Today, Jake would be 12 years old. I wonder what he would be like today. Would it be hard to wake him up for school now? Would be athletic like Drew or musical like Jackson? Would he be rebellious or sweet natured?All the unknowns swirl around my head. What could have been?
Then I ask myself who would I be if Jake was still here? I am sure other trials and heartbreak would have led me to a closer walk with the Lord but I know for certain that I would not have seen God’s saving light so brightly had it not been so dark.
Last night, Tommy Walker led us in a worship song called “Taste and See.” it make me realize that God gave me enough grace to really taste Him and see that He was good.

Having swallowed the bitter pill of death, life seemed flavorless.

However, Through His grace, I swallowed my pill but with The Living Water.

Our tragic circumstances taken with the Living Water of our Lord Jesus can and will allow us to say-that we have tasted and seen the Lord and He is good.

A friend of mine gives a warning on her blog when she is writing about grief and how she is processes it. I am going to be kind and give you the same warning. Consider yourself warned.
Yesterday was a rough day. ROUGH. It started out with a root canal and went downhill from there. It is a bad day when a root canal is the highlight of the day. I was standing at my sink washing dishes and Jackson ran in and said the neighbor was hit by a car. (HE IS OK, he is home with his mom right now with only bumps and bruises) I ran out after Jackson, crossing the street to the neighbor’s front yard to find a sweet mom in the grass holding her baby boy. He was crying but thankfully, coherent. He looked scraped and bruised but otherwise okay. I moved into action mode, called 911, got the witnesses, talked to the police, and took care of the older boys.
Once all the chaos settled down and all the boys were taken care of, I calmly walked back to my room and locked my door. I was shaking all over and trying to catch my breath, as I was assaulted with memories. Doubt and fear ravished the outer layer of my heart, moving quickly toward full-blown panic. I ran a bath, allowing the warm water to calm the outside but the water did nothing for the questions clamoring to be answered. “Why?” rang out so loudly in my head I couldn’t fight it. It begged to be asked, again and again, Why? Why? Why? Why did Jake have to die?
I don’t know why. He didn’t answer my questions, He listened to them and eventually settled my heart. I was thankful for my memory verse, reminding me that I needed him to fill my heart with His peace and not allow it to be filled with doubt. Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

He did just that, He didn’t answer my questions but filled me with Him.
He was enough. Doubt and fear receded.
Peace overflowed.

“To manage a life of pain, as a believer in Jesus, remember: This is all the hell you will ever bear.” (M’Cheyne)

It was a cold Colorado night, forty degrees and rapidly dropping. I was off to freeze through yet another football game, a scrimmage that I  was dreading. Drew was the quarterback for a new team of boys that had never played the game.

First-time football players defending your quarterback against more experienced players is not a good thing. I was in for a night of cringing and praying that my growing boy would just keep getting up after each hit. I looked for him on the bottom of every pile and prayed that he’d still be moving.

As the scrimmage moved along, I watched in slow motion as a man-sized child came around from the back and horse-collared my son. His body dropped to the ground as the mini Hercules jumped up and down in celebration. He had sacked the quarterback.

Drew finally got up, but slowly. He motioned to me that he was fine and went back onto the field. As the game continued, he was hit over and over again. Play after play, he went to the ground. I kept thinking to myself that someone needed to stop this madness but I didn’t say a word, which in hindsight is totally out of character for me.

I am usually right behind the coach offering my suggestions like Sandra Bullock in the movie Blindside. One of my many favorite scenes is when she calls the coach on her cell phone from the stands. Why didn’t I think to do that this night?

Instead I just watched and waited. Dread filled my heart. Drew wasn’t looking right. He bent down to take the snap, stood straight up, walked off the field, and fell to the ground.

By the time I got to him, he was moving in and out of consciousness, and he couldn’t feel his right side. Someone told me later that I kept saying over and over, “You can’t do this to me again. You can’t do this to me again!” This was not the first time I had watched one of my children move in and out of consciousness.

