I would be wondering “What in the world is this Joshua character having us do?” “Why are we marching around this wall silently, doing nothing?” “What is the point of all of this?”

So I don’t know if these people were full of faith or full of anger or maybe even a little embarrassment at the past six days of silent marching…but on that seventh day when Joshua told them “Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.” The Bible says that the people “shouted with a great shout (terauh) and the wall fell down flat. (v20)

God did what He said He would do.

Blessed are the people who know this deep cry out to the Lord. Who whether full of faith or anger or embarrassment (or sadness) or a bit of each, shout out to the Lord and the walls around them fall.

I hate that my life will now be marked by “milestones”, moments that in many ways, at least for these first few years I might just survive through. But I count myself blessed. Because I enter into this second half of my life knowing the festal shout in a way that many do not.

God met me in the midst of my deepest sorrow-cries and continues to meet me in each moment after. God has done what He said He would do. He has not left me, He has not forsaken me and He continues to carry me until the next milestone.

“You might think that praying with someone in pain is a small and insignificant thing, but it is not. You’ll likely be able to ask God for help with a different level of faith than your hurting friend can muster. The boldness of your request and the confidence in your approach to the throne of grace can be a great help. You can pray with a firm belief that creates a stronger faith in others. If you don’t know what to pray, consider appealing to God through the words of a lament like Psalm 13 or 22. As you echo the boldness of the psalm, it can beget boldness in a hurting friend.” From Dark Clouds Deep Mercy – Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop

People keep commenting how strong I am, how much faith we have…but I believe that the faithful prayers of so so many have carried us, have bolstered our faith, have helped us stay connected to the Father and we are so very grateful for that.

This has changed my perspective on what it means to really pray for someone. To not just tell or type “praying for you” but to actually pause and do it because I have seen how powerful the prayers of others are. We can boldly ask God for strength and mercy and peace and wisdom for someone else when they don’t have the words or the faith to do it for themselves. What an honor that is!

Thank you for doing that for us.

I saw this photo from an account I follow on IG and thought it was fitting. It seems as though in recent days I have been confronted with this message of being refined in suffering.

On Sunday we were praying over another church friend who is going through her own battle and had surgery yesterday for cancer. Our pastor mentioned the story from Daniel of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego .

This morning I spent some time reading those verses again. I had long forgotten one crucial detail of this story. You see I remembered that these 3 men wouldn’t worship the golden idol made by King Nebuchadnezzar and he had ordered them to be thrown into the furnace. I had remembered that they came out of that furnace alive…but I had forgotten that they were not alone in the fire.

^16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “Your threat means nothing to us. If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king. But even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn’t serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”

^19-23 Nebuchadnezzar, his face purple with anger, cut off Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace fired up seven times hotter than usual. He ordered some strong men from the army to tie them up, hands and feet, and throw them into the roaring furnace. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, bound hand and foot, fully dressed from head to toe, were pitched into the roaring fire. Because the king was in such a hurry and the furnace was so hot, flames from the furnace killed the men who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to it, while the fire raged around Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

²⁴ Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm and said, “Didn’t we throw three men, bound hand and foot, into the fire?”

“That’s right, O king,” they said.

²⁵ “But look!” he said. “I see four men, walking around freely in the fire, completely unharmed! And the fourth man looks like a son of the gods!”

²⁶ Nebuchadnezzar went to the door of the roaring furnace and called in, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the High God, come out here!”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out of the fire.

²⁷ All the important people, the government leaders and king’s counselors, gathered around to examine them and discovered that the fire hadn’t so much as touched the three men—not a hair singed, not a scorch mark on their clothes, not even the smell of fire on them!

The Message Version

I see four men, walking around freely in the fire. And the fourth looks like a son of the gods.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fire, they did not find themselves alone. God was with them.

In so many ways this new path we are on seems like our own furnace. And yet, because of God’s grace and mercy we are walking around freely. God has been so so good to us during this time, you have been so so good to us.

This is not the place we want to be, but like I have said multiple times before, it is the place we find ourselves. It is hard for me not to ask God why He chose to refine my character in THIS way. Isn’t there an easier, softer way Lord?

But as we look at how the story in Daniel ends I think we get a glimpse of how we can approach the purpose of our suffering…

²⁸ Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him! They ignored the king’s orders and laid their bodies on the line rather than serve or worship any god but their own.

²⁹ “Therefore I issue this decree: Anyone anywhere, of any race, color, or creed, who says anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be ripped to pieces, limb from limb, and their houses torn down. There has never been a god who can pull off a rescue like this.”

³⁰ Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

In the end even Nebuchadnezzar recognized God’s power in the midst of the fire. In our own trials, if we can put our hope and our trust in God….maybe we have the opportunity to change a life. Maybe one person who didn’t know God in a real way will start to see God in a new way.

I guess that continues to be my prayer. Even if just one Lord….

I miss my son and it will never be ok without him, but if even one person comes to know Jesus in a real way because of this, then I can boldly say that the fire was worth it.

In 2017 we got new flooring in our kitchen and our dining room. Before they put the new flooring down we went through and wrote a bunch of bible verses on the floor. We literally stand on God’s Word every day in a sense…

A few weeks before Isaac died I took this fun quiz to determine what my “Word of the Year” would be. Mine came back “STAND.” I was surprised by that honestly and wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to make of it. How was that going to look in 2020?

I had no idea that we would be going into a season where standing on the promises of God would be even more crucial. It is not by my strength that I stand but by His. And I recognize that to even get through a day now, I have to stand on His truth.

I have been alone today at the office and I guess it hasn’t really been good for me. Maybe it is just a hard day I don’t know, but I can’t stop from crying. I am sad and angry and there are things that are still unknown and I am frustrated. I have no control over any of this and I see reflections of myself in a mirror and I don’t even recognize who I am anymore. I feel like I have aged years in a matter of weeks.

I guess grief does that to you.

Years ago I had a lasik-like surgery on my eyes (PRK) it was scary and I remember laying in chair, staring up at the ceiling and prayed over and over “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

I couldn’t even remember any of the rest of the verse but that one line. But repeating it over and over calmed my spirit for the 10 minutes or so they did their procedure. Today I found this picture and was reminded that I need to stand on what I know. Even if it is just repeating over and over a few simple words that will help calm my anxious, broken heart.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want….”

God I can’t do this on my own, it is too much…so I am standing on Your Word this moment. You are my shepherd, I shall not want….

Different journey, same God. Ever faithful….always grateful.

I am trying to work on a project, something I can’t share now, but if things go well, I can in April. I have been going through some of my old journal entries and came across this one from late September 2017….I was preparing for a surgery that I was about to have and there were some unknowns.

“I am trusting you with the outcome, trying to just pray that you would be continue to be with me whatever happens. It feels selfish almost to ask you to spare me from hardship when there are so many people who are hurting.

Instead I am going to just thank you for preparing me for this journey. For the fact that I am physically the most healthy I have been going into this. I used to beg you to spare me the difficulty, now I just ask you to lead me and give me strength.

So many women posted on FB and IG about their struggles – so much greater than I am facing. Single moms, multiple deaths in the family, loss of faith…Lord make your presence known to these women in a new and deep way would you? Pour out your peace over them as you have over me.

I know the desperation, I remember feeling so lost and believing the lie that you weren’t there. I know the truth today. Help them see the truth in a new way today. I know you will use my journey, whatever it is for your glory, so I am honored to be walking with you.”

Different journey, same God. Ever faithful….always grateful.