Death, here is your sting.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

1 Corinthians 15:55

For fellow churchgoers, it probably rolls off the tongue like any other hymnal colloquialism we've heard every Easter since youth (and many times between).  But something stirs in me when I hear it.  Something painful.

October 24th, 2013.
We woke up in the morning with the same gratitude for another day mixed with fear of what was to come.  We ate breakfast and played like we still had time.  But we didn't.  And then she was gone.  And there has been a hole in our family ever since.  And there will be forever.

Sometimes I feel like I'm living two different lives.

One where I have the most amazing children and there is laughter in my home.  I experience the same highs and lows as any stay home mom.  I'm learning to be a mom while my kids are learning to be kids...because the moment you figure it out, they grow and change.

And then there's the other life where my daughter is dead.  And the weight of that reality is crushing.

But it's one life.  All messily entangled so that I can be laughing at the sillyness one minute and crying over the loss the next.

One day I have my emotions in check. Maybe too controlled, so that I become ridgid, detached, afraid to feel.  The next, my emotions get the better of me and I expend what's left of my energy fighting against them.

It's been more than two years and the world has moved on.  Sometimes I sense the "get over it" sentiment.  Maybe it's just my own projection - my response to the fact that I don't know myself how to do this.  Insecurity heaped upon insecurity.

I have come back to this post many times, wondering if it's the right one to finish. I'll admit I've allowed myself to sit in bitterness over the last few months, angry with the world that seems all too eager to see silver linings where there are none. Or make a tourniquet look like a neat bow around an open wound.

We want resolution. We crave it and we will find it.  Don't you love to feel good about sad stories that are somehow redeemed? Those Facebook posts where someone is holding up signs showing the world how they have overcome insurmountable odds...we just love the happy endings.

God uses all things for good, remember?

But what I've come to notice is that we are generally unwilling to look at a situation and say - no, that was bad.  That was not good.  That was not what God wanted for my life, for my child's life.

What did Jesus do when Lazarus died?  He wept.

Jesus.  Who raised Lazarus from the dead.  Who knew His own power over death.  Who knew that even if Lazarus never lived again on earth, they would spend eternity together in Heaven.  He wept.  Because it was sad.  It was tragic.  It was not good.

So why are we so resistant to feeling sad?  So eager to wrap it up and see the good.  So eager to move on.

Death does sting.

It stings every time I have to answer the typically innocuous question, "How many kids do you have?"
It stings every time I post a picture of my kids, knowing one beautiful, valubable, wonderful little girl is missing.
It stings when I meet someone new and have to decide what to say, what not to say.
It stings when I hear my 4 year old say, "Mommy, I miss my Annabelle."
   My 4 year old whose world view already includes death.  Already knows the depth of loss...
It stings when I think that my son will never meet his sister.
It stings in the hot tears that betray my attempt at control.
It stings in the jealousy that leaps up more often than I wish to admit.
It stings in the silence of night and the hustle of broad day.
It stings.

The only resolution is to turn to Jesus.
Who sees me crossing my arms and saying, "maybe I just need to be mad for a while."
Who knows, first hand, my pain.
Who felt it and feels it still.
Who also sees the victory.
He who, through tortuous submission, gave everything to take the sting of death by defeating it.
He is gracious enough to allow me to feel sad and angry and hurt because it wasn't His plan.

Death had no part in His hope for creation. Just because he knew it would happen doesn't mean it was what he wanted.

Ryan helped me remember the importance of context.

"When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, 

then shall come to pass the saying that is written.

Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

1 Corinthians 15:54-58