Amy of Winsted- Small Town, Big Dreams

Dark

Amy — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:47:43 +0000

I’ve been feeling so blah lately. My thoughts are blue and dark.

I have two blogs. This one and another one where I do most of my writing and updating about our family. I’ve decided I’m not going to write about my mom on my other blog anymore. I’ve tried to not let it get to me, but it really hurts when I pour my heart out about missing my mom or talk about the anniversary of her death and not a single person says anything. I even said specifically how it made me feel bad that so few people say anything to me about her. So, I’m not going to open myself up to that anymore. This blog was started specifically to write about and process the loss of my mom. If people come to this blog, they know what they are in for.

This is a blog about life after death. My thoughts are messy and complicated. Not everything is sunshine and puppy dogs. I have serious questions about how God does things, I feel alone a lot and wonder if people think I should just “get over it” and “move on”. I wonder why churches are set up for healthy people who have the time and energy to do the work themselves to get connected, but don’t know what to do with people like me who need a place to go to just “be” and need desperately to know that we matter even if we have nothing that we can offer. Those are things that I’ve been thinking about.

I’ve disabled comments on this post because I don’t want want pity comments explaining why people don’t ask or say anything.

Innocent Joy

Amy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:59:59 +0000

The last picture I have that has Mom and I in it, is from New Year’s Day. 18 days before Mom passed away.

My last photo with Mom

I just mentioned on our family blog how I looked so happy there. Nathan noted it in an email he sent this afternoon:

"When I was sitting there with Isaac, though, I zoomed in on the picture (as
I'm doing again now) and thought "I miss that smile."

We still have fun. You still laugh. You still smile. Our kids still bring
you joy...but the smile in the picture was so carefree and easy.

Life changed so much after that. It got so much harder. Less support when
things got tough. . . Now, things are just a little less
comfortable than they were.

What can I do to bring you a little of that innocent joy back? Or is it
forever lost now that we've seen how hard life can really be? "

I wasn’t sure what to say. I don’t really know. I’m okay, but I’m changed. So much has been restored, but anniversaries like yesterday are still hard. 2 years of history hasn’t changed the fact that I miss her.

One Answer

Amy — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:01:56 +0000

In my conversation with Nathan yesterday, we talked a bit about why bad things happen. We tossed out the regular answers about “free will”. But, as I was typing up the post yesterday, the word “redeemed” came to me.

The truth is that I don’t know why God sometimes intervenes and stops some things from happening and other times He chooses not to. I see some little glimpses of things that may help me understand it a little. However, I do hold to this truth:

Job 19:25-26- “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes– I and not another! How my heart yearns within me.”

All the things that I don’t understand. The situations that hurt. The memory of standing in a waiting room hearing that we were facing an “irretrievable” situation with my mom. The tears from pleading and believing for physical healing for her and not receiving it. All of it will be redeemed.

How redemption looks like now in my life:

After a long season of grief, God brought Isaac to our family. I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence that when we chose a name that started with a vowel (to go along with the names of our other children), we chose a name that means “He will laugh”. Isaac’s birth has ushered in a new season for our family. The promise of laughter.

So, Nathan asked me what I was thinking about

Amy — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:31:47 +0000

. . . and it led to a very lengthy and interesting discussion about prayer. I’ve written about this before in the context of loss. Today’s thoughts and subsequent discussion opened it up again for me.

During two of my semesters during college I took a theology class. For each topic that we studied and discussed, we had to write a paper explaining and defending our position on different theological issues. One of the papers that was assigned was on prayer. I wish I remembered the exact question that was addressed but I didn’t save my papers. I think we wrote about what the point of prayer was. If I learned anything during that series of classes, I learned that the answers were never as black and white as I originally thought. I hated that about the class and I loved that about the class.

Back to the point of the post. Prayer.

My brother-in-law, Tim, has been writing on one topic a day on things that he has learned since the death of his father. Yesterday’s entry was about prayer and how his approach to prayer had changed over the last year. He had some great things to say and that’s why prayer was on my mind when Nathan asked me what I was thinking as we were driving home today. Mostly, I had a lot of questions that I was mulling.

What is the point of prayer?
Do things really change because we pray?
Is my car going to run better because I pray about it?
Why does God say, “yes” sometimes and “no” other times?

And these questions quickly led to discussions on why bad things happen. It’s impossible to fully discuss the implications of prayer without discussing the fact that bad things happen. And they happen even though God has the ability to stop them from happening.

Or does He? I believe He does. That’s what makes the conversation so hard.

Which leads to another question. Why did God make a world where we could experience such pain when He could have made it otherwise? He’s God. Isn’t part of the definition of God that fact that he can do anything? (I sure wish I saved my notes from my theology class). My short answer is that it’s about relationship, but I’ll leave that for another post.

As of this very moment, today, this is what I think I know:

*We pray because we’re told to. It’s part of being obedient.
*Prayer should be more than a list of requests, it’s also about being in a receptive position to hear what God has to say to us.
*When we pray and ask God for His intervention in our life, we are acknowledging that He is the one who is ultimately in control. The outcome is in his hands.

This are the hard thing I think I know and you may not agree with:

*His reasons for saying “yes” or “no” have to do with what will bring Him greatest glory and accomplish His will for our lives. (I think) That’s basically what I wrote here.

I guess my point of bringing it up again is that, even though I haven’t changed my earlier conclusion, I’m not sure I really like it. Does that make sense? I hesitate to even say it because I feel kind of guilty about it. I’m still learning what it means to take the long view on things. To view things “in light of eternity” is not easy. I want to prefer His greatest glory over every thing, but I’m not there yet. I want to get there. I want to want to get there.

