Page 452

It seems as if I ask myself, "What is Gods plan for us?" over 100 times a day. I'm still so surprised that His plan included taking my husband from me after only 16 years together. The little girl who lost her mother at 11, who always felt alone, is now alone again. I know he wants us to rely on him, but it's hard. We talk about community a lot in our church and that God puts people in our lives for a reason. Why did He decide it was time to take Steve out of ours? We'll never know the reason and right now, with our souls so raw, it's hard to even imagine there is a plan.

It seems as if the world is abundant with answered prayer. I know, I know, we've had answered prayer too. It was a blessing Steve got to come home in October. It was a blessing we got to go there. It was a blessing God made a way (both weather and life wise) for us to get down there the day before Steve died, but it's so hard when you hear of medical miracles happening and people getting better. I honestly thought Steve would get better. I honestly thought God have given me that picture to look forward to. A friend told me yesterday that God did give me the picture, but my perspective was skewed. The picture is many years from now when I see Steve again in Heaven. That's hard to hear. Does that mean we'll have a miserable life for the next 40 or 50 years and then we get to Steve after we've served our time?

I know God is trying to comfort me, but I just keep asking why. I haven't opened my Bible in over 2 months. My pain, faith, comfort, confidence, it all comes and goes, but the question is still there. I just go, day by day. My biggest frustration is that the boys are left without a father. I know God is their Heavenly Father, but it's just not the same.

My struggle with my faith has me convicted, so, this morning, I opened the daily devotional I get in my email inbox each morning. I have been deleting them on a regular basis, not having the strength to open the email, in case it was about marriage or love or communication or anything relating to a couple. I get two emails and yep, the first one I opened was about marriage. I promptly deleted it. I tentatively hovered my mouse over the second one. I clicked. mmm, "...she lives happily ever after" was the title. As I read through, it was like I was reading about my life. The author was in the middle of a book that was set in horrible circumstances, but she powered through the 1,000 page novel because she had to imagine things would get better. If she had stopped at page 452 or Chapter 9, the horrible circumstances would be never ending, but good did triumph in the end, but not without bumps along the road.

I guess I'm at page 452 or Chapter 9, I'm stuck in an awful circumstance and as the devotional said, 'one way or another, our story will end well. But not every page or chapter in our story is happy.' I know God has a purpose for my life and He uses every day to build my story. 'No story is conflict-free. No story is complete without a challenge. Victory is empty without a struggle....Today is not the whole story, it's just page 452.'

Please pray for me and my boys. Pray that we continue to move forward as individuals who use this for good. Pray that we grow stronger as a family unit and that we don't get swallowed in grief. Pray that we continue to move forward towards our happily ever after.