As I kneeled down over Drew, sprawled out on prickly green turf, there was an all too familiar terror growing deep within. I prayed and told God “NO!” Riding to the hospital, I turned my head to the back to watch the paramedic work on Drew as we sped away from the field.

I fumbled with my cell phone trying to call Brad but my legs and arms were shaking and I couldn’t dial the right number. I watched as they pricked Drew with a needle as long as a ruler. The paramedics were stabbing him up and down his arms and legs numerous times trying to get his body to respond to the needle. Nothing.

He could not feel the needle, and all I could feel was the tension and the numerous shakes my own body couldn’t control. He felt nothing, and I was feeling everything.

I could barely see the top of Drew’s head. All I could see was his blond hair spilling out over the white bed sheet. I just kept telling the Lord, “I can’t do this again. I can’t Lord. Please don’t make me. Just please let him be okay.”

As I rode in that ambulance, my mind was going places it shouldn’t go. I mentally weighed which results I could and could not handle. If he was paralyzed, I could handle that. If he was brain damaged, I could handle that. I could handle anything if God would just let him live. In the fear and terror of the moment, I was giving God His options.

After Drew’s initial tests in Colorado Springs, the doctors decided to airlift him to Denver, to be safe. After a long night and many tests later, it was determined that he had sustained a  severe concussion. The mental horror had been lowered to mild panic, and I was starting to breathe normally for the first time in several hours. As the dark night unfolded, I sat in the molded plastic chair lulled by the steady beeps and hums of equipment and began to process what had happened. Quiet tears tugged at the corners of my eyes.

Why is it that on one trip to the hospital, I left empty handed and another I walked out with my life still intact? I was staring at Drew but my heart was gazing at the past asking the same questions we all ask at some point. Why Lord? Why, me? Why, us?

Taken from my book, God Enough.

Go to www.kaseyewing.com to order the book. It comes with a free mp3 download of my hubby’s song the same title.

I packed up his clothes today.

I carefully folded the sweater we gave to him for Christmas last year.

I slowly bagged up all the his socks, shoes, and undershirts.

I gathered up his socks, carelessly thrown on the floor. It would be the last time I picked up  his smelly socks.

I sat in the floor of his room and bundled up each evidence of his year and half here in our home.

It is time for him to go home. To his home. To his momma.

As silent tears fell, I wondered if I had done enough, or did I do too much?

I questioned my heart, why am I hurting so much? He deserves to be with his momma. I was the temporary mom, a fill in, till it was time for him to go home. Now it is time. I should have known it was approaching but I had no clue.

I wonder how Mary felt when she knew that her Son was going to be taken away. She had to know that her mothering was temporary. That she would no longer call him Son but LORD. And that would change everything.

There in things in our lives that happen that change everything. One day we wake up and our lives are different. The husband walks out the door, your child rebels, your job is gone, or mom wants the son you have been mothering home.

It is those moments, just like the days Jesus was in the tomb, that uncertainty swirls around and leaves you dizzy, that we must remember that the tomb didn’t stay empty. His plans were not finished. It was a temporary delay in His Glory being revealed.

That is where I am in today, in a dark tomb waiting on God’s Glory to be revealed. I am sitting in hope, surrounded by a mound of plastic bags.  Knowing that Hope can be found in any pile we make.

“But You, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the One who lifts up my head.” Ps.3:3

