Hard to Write, Hard to Read, Hard to Live

Recently in a Sunday morning group discussion on 2 Chronicles 7 there was a question posed within the study materials: "When have you known or witnessed the glory of God?" Someone reverently spoke up answering the question "at the moment of birth" with each of their children. I nearly came undone: fight or flight kicked in and I began to sweat and my heart rate doubled. My eyes blurred with tears threatening to pour over. I gripped my husbands knee knowing my desperate grasp would communicate what my voice could not and what my eyes dared not as I couldn't meet his eye. I desperately wished I could say the same. Their response was valid and sincere, and there was a time I could have responded the same. It was a beautiful answer, appropriate in many ways. 

My silent answer to that question? It was just the opposite: the death of my child. Can you imagine the social awkwardness such an answer would cause? 

I couldn't help ponder what does it mean to "experience, witness, or know the glory of God"? What were scriptural encounters of this like? Were they always filled with surges of oxytocin- the feel good hormone? Was it blissful? Did it always culminate in what we traditionally call blessing? Was it birthed through trial or triumph? Sorrow or celebration? 

I'm no scholar and there's room for my misunderstanding so please bear with my musings.

God's glory can be described as his presence made manifest or a display of his character and nature. God's glory- even in this singular passage- FILLS, CONSUMES, OVERWHELMS, PROMPTS humility, worship, thanksgiving, and BIRTHS willful sacrifice. It PROVOKES praise. It PROVIDES joy and gladness for what he's done and who he is. God's glory is ACTIVE. 

The response of God's people in 2 Chronicles (as well as elsewhere in scripture)? They fell to the pavement with faces to the ground. I can tell you when I fell to the pavement with my face to the ground, overcome by his character, his presence, his will. It wasn't the birth of my sons or daughters. Of course their births were joyful occasions for which I thanked God and saw the hand of God in our favor. But things turned out the way I expected and wanted; with very little suffering or fear in the grand scheme of things. 

So what were the scriptural responses and circumstances surrounding the witness or experience of God's glory? I started looking and many (I can't say for certain most- but I do wonder) were not filled with warmth, happiness, nor all things "well and perfect" according to our general human perspective. I did a quick search and here's what I found. 

• Mark: stars are falling and heavenly bodies shaking with seeming natural disaster. The sun and moon are dark and it's here "at THAT TIME men will see the Son of Man coming with great power and glory" (13). 
• Luke: The shepherds were terrified and required reassurance: "Do not be afraid" (2:9). Peter doesn't even realize what he's saying and they are then enveloped by the cloud of glory and "afraid" (9:33-34). Jesus tells them when the Son of Man comes with power and great glory to "stand up and lift up your heads." This prompts my assumption of prostrate posture as in 2 Chronicles. Why? Is it fear or an overwhelming? Then he finished the sentence "because your redemption is drawing near". So glory and our response thus is associated with redemption (21:27-28). Christ suffered first THEN entered "his glory" (24:25-26). 
• John: Jesus reveals his glory through a miracle not for the miracle's sake but for the purpose of trusting him and faith growth (2). There is sickness that was for God's glory (11:4) and Lazarus has died. The dead man's sister's belief amid her brother's death along with Jesus' presence is so she may "see the glory of God" (11:40). 
• Acts: Stephen saw the glory of God while being stoned to death (7:55). 
• Ezekiel: He fell facedown (1:28). 
• Exodus: When Moses encountered God's presence in the burning bush he "hid his face because he was afraid to look at God." There was humility, fear, and then questions (3). At Mt. Sinai there was thunder and lightening and all the people were trembling. Smoke, fire, and violent trembling of the mountain pour forth from God's presence (19) and when they saw it they "trembled in fear" (20). God was in the thick darkness (20:21). God's glory "looked like a consuming fire" (24). 

Albeit others have studied this far deeper and longer than I and have possibly come to much different conclusions. I also want to be clear that my experience or opinion is indeed just that: mine. It doesn't invalidate or minimize another's experience and the ways the Lord has worked in their life. That said, upon my review of these few texts I can confirm the births of my children do not remind me of these instances of and responses to God's glory. But when Abigail died? 

There was terror and fear knowing his will was not my own. I was facedown on my knees before the Lord on that cold ER floor crying out to him with no choice but to submit. I was humbled more in death than ever before in life. The death of my child screams for redemption. Her death has and will be redeemed. Her life? It is a gift from the Lord, the Author of life. Hence there is no need for something from him to be redeemed to or by him. It is the death, the pain, the sorrow all brought on by that initial sin in need of redemption, is it not? 

Powerless? Indeed I was, and I knew it- painfully so. I have been at the utmost mercy of his power. When have I been most aware of the fullness of his power and the utter ridiculousness of assumptions of any power of my own? Definitely not at their births. After childbirth we look on our babes (husbands look upon wives and babe) with a sense of accomplishment, awe, and wonder. It's a time we say, "look at what strength the Lord empowered me with: the strength to birth this child and endure the physical pain therein." We feel a strength of being, a pride in what we've just done. After Abigail's traumatic birth I was even awed by the Lord's mercy as well and filled with thanksgiving for the sound mind and skill he had blessed my OB and team with. What about when we hold the lifeless body of that child in what seems just moments later? Holding her out to him, giving her back? Any strength in that moment? Indeed, we are acutely aware it is not in us. There is no sense of personal accomplishment, but plenty of personal failure. THAT is when I have been face down on the floor, humbled to the depths of heartache, aware that all power is his. None is mine. 

When did I witness God in the "thick darkness?" It was the moment we were asked to decide upon any further resuscitative efforts. It was the moment that chopper left without my baby. (Our home, my work are in the pathway of life flight, and each day since then when I hear that chopper the darkness threatens my pounding heart.) 

When have I heard him most clearly say, "fear not"? It was while holding my baby girl knowing I was not to carry her home. 

When have I been most powerfully aware of his presence? It was when my husband and I held her together, sobbing as the words of "The Goodness of God" washed over us reminding us of his character. 

When was my world falling apart leaving me feeling the stars were falling and the sun ceased shining? It was when we sat making funeral arrangements for my child and again when we decided upon her gravestone the day her friend celebrated turning four. 

When was I called to trust him like never before? It was as I sang in worship at her service. 

When was my faith tested amid sickness and death? When did I see the glory of God? As Stephen did in the moment of his death, so did I in the moments surrounding hers and the aftermath of missing my baby girl while staring into the new hole in our family. 

Is the Lord present those first moments life enters this world? Absolutely. What I realized is the overwhelming magnanimity of his powerful presence (and my awareness of such) was greater the moment of her birth THROUGH death from this world. She was birthed into eternity, and she left me behind. His presence, his glory, the reality of his character has never been more keenly known, seen, or experienced as it was in her death to this world. He did not leave. It was his presence that held, and continues to carry us: to pick us up off the floor raising our eyes upward. It is his glory. Carrying. Covering. Comforting. It's active. 

So that's where my thoughts went that one hour on a Sunday morning, and I kept silent. For to speak would have released a dam of tears. It would also have seemed to minimize the experiences others spoke of. So the pressure of the tears dammed up remained. I release them here for now. They'll be back.