One Thing Ended

It is hard to believe that M and R have been healed for 3 months now.  In some ways it actually feels a lot longer than that.  To be honest, it feels like an entire lifetime separates our life sick from our life healed.  It is difficult to experience these realities on a continuum and somehow makes more sense to me to see them as entirely separate - as though one thing has ended and another thing has begun.  It is funny because this is how my husband and I used to describe our life together.  

The dating days! (September, 2007)

The Wedding Day! (February 16, 2008)

Twins...13 days before our 1st anniversary!! (February 3, 2009)

Five and a half years later! (November 24, 2012)

Sometimes people come to us (when they are in the midst of marital problems) looking for us to tell them that “the grass is greener” so to speak.  I think people see all that God has done in our lives and think; “If they can be happy (happier than they were in their past marriages) then perhaps I can find someone else to be happier with.”  People looking in don’t see the difficulty though.  It is because of these moments that Shawn and I have developed the idea that some things don’t exist on a continuum.  We firmly believe that our happiness together has nothing to do with our failed marriages.  It is all about redemption.  It is difficult for me to express, but as I sit here now I am beginning to realize that it is actually a picture of resurrection.  God didn’t take our past marriages, direct us to divorce, lead us to one another, make us happily ever after, etc.  No.  We failed.  The marriages that we were both in were one-flesh unions.  The moment we said “I do,” we were married to the person God had for us.  But we as humans failed.  When our first marriages failed something died.  It was AFTER this that our God stepped in with his Resurrection Power and breathed life into something NEW.  One thing ended and another thing began.  Now as I write this I realize that this is just the way of our God - in many circumstances.

As I sit here now and realize that I feel the same way toward the children’s healing – I have to wonder what does this say about us.  What does it say about the resurrection power of the cross as we live out our daily lives?  Are we truly embracing the POWER that comes from the cross?  I know that this is much, much deeper than I am expressing here.  Though some of this has been in my heart for a long time, some of it is developing right now. 

One thing I know for sure – right now – this gives me great confidence in terms of M and R’s healing.  If I believe that their healing is a work of the cross I can extrapolate that it is truly and completely finished.   After all, we don’t live in fear of the curtain being sewn up and the separation from God being reinstated do we?  No.  We have complete confidence that the curse has been broken – that when Jesus said, “it is finished,” it was indeed finished.  Done.  When He rose again we didn’t continue on some continuum of living under the law.  No, there was a NEW covenant that completely replaced the old.  We don’t have to wonder if the old system of sacrifice will be reinstated – we KNOW that we live under Grace.  One thing ended and another began.  Thank you Jesus!

The first Christmas with a Christmas Cookie! (December, 2012)

Today I have full confidence that one thing ended.  My family was sick – for a long time.  I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for the fullness of his promise that he is the Resurrection and the Life – that this doesn’t begin and end with salvation, but that my God is in the business of redemption - resurrecting: relationships, dreams, hopes, futures, pasts, broken hearts, lives, _________ (insert need here)!