As Nathan and I were discussing how God answers prayer, I thought about Rachel. Hello, Rachel (waving)! Rachel and her husband prayed to have a child. Mother’s Day was a reminder of that unanswered prayer. God chose not to answer their prayers to conceive. A year ago they adopted a beautiful son. So much of their journey was painful and difficult, but their story is really beautiful because of the “long view”. I suspect that, in the middle of struggling with not having a baby, some days they would not have been feeling very receptive to the message that, “God has a better plan for you that will bring Him even greater glory”. As I was mentioning this to Nathan as we drove in the car, I started crying. I don’t know why, but just thinking about their story of how God made them parents and brought that family together touched me. Painful and emotional ups and downs tied together with a bow of redemption(not that there was anything easy about the process or that life is perfect now). A little boy who didn’t have a whole and healthy family, now has one. He is their son in every sense of the word. Because of the “no” that they received in answer to their prayers, they went down a path they might have not previously considered.

I’m still confused about how this works with free will and living in a fallen world. Does every bad thing that happens occur because, in some way, it’s going to accomplish God’s will and/or I didn’t think to pray about it? I’m not really sure about that. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Sorry this is sort of disjointed and all over the place. Thanks for sticking with me.

New Season

Amy — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:02:26 +0000

The last two years have been a season characterized by loss and change. In January of 2008, my mother died very suddenly. She was only 58 years old. To say that her death rocked my world would be an understatement. There is no way to sufficiently describe what that meant to me as a daughter and a mother of 2 young children. Shortly before my mom’s death, Nathan and I had been thinking about having another child. After losing Mom, I couldn’t even imagine having a baby that didn’t know my mom. About 8 months later, we changed our minds. Having a baby seemed life-affirming and it was what we were planning before anyway. We found out on October of 2008 that we were expecting a baby. We were thrilled, but I was so sick. I was sick for the first half of my pregnancy. It made me miss my mom so much. There is nothing like feeling sick to make you want your mom. By God’s grace and lots of help from my husband, we survived those days. I enjoyed a couple months of good health and then I found myself on bedrest for two months. I felt scared and alone. Our first child, Ethan, was born 6 weeks early and Audrey was 3 weeks early. Thankfully, I was able to carry our baby to term and gave birth to our third child on June 3, 2009. Isaac was perfectly healthy. We were so thankful, but I felt completely wasted from the last 17 months of changes and challenges. Nathan and I decided it was time to leave our church and look for one closer to home and I started a period of time where I was not involved in leading any ministries at our church.

Almost 6 months have passed and it’s time for a new season. I’ve agreed to help teach the women’s Bible study Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed by Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore and Kay Arthur at our church. We’re not using the DVD’s. A friend and I will be the ones doing the teaching. I’m excited and terrified at the same time. I believe that God has something big to show me through this. I think I’m ready.

About Me

Amy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:01:05 +0000

Amy

In April of 2006, my husband, Nathan, and I began our adventure in home ownership. Our search landed us in the small town of Winsted, MN. We have 3 children: Ethan(4 1/2), Audrey(3) and Isaac(6 months). We have no plans to add more children to use up all 5 vowels! I’m a stay at home mom learning to love and raise my children, figuring out how to keep my house looking decent with 3 children 4 and under and grieving the sudden loss of my mother. I’m considering starting my Master’s degree soon and I’m getting more involved in our women’s ministry at our church. I’m not attempting to become a famous blogger. I just want wanted a place to dump my thoughts.

Some of the posts included on this site are from a blog started while processing my mother’s death in January of 2008. If you want to talk to me about losing a loved one, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at amy (at) thefritzes (dot) net.

Interesting Discussion

Amy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:29:14 +0000

Interesting discussion here. I chimed in. I didn’t link to our website.

Anyway, it got me thinking. Why is it that no one from church asks my dad over for dinner now that my mom is gone?

Elaboration on my thoughts on the previous post

Amy — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:28:28 +0000

I thought I would clarify my thoughts on the quote I included in the previous post before moving on from it. Here’s my take on it. I don’t believe that it’s sound theology to say that God would heal someone because if He didn’t it could cause a lot of people to lose faith. I believe that God will do whatever brings Him most glory and accomplishes His will. That’s not an easy answer either. I’ll admit that. But it does explain why God may answer some prayers in the way that we would hope and others in ways that we don’t much better.

I believe the poster was sincere in her faith and her statement. She’s in the middle of a difficult situation. However, I would caution anyone who is giving advice to someone else in a crisis situation to be careful with statements like that. I believe with absolute certainty that God can heal and intervene in any situation. I don’t know that He will choose to do so in the way that I want. That doesn’t mean my faith is less strong.

Which is a stronger evidence of Christ’s miraculous work in a person’s life: A person miraculously healed (here on earth) of terminal cancer or wife that, though losing her husband, continues to praise God in the midst of incredible circumstances? Both scenarios are powerful and can have equal impact in increasing one’s faith.

Post Something

Amy — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:27:53 +0000

I need to post something. Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my mom’s death. I’ll write more later.

I read this statement on someone’s blog this morning:

And we believe with everything in us that she WILL be healed. Because we
know that God has the opportunity to show His power and love in that
healing.
And to NOT answer would be to have the chance to have people lose
faith in the
power of prayer.

The context is that their newborn baby is seriously ill. Anyway, what do you think of a statement like that?

Audrey Caroline Smith

Amy — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:27:03 +0000

It’s been a year since Angie Smith received the news that her baby daughter wouldn’t live long (if at all) after her birth. She posted a video yesterday sharing some of the final moments their family shared with Audrey Caroline before she went home to Jesus. The images and the words are powerful and a beautiful testimony.

http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2009/01/mourning-and-dancing.html