Every year we bang pots and pans, it was her favorite. She would scream at the top of her squeaky voice ….
“HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!!!!!!!” SHE IS THE CUTEST NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATOR EVER!!!
…except that one horrible terrifying New Year’s Eve that she nearly died.
Three years ago….on this exact day
it was just one week after coming home from victoriously surviving heart failure our Gianna had a massive brain bleed and seizures on our couch and was rushed to the ER.
We were terrified of losing her.
That was the first time I experienced a HATEFUL New Year’s Eve celebration.
How could the whole world celebrate with cheers and shouting while my baby girl was struggling to cling to life in the CICU yet again, and we were unsure if we would have the following day, much less YEAR with her!???
No…you do NOT celebrate that kind of pain and grief and unsurity. You just wait… and hold your breath and beg on your knees for a miracle.
….and allow the crappy reality of this broken world to keep pushing you forward into a forced surrender into the great unknown.
You are forced to trust…..
We had no idea if she would live…..
We waited and clung to HOPE and knelt on the floor in tears while it felt like the whole wide world was drunk in complete happiness and elation.
But …GOD
the reality is many were praying and desperately on their knees for our baby girl too… our village was with us in desperate intervention for miracles.
And GOD healed.
God brought us through with mercy of YET another miracle of incredible healing….and each day after…..each New Year, each new minute that we celebrated with her in our arms after that, we were SOBERED with the reality that LIFE is so frail and EACH year, each day, each minute, each breath is an incredible gift.
She taught us that. She taught us this OVER and OVER again.
Life is a fragile precious vapor of gift. That truth will NEVER be lost on us.
She also taught us that God is big. He moves mountains.
He did many miracles for us…
THAT will NEVER be lost on us either.
NEVER.
But, this year….
for reasons we will never understand until we get to heaven, He chose not to move our earthly mountain.
He chose not to give an earthly miracle to our Gia-Bia and that will always hurt deeply.
And I can not celebrate that. I will never understand why He did not do this…..
I have to surrender to that, whether I want to or not. But I will never celebrate it.
I can not celebrate leaving a year that I held her, and walking into a year that she will never live in on this earth…..
I can not celebrate that.
In fact I HATE IT.
It feels so wrong to end 2018 when it did not go as I wanted it to. When it started so beautifully, yet it went so SO SOOOOO terribly horrible.
It feels so wrong…
but, God knows it is wrong….HE AGREES. IT IS SO WRONG!
He agrees. He grieves too over this broken world.
He knows it is SO wrong, otherwise He would not have had to watch his only perfect and blameless Son get brutally massacred on a bloody cross….. if it had not been so very broken and wrong.
It was so wrong that JESUS had to get murdered to ultimately fix all that is wrong.
Our world went so wrong on April 22 at 12 a.m., and it is NOT supposed to be this way.
It is BROKEN!!!
When 2019 hits, I wont cheer….I will weep. I grieve this horrible reality.
But, I do not weep without HOPE.
…a deeper HOPE that sustains us in our deeper ocean of pain. I can celebrate a promise that HE will not leave us. I can celebrate an eternity with Gia. These are my sure promises…..
Yet….sometimes that does not feel enough…
because we are really just humans… humans who like sight…who need to know there will be sight of HOPE when all we see is a wasteland, a desert, a wilderness, a dark night….a painful world.
He draws near and whispers a promise.
God knew we needed more to keep walking this earth without her. He knows eternity feels so intangible so often….
I can celebrate the new promise of “TOVA” in this life on earth.
“TOVA”…..
I have to surrender and trust GOD in this terrible unknown.
I have to trust for A new kind of goodness….even in the pain….
On April 21, when He was basically revealing to us the horrible nightmarish reality that Gianna would not get her earthly miracle, God gave us a word….”TOVA”.
He supernaturally gave us Psalm 27.
He gave much of it as a promise for Gianna’s eternal joy and salvation and absolute complete victory that she was going to experience to be with Jesus….HER joy of singing and praising and happiness of victory! Our unseen, but her SEEN!
“…The Lord is my light and my salvation…..
whom shall I fear…..
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?……..
….One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock.
6 Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the Lord….
Yes, there was great comfort in this truth …..but, God specifically ended psalm 27: 13-14 with a promise for my family as we had to go on living without our baby girl… He promised us glimpses of still more goodness ….
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the LAND OF THE LIVING.
Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.
The original hebrew word for GOODNESS is “Tova”…it means beautiful….and how God planned it to be….He plans for beautiful even out of this horrible.
THAT seems completely impossible…..
But GOD….
He is a GOD who redeems. It is what HE DOES…on earth and in heaven.
He IS the God of the impossible.
WHY the word: TOVA…you probably wonder.
I use the original written biblical hebrew word “TOVA” because to use the word “goodness” is too hard to hear. It is too normal to me.
Normal is gone. My normal GOODNESS is gone.
Goodness feels so foreign.
So far away.
Goodness was my Gianna in my arms. That goodness will NEVER be felt again on this earth again. I know that. God knows that. I have to surrender to that.
That is the painful terrible truth….
But “TOVA” is a new kind of “good”…it is a new promise… A new word in our painful reality
It is unknown…and seems so impossible, but it is a promise of GOODNESS and BEAUTY in the land of the living that will grow around our great pain.
A new word.
A new song.
Beauty from ashes. miracles of Goodness……
Streams in the desert… a path through this horrible wilderness.
rivers through the wasteland.
