A Stirring Life

It was exactly 3 years ago last Friday, April 20th, that our world swiftly tilted. 

So last Thursday, April 19th, I paused.

I tried to recollect how I was (who I was?) before April 20th happened. I imagined myself going about my day that was probably nothing far from ordinary. Was I happier? Smile more? Worry less? Calmer? Because that was all before. Before the madness. Before the shatter. Before I ceased to be who I was and started to become who I am now. 

And I think about God, the God of April 19th, and who I thought He was. 

Or more like, who I had made Him out to be.

The God of April 19th looked something like this: He would allow bad things to happen to good people, but not super-terribly-crazy-bad things to happen to anything-above-lukewarm-Christians. Crazy, I know. I probably would not have admitted to believing that, but reaction to circumstance is pretty indicative of what I (and people in general) believe. He was kind and good and somehow it was so much easier to believe because the really ugly-gives-you-goosebumps-nightmares only happened to "other people".

Until they didn't.

And then I was "other people".

And I have come to realize, among many other things over the last three years, that the God of April 19th not only doesn't exist, He never did. I had made for myself a graven image, God as I know Him, instead of the true God that He really is, despite what I want to believe Him to be. And since then, my relationship with Him has become much richer, deeper, and more intimate than I could have ever thought. Suffering takes your heart to places with God that can not be reached in any other way. 

I remember a phrase that I somehow repeated to myself in that ultrasound room when I thought I would die right there of a broken heart: He is still the same...He is still the same...He is still the same. 

And He still is.