Just because I am a librarian, does not mean I have the time to read. At this phase of my life, things like work, house, yard, laundry, never ending cleaning, volunteering and, well, kids take up much of my time - leaving my brain with no desire to do anything more than it has to. But sometimes, as books should, I get so inspired by the dust jacket alone that everything else takes a back seat while this momma dives right in. What I'm reading this week:
Dust Jacket reads:
You count a pregnancy by weeks and Kayla Aimee had only ticked off 24 of the 40 when she unexpectedly went into labor. She thought her church upbringing had prepared her for every circumstance but when tragedy struck and threatened to take the life of her newborn daughter, it felt as though once solid ground had turned to glass beneath her feet, destined to shatter everything she held sacred.
When swept into a story of suffering, we all find ourselves vulnerable, questioning everything we thought we knew as we wonder, “Where is God in this?” With everything feeling as fragile as her one and a half pound daughter, Kayla finds herself asking that same question as she faces her greatest fear: that she may have finally become a mother just to lose her only child.
For anyone who has felt their faith in God falter, Anchored extends a gentle invitation to join her as she uncovers a hope that holds.
Although I (thankfully) cannot relate with her story of a micropreemie, her struggle of finding God in the darkness is very real for so many, myself included. Kayla openly writes "I could fake praise, after all I knew the verses." Ouch. Wow. It made me think and open my eyes to my own faith, trust, and relationship with God. When we are at our lowest, do we get through it honestly, arms open wide, falling head first into our Faith, trusting in Him? Or do we fake our way through the situation, knowing in our hearts to rely on God, but unable to get our worldly head to do so? Ironically, today as I am carefully choosing how to express myself on this subject, a friend posts this on Facebook:
Those dark times in our life, when we see no light at the end of the tunnel, the times when we need to rely on our faith, are challenging. We question, although not directly specifically to Him, why do these bad things happen to me?
Kayla Aimee sums it up pretty well here:
"So I tell this story. And even though they get the abbreviated version, the one punctuated with numbers that fit in the time and space allotted, I cannot compress the largeness of it. I tell it because it is meant for more than just us; it is a resting place for anyone who is wondering where God is in their hurt. Because when we are asking that question is when we have the greatest opportunity to find Him. It doesn't feel like that in the middle of the story, not when you are living right in the middle of the open book. It does not feel like that when everything burns down to ashes, when the fractured dreams are still smoldering and it seems impossible to redeem the rubble, let alone create something beautiful from it. But the nature of God is to bring beauty from ashes, and here I am in the middle of a library in a small, suburban town in a northern corner of Georgia watching my once lame daughter walk and telling again of how mourning was turned to joy.
I did not want this story. I wanted a fairy tale, with a Once Upon a Time and They All Lived Happily Ever After. That is all we ever want, a happy ending. This is where my belief system had failed me, in subtly suggesting the pursuit of prayer as a means to achieving a happy ending, skipping over the shadows. But even the fairy tales would not exist without the dark places. Beauty without the Beast is just another pretty face. Sleeping Beauty without the spindle is just a story about a girl who takes a ridiculously long nap.
It is the story that we allow a Creator to write in our suffering that gives us the greatest opportunity to know the depths of His love, and in this way share that love with other. This is our privilege. This is our benediction."
To read more about author Kayla Aimee, visit her website