A red sea road….
that Gianna’s miracles will still continue in this life is our promise.
God knows it is impossible to believe that most days ….in this darkness….but I know what HE gave us, He gave us a promise of TOVA…. of HIS light.
Only GOD could bring TOVA in the land of the living.
We would be in complete despair had we not been promised TOVA…. had we not been promised the birth of something new from the labor pains of such agony of earthly loss…..
I am forced into a new year that feels absolutely terrible, but I am promised TOVA…. in the land of the living. I am given the choice to trust for a NEW goodness.
So, I will take God at his word and I will believe for TOVA…through my tears and anguish and clenched fists and terrible grief, I will desperately hope for TOVA
I WILL FIGHT FOR TOVA, I will fight for beauty… I will fight for a new kind of goodness!
We will fight ….my family will fight and believe…
…for LIGHT in the darkness
HOPE is what saves. HOPE is the anchor for this life and the next.
Yes, we have a sure HOPE of our future eternity with our Gianna forever that no one can ever take away….That gets my feet on the floor each day…..That is our joy anchor. That never waivers EVER….
but the promise that TOVA will crown and surround us keeps me putting one foot in front of the other in trust to walk this dark wilderness life without our daughter with us….while we wait for the ultimate fixing of this broken world.
God, in His mercy, knew that we would need something more visible to keep crawling forward through this desert land…..The promise of more earthly sight …glimpses of HOPE while we wait and get pushed forward….that is why He graciously gave us psalm 27:13-14 and many other confirmations from scripture since that horrible day in April….
He knew we would need to desperately see HIS TOVA in this broken world without our Gianna in our arms.
We still need to believe for a new Goodness in the land of the living.
TOVA even in the total disaster
Miracles even in the mess
LIGHT even in our darkness.
He KNEW we would still need to see glimpses of heaven while we wait for the real thing.
TOVA….a new Goodness and Beauty.
We HATE going into a new year without our Gia-Bia….but we cling to the HOPE of TOVA in 2019 and beyond while we wait to be reunited.
But….honestly until heaven, still ….Tova will never ever be enough for our broken hearts…. and God knows that….because ENOUGH is Gianna still with us….Our world made right, perfectly right.
But, My Gianna visits me in dreams sometimes….and it is so beautiful, so wonderful……and she always tells me with absolute peace on her beautiful face:
“mama….it is GOOD…so SOOOO good….SO good!
I believe her, because I know she can see everything…She sees how it will ALL turn out. She sees all the earthly miracles that are still yet to come. Those glimpses of beauty from ashes….Those are not just glimpses for her, it is total straight up the WHOLE story!!!
She sees the heavenly miracles of FULL restoration that are to come!
She sees like God sees….it is all clear to her. WOW!
SHE says it is SO GOOD!
She is screaming me this truth, even from heaven when we can not see through the darkness.
She sends so many love notes to remind us!
She reminds us to seek the light.
I am choosing to believe that He will pursue us for beauty and mercy and a new goodness…..in this life, before we get to our ultimate PERFECT goodness in eternity with our Gia-Bia.
two days ago….when God was giving my this new word:
“Goodness, TOVA….”
I discovered a post I did on Instagram that I posted exactly one year before …where I quoted psalm 23
“Surely your goodness and unfailing love will PURSUE me all the days of my life…” (psalm 23:6A)
So I knew He was drawing me to psalm 23 this day when I desperately needed confirmation of the promise of GOODNESS ….
God knew I needed to be reminded….one year later that HE not only promises but PURSUES for us. FOR goodness for us in the days of my life HERE on earth while we wait.
….knowing MY GOD pursues hard after me and my hurting family with TOVA , allows us to bravely face a new day, a new year with hope of LIGHT, of still more beauty and still more goodness in the land of the living.
Knowing it will never be the goodness I had (until heaven)….but I can hope for a new TOVA to grow around our great loss.
The GIa-hole always there till heaven, but we have a promise of beauty and light to grow around our Gia-hole.
Live Gia….GROW forever!
I will take God at HIS promise, in this forced surrender of a new year. Gianna tells me, it is and will be TOVA…..
I have to trust that….when it feels so NOT good at all.
Even when I absolutely HATE everything about going into 2019 without her in my arms……HATE. IT!
I have to hope and believe for this…..
We have to bravely believe for this….I have to wait and believe with courage even when it is so painful.
TOVA….yes….a new word for a sucky new year.
Instead of being consumed of great fear of the days to come, I will HOPE in our promise.
A promise in my pain.
A choice to believe
TO let her life continue to grow us to let grief grow us… to believe for something GOOD, not perfect but goodness….not good enough…
but still….. TOVA….
a new goodness. An impossible goodness…
but possible with God.
TOVA …A new song of light to come.
LIGHT TO COME!
A SONG AND PROMISE OF GOODNESS to still come.
When I can only see in part…..the horrible part, I will prophesy and claim this promise over our lives.
I will believe and fight for a new GOODNESS that is incomprehensible, for TOVA….for beauty from ashes.
For sight of beauty to come….for the impossible.
I serve a GOD who does the impossible:
….However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him– (1 Cor 2:9)
For glimpses of beauty and heaven on earth while we desperately ache and wait to get to hold our baby girl again…. while we wait for our perfect goodness…I will believe for
…TOVA….
“in my tears of pain, I believe Lord…… help my unbelief!”
