Because what else is there to do.

Life recently reached in and tore the core right out of some my dearest friends.

Like an earthquake does, in complete upheaval, internals exposed and broken, hearts and lives gasp for the missing air and try to make sense of what has just happened. It's brutal chaos that only God can help them get on top of now. There's no sense in any of it! At least not seen from where the debris is strewn, from where time continues to tick, although even the tick has shifted. There's just no way to comprehend any of it....

So I don't.

Because what else is there to do.

I grieve.
It's a word that just touches the surface of this relentless state that they are in - and where I am with them. I feel a new unimaginable pain that I know no where near compares to what they experience. In the early morning hours, I can feel a space in my core where grief is consuming an organ, cell by cell. And I grieve.

Because what else is there to do.

I trust.
I choose again and again, every day, sometimes every minute of every day;
I choose Trust! I trust in a God who knows what we don't. I trust God to be God. When it's incomprehensible, I choose Him.
And so I trust.

Because what else is there to do.

I cry.

The tears are different. Some drain from my eyes. Others leak through my skin. These kind of tears don't stop. I've named them "soul tears." I cry tears that I don't even think belong to me, but they have found their way to someone who will embrace them. 

And so I cry

Because what else is there to do.

I pray.
Fragmented thoughts and feelings try to link together, in a desperate effort to make my requests, their requests, known. Groanings and inarticulate attempts continue as I have agreed to stand - or in this case kneel - on their behalf .... on their Son's behalf. I don't know how I can be effective in prayer when I can't even link a thought or a feeling to a word - but grief has its' own language and God knows it well.
And so I pray.

Because what else is there to do.

I wait.
I wait in all His beauty that is woven into the gaps of the hell my friends are living through. Because He is there. This slice of time is terrifying and glorifying in the same second. I lean in hard so I can feel it - into the only One I know can handle this!

And so I wait.
Because what else is there to do.

I believe.
Even in the midst of it all. When I can't see or hear or think ... I can feel. I look around with my heart, not my eyes, and I feel Him. And He is good. That is my Faith. And right now that is all I have; it's all my dearest friends have right now..... And that is everything!
And so We believe.
Because what else is there to do.