Doesn’t this seem wrong? All the hope and brightness of spring covered in a blanket winter uses for dying things. But this is what we woke up to one late April morning.
I was able to count them, six tulips, just like our family, with one buried.
We had all fallen over at the death blow dealt us.
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Well, that’s it for them. Delicate tulips. They were fragile enough just trying to stand up and make it on their own without this added weight.
I crossed them off my hope list.
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You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?…
…This I know, that God is for me.
David wrote this Psalm after he had fled from Saul and was taken captive before the Philistine King of Gath. He was scared to death. So, David was saying he knew that God was for him while what was happening?
Men trampling him, oppressing him, attacking him, injuring him, threatening him, and committing crimes against him. Yet, God was for him.
David was tossing at night, crying his heart out.
Yet, God was for him. And he knew it. He says, “I put my trust in You. I praise Your Word. You’ve delivered my soul from death, my feet from falling. SO THAT– I can walk before God in the light of life.
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This is what I woke up to the next day, after the snow melted. Tulips in the light of life.
I was shocked they were able to raise their weary heads. I was shocked they hadn’t shriveled up and quit. Does God really make them that resilient? Did He design something in them to withstand winter’s last grasp?
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Even the buried one was resurrected to life.
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Are we going to make it God? Will our family be okay? It’s so weird to wake up each day to five, not six. To keep going as if five is the number we’ve always been.
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In a way, I wish we were all still covered in snow because that’s what my heart feels like. I’m not ready for doctor’s appointments and college interviews and driving kids to make worship practice. Does five really just go on like six used to?
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I think there’s something going on I can’t see. Just like the tulip bulbs that work under the soil in the silence and dark before being put on display. That is Your place of work. In the secret heart that nobody sees. Your work will be on display at the appointed time. I may see it little by little or wake up and see it all at once on Your given day. Until then I will have to trust that you ARE at work just like David trusted.
Psalm 56:8-9c
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Dear God, I remember when I took a picture of this tulip. Tristan was climbing the birch tree and beguiling us with his bright blue eyes. I had no idea what was in store for us just 10 years later. I had no idea I would use this picture on a Suicide Loss blog. You did. My life is in Your hands, to Whom else would I go? I trust You, even in the horror of death, I trust what You say about my son. I will see him again. Even in the worst possible moments of my life, You are in control, and You are for me. Thank you for the truth that nothing can snatch us out of Your hands and nothing can touch us except what is filtered through Your fingers. Save me from myself. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