I have five boxes sitting in the back of my car, I have peeked in at their contents but don’t have the nerve to go through them yet. Right after Jake died friends and family just packed up our house for us since we never went back home to our house. The accident happened at our house and we didn’t want to go back – we moved in immediately with my parents.
My cousin has stored this boxes in her attic since the accident. They are moving and she called me one night and said that she found boxes of Jake’s stuff. I teared up a bit and asked what was in the boxes. His toys, his backpack – the one he took to preschool each day, some clothes, you know, boy stuff. Brad and I picked up the boxes and they are still sitting in the back of my car. I see them in my rearview mirror but I avoid the inevitable and keep driving around with a car full of stuff.
I peeked in and saw items that my Jake used to hold. I take another glance and a see a backpack that he carried himself so proudly as he walked into his preschool room. I close up the box tightly, some things just hurt too much to look inside. Yet, I want to see it but then I don’t. So I go on, driving around town looking like I am the one moving.
In these last few weeks, I have had dear friends who have had their lives interrupted by pain. Not the death kind of pain, but the life kind of pain. We all experience it, we are going about our lives and suddenly an event happens that shakes us to the core. The pain of living in this fallen world. Often, we can deny the pain and keep the box closed but some events just force the box wide open and we must come into contact with the pain and sin of this world. It hurts and we hurt and we are left sitting around looking life and wondering why this had to happen.
In our small group, we are going through David Platt’s Old Testament Survey and he said something that stuck out to me yesterday. “It is not in our successes that we grow closer to God but in our pain.” Amen. He also said that pain is a privilege because it is what God uses to draw us to him. I have often considered writing a book called “the privilege of pain.” Because I don’t know much, but I know that to be true = that God uses our pain to draw us closer to him.
On my run this morning, my prayer list was long and many are hurting but I was reminded to be thankful for the pain in my life and the pain in the life of my friends. That heartbreak really is a gift from God because a life lived without trouble is sure to be a life lived away from the presence of God. Instead of ignoring those boxes in my car, I am going to get them out and bring them in. I am going to open the painful parts of my heart and let him use that anguish to draw my closer to him.

I am home.
I was greeted by very happy boys to see their momma. They were all glad I got to spend a week writing but were also glad for me to be home.
I was also greeted by a dose of reality.
Reality slapped me in the face right when I walked through the doors. The laundry was in piles in the middle of the kitchen. The baskets in their rooms were overflowing with dirty clothes. I can not even write about what the boys bathroom looked like. I am still scarred from the level of yuckness of a boy’s toilet. I was shocked. I just sprayed scrubbing bubbles all over the bathroom and walked out and shut the door, praying it will have the desired effect. I will enter later with gloves and a face mask.
Why was I so surprised?
I have no earthly idea.
I knew there would be repercussions from a week away from home. I just wasn’t ready for them. I should have been. It might have had a little something to do with the fact I had been at my parents for a week. I spent a week being spoiled. Coffee and breakfast ready after I had slept in till eight o’clock. My favorite hamburger place, Mooyah’s for lunch each day. No laundry. No fixing food for someone else. No messes. No messy toilets.
Quiet.
Peace.
I had a very productive week and I spent the ride home singing and praising (I sound just like Carrie Underwood in the privacy of my car) the Lord. I was on an emotional high after a week spent writing and remembering all that God has done in our lives. I was reminded daily how far He has brought us. I spent hours reminiscing on His power to heal a family. I was full of thankfulness, it is truly a miracle that we have lived to tell about it. I never even thought about what coming home would be like, I should have gotten a clue when Brad called to ask me about the budget. Budget, PFFT!
Now reality. Today’s reality.
It is great to look back and remember what God has done, to relive the awesomeness of where we have been and where we have come. But we must focus on what He is doing now, expecting it to be just a powerful an act as He previously worked.
Yes, my life looks different now – I no longer have to count the minutes since we lost Jake. I live in a different kind of challenge, one that seems so petty in light of past experiences but are real just the same.

How I long to clean Jake’s clothes one more time, yet I curse when my present company fills the laundry bag. How wretched I am? I know better, yet I still cringe at the dirty toilets and whiny faces. Oswald Chambers says “the true test of persons spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening.” Yesterday, I failed in dealing with the ordinary. It is easy to wait for the big extraordinary tests in our lives and we might even pass them. But make no mistake, the everyday mundane events are just important and can be just as costly.
Today, you might be counting the minutes of how long it has been since your world has shattered or you might just be counting the loads of laundry that has to be done. But we both have a choice in those moments, will we obey? Will we choose to trust him when He can’t be seen? Will we choose to serve those He has blessed us with?
“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God!”