living in Saturday…..

I feel like we live in a forever Saturday….

The space between Dark Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Wailing at the grave, shaking my fist at heaven, aching to hold my baby….cursing death, Satan and this broken world….waiting…waiting for the promise, the rescue, the Reunion….the coming down of HEAVEN.

Waiting for All Things New. 

Groaning…and moaning for the Risen Messiah.

I think back to the hardest Saturday I ever lived.  How did we ever make it through……? How do you survive such unfathomable PAIN and slaying and heaving?

How do you keep living…without half your heart?

Holy week for us this year has felt like “get strapped to the railroad and endure a train going over you multiple times a day”  week.

All we can do is wait for the space between each train… To breathe.

This week has screamed “paradox” to me. The flowers are busting and exploding out with pink blossoms…yet our skies feel so dark😩

I think to myself, WOW…Jesus, Easter is right at the one year heaven anniversary of our baby girl.

It is grace.

Jesus is shouting HIS PROMISE to us in our darkest Saturday.

Memories bring all the raw pain and trauma back to the surface of those weeks of fire…that day when the fire in our furnace of the CICU turned up 7 times hotter as we got the Earth shattering news that our baby had a brain bleed and that there was now suddenly nothing they could do to save her.

This gut ripping punch came Just minutes after round table plans had been set in motion for another life saving surgery. Shouts of hope and excitement. Yet….now a 180 degree turn…and instead of cheering for hope and shouting “let’s save her!” …her nurses and doctors shook their heads and whispered, “I’m so sorry…. nothing can be done”😭

What!!!

No!!!!!!!!!

You were just making “hail Mary plans” and now… Everyone is giving up!!!! 😭💔😭💔. Noooooooo!!!

Helpless ….SO HELPLESS…..no one on Earth could save her… We begged and believed for our miracle from God…for HIM TO MAKE A WAY.

He was the only Rescue.

And so began the walk through the furnace of literal HELL…..

The unfathomable  space between from  when they told us there was no hope…. to the sacred  painful moment we walked her to heaven…. was absolutely a burning furnace of torturing hot flames.

Yet….YET…..

it was  holy ground 
Holy Because we were not alone. 
Jesus was in that sacred furnace with us.

There’s no other way to survive such blazing searing burns to your heart and soul except Jesus walking with us…..covering us…..holding us close.

Carrying us.

He carried us. He still carries us.
Having to tell your babies that the “plans have now changed”…
That the doctors will no longer try to save their baby sissy anymore…that they had given up. It is unfathomable despair that no human language can accurately translate.

When we look back…at all the trauma and aching beauty of wailing, moaning, singing, praying and worshipping Jesus over her frail dying body…I remember another person in the room who walked close.

The ONE Who embraced us.

The ONE Who caught all our tears..

The ONE who met us in the secret heart wrenching places at 3 am when we wanted to die too…

THE ONE who gave slivers of light in our darkest blackest dark.

How else could a broken and bleeding out family survive such devastation??

Jesus was there.
He never let us go.

He was making a WAY through the Red bloody Sea

The flames did hurt like Hell and they still make us bleed today.

Yet…those flames  have never and will never steal our HOPE.

It was Sunday at 12:00 a.m. That our Gianna took our hands and ran with such excitement to her forever Spring.

And SHE WAS SO EXCITED….we could feel her heart leaping….as we shouted out all her favorite things…..

We felt her soul actually leap and dance!

We felt LIGHT blaze down through our darkest night.

We felt a holy glimpse of SUNDAY coming….

We felt HEAVEN COME DOWN…..Because HER SUNDAY CAME.

Our greatest Peace amidst our greatest and most bloodiest Slaying.

How is this possible?

Because Jesus stood with us…Jesus carried ALL of us as He carried our baby home.

He laid his hands on our bleeding hearts and whispered LIGHT and HOPE to our hearts….as Gianna ran ahead of us.

Jesus NEVER  EVER LET US GO in the FIREY Furnace of HELL!

 …..We live in Saturday….We groan in Saturday….we beat on God’s chest in the Saturday….We wrestle with our faith in the Saturday…WE CRY OUT TO GOD in the Saturday! 

and you know what….Jesus cried out too …..He CRIES with us.

*Please remember this holy fact when you are trying to comfort someone who grieves such unimaginable loss.   Jesus hurts with us. It is ok to not have answers or  advice or kicks in the pants….just weep with those who weep.  Ache with those who ache.  

Jesus weeps with us in the Saturday- broken life of this fallen depraved world….

but HE IS NOT done!!!

His finished work on the cross means Sunday is coming for us too!

HE is coming back to make all things NEW!

Eternal Spring is coming for all those who claim Jesus as their Savior.

I will hold my baby again and NEVER LET HER GO!

I am promised a grand reunion.

So….we CLING, white knuckled fist clinging  desperately to the PROMISE OF SUNDAY.

Our broken hearts bleed in the space of Saturday and we wait.

We wait with tears stained pillows….we wait with HOLY ANTICIPATION for our promised HOPE!  We wait and mourn in HOPE.

Hope is Sunday coming when our Friday is the blackest black. Hope is Sunday on the Horizon when our Saturday slays us with despair.

Sunday is TRUTH. Truth is HOPE.

Hope saves our crushed hearts in the space of SATURDAY.

Hope is Jesus RISEN🦋

HE DID MAKE A WAY. Our way-maker MADE  A WAY!

A way through the bloodiest of bloody seas.

A way back to my baby girl!

COME BACK JESUS, we are waiting and ready for our Glorious SUNDAY reunion!

Oh Jesus…thank you for HOPE.

HELP US TO HOLD ON TO Beautiful HOPE and to keep offering a broken Hallelujah on Saturday when our hearts break and bust and crush into a million pieces.

Sunday….COME……..

The promise of Easter Sunday….COME MAKE ALL THINGS NEW!