p.s.

I felt convicted to add to the blog post from this week. So, here goes.

Some of you may read the latest blogs, the ones since Gaby went to heaven, and think several things. You may think, "Wow, the Browns have grief all figured out. They have just moved on. They are over it. They just pushed all the Gaby portions of the blog over to the side in a nice little tab and are moving on with their family. Look how happy they are. They must be forgetting her."

Those things are far from true. What I do find when I sit down to recount my life here at this blog is that I have to purposefully avoid typing about Gaby. I don't want to wallow in grief or pity or make things all about sadness. But the loss of Gaby is with the Browns every moment of every day. Loss is surprisingly funny like that, it hits you at any moment. I can be talking to a friend about Gaby and enjoy reminiscing about her life. In the same day I can be doing something as mundane as laundry and find myself on the floor, doubled over in painful sorrow that seemingly came from nowhere.

As we move through our lives we are not moving on. I hate that phrase. It implies that the past is pointless and only the future brings meaning. We are facing our grief head on though and trying to hear Jesus speak into our pain. We are continually surrendering to Jesus and saying "not my will but yours".

I need to be clear that we are not saying those words out of fatalism or martyrdom. I say them out of submission. I am a stubborn control freak. So sometimes I have to say that phrase 20 times over before my heart is acutally submitting. I choose to want what God wants more than what I want even though that means Gaby isn't with me. Even though that brings me sadness. I still love Jesus and want to obey Him. I believe that He is a loving Father that brings everything in my life for ultimate good and His eternal glory even though this doesn't feel good and probably never will here.

I believe that what we need most in life isn't to have God tell us yes. We don't need to have some stoic faith that prays and believes real hard and then miracles happen because of our faith. I do believe that God had the power to heal Gaby here on earth, but His ways are better than mine. I want to be filled with such confidence in His character, to know Him so closely that when He tells me no, I know He is right.

We have the faith to trust Him in our hurt, even if we know He could have saved us from it by performing a miracle in Gaby's life. And only through His grace can I say this not with a clenched jaw but through an open heart that wants Him to fill me more deeply as He speaks into this loss and pain in my life.