Days that Don't

That week was simply hard.

Deadly bombing in Boston.

Lethal explosion in Texas.

My husband didn't get the expected promotion.

The kids were cranky and unruly.
The toilet clogged.
Vacuumed up my engagement ring.

And mud season started.

Life was dirty, messy, incomprehensible.  Plain old muddy, inward and out.  

At bed time, the five year old burrowed down into his blankets on the bottom bunk.  "Mommy," he confided, "Dark is scary.  Why does God have to be so invisible?"

I've asked that myself.
Where was He when my father was diagnosed with cancer in his forties?
Where was He when my son's spinal cord was being irremediably formed in a bubble outside his fetal spine, rendering his lower legs feelingless for life?
Where was He when I lost my temper after praying all morning for patience?
Where was He as my son's clear eyes gazed up searchingly into my face that evening?

I breathed out slowly, trying to shush the harried voice in my head urging me to close the bedroom door and move on to the dirty dishes, the muddy floor, a moment of quiet with my husband before our own bedtime.  This was bigger.

"Well... God is so big.  He is so real.  I think He must be even more "real" than our bodies could handle.  Maybe if we saw Him all the time, it would just be too much... I don't really understand it myself."  I finished lamely, brushing his fuzzy head.  "We'll have to talk more in the morning."

The next day, I dished out scrambled eggs and waited as the fight over favorite forks subdued to quiet munching.

"You know how you were so excited the day of your birthday, you felt like it was too much joy to keep inside?  And when you scraped your hands and legs all up and told me the pain was too much... You guys are tough, but you can still hurt..."

He nodded.  Even little superheroes know they're not invincible.

"And eventually, this body will get old.  You'll need a new one.  I think that new one will be made to handle all the joy of heaven, and it will be able to handle seeing God."

"Like this body is just for practice?" He seemed to follow me.

"I think so." I agreed.  "What we do matters now, but I think it will all be just a shadow of a dream compared to the real life we get to live next."

"In that next life, I want to live in a red jello house."  He happily told me a favorite thought.  "And my real body will be able to eat it, and bounce in it, and not get sick from eating too much sugar all the time."

And there went the conversation.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
2 Corinthians 4:17

The phantom pain of missing feet doesn't distract from the raw emotion of losing limbs to a bomb.
The hypothetical promise from insurance companies hardly lessens the ache over lifetimes of built memories suddenly leveled in Texas.
The crushing pain of loved ones irrevocably gone barely loosens its grip long enough for those families to take another breath.
It is hard, unimaginably heavy.  The pain seems interminable.


I breathe in the warm scent of sweat and sunshine on my two year old's hair as I scoop him out of the sandbox.  He gazes longingly at his brothers racing their scooters on the pavement.  It aches to watch him begin to realize he can't move like them.  We strap him into heavy metal braces and he stands, defying gravity, for a moment.  But the weight of his own body is too heavy for him to bear alone for now.  It is hard.  It will be, his whole life long.
Yet it is all "but for a moment."

Someday, I know, that unbearable weight will be but a memory compared to the gloriously free body he will be running around in.  Life will be so clear and beautiful.  So real.
And it won't be like looking through rose colored glasses.
Even from a red jello house.