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A Whisper: Your Pain is Not Sovereign

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Art by Lydia Hampton The most valuable, sewn in through pain anchor of a whisper from my Lord this past year is this:   Your pain is not sovereign.    I am.   It has been whispered into the unspoken broken, over my broken body, and surrounding my aching, shattered heart.    God Himself measures the calamity that reaches my little world.    Don’t ever be fooled.    He’ll give you far more than you can handle.    Many conclude within the wreckage of anguish that this must mean He cannot be both sovereign and good.    In our utter groaning we feebly look for some way to calculate the incalculable.    We try to make sense of what seems completely insensible.    I couldn’t even attempt to guess the number of times I’ve replayed the treacherous, my brain trying to reconfigure what could have been or what I could have done differently to change the death of my son.    In the mystery of it all, I’ve had nowhere else to turn with even a glimpse of rest but Christ.    I cannot ultimately believe
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Grit

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  Grit.     That word lingered in my mind yesterday morning after Jason’s sermon on Psalm 42 on Sunday.     The mornings are the toughest time of the day since Haddy went Home for me.     So, as you can imagine, the morning of the 4th of July is humbling.     I laid on my air mattress in my tent here at the campground, listened to nature, and wept again.     I weep for my boy and for all of the subsequent losses and pain so intricately tied to his death.     I thought about the book of Habakkuk, the wrestling lament of a prophet given to us for the good in it.     There it came again.     Grit.     Our faith is pretty gritty, the Hampton kiddos and parents alike.     We aren’t pulling up our bootstraps and telling each other, “suck it up buttercup.”     We aren’t avoiding.     We are messy, wrestling, and fighting for joy and happiness in the Lord and with each other.     Yesterday looked like that.    We played so hard!    I took almost no pictures.    The reception is terrible here a
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Bereaved Mother’s Day: How He Flips the Script

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          Yesterday was Bereaved Mother’s Day.    Haddy’s birthday is quickly approaching.   It's a dreadful cluster.  God's provision in the past few weeks has been astounding, yet  I still groan.    Truth be told, some days I still weep with such a full body experience that I hang over the toilet retching, heaving at the bitter providence of Haddy’s death.    It’s a familiar and devastating reality of this new life I live.    The sorrow that lives within me is unequivocally defining. Sometimes I feel so defined by loss that I catch sight of myself in a mirror and feel another heaping kind of loss, the loss of my former self.    Tragedy, sorrow, and trauma still live in these bones.  I need to share a few stories given to me in unfolding layers of goodness and grace.  His steadfast love has been evident.  I need to share it.        Last Sunday I spent the morning weeping.    It still feels like every cell in my body groans at times.    My toes still curl and I have physical ac
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In my Living and in my Dying, May I Honor You

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To live is Christ, to die is gain.     Philippians 1:21 This verse has been etched on my heart through profound suffering.    As a young girl, I felt a sense of confidence that I could live for Christ but fear that I’d abandon Him if called to die.    As a bereaved mother, that script was flipped.    I’ve felt confident that if called to die for Christ, that I’d gladly go.    Without a second of hesitation, I would’ve given my life for Haddon.    Yet, as I’ve weighed what it means to truly live since Haddon’s death, I’ve been met with incredible trepidation.     How will I do this?     That deep confidence I held as a child has been replaced with a severe longing to go Home.    Daily my thoughts played on repeat, I want to go Home. In time after Haddon’s death, my Lord gave me a deep yearning to go Home well.    When those cyclical patterns of thought would begin, I’d pray with intention.    Lord, I want to go Home well.    Recently, that simple prayer has progressed into a resolve th
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From the Bottom

Top to bottom Upside down Inside out Under and over Everything in between Your love covers me When I couldn’t feel any more empty in this pit, my chasm of darkness and pain Your love awakens me anew Patience You woo me with your patience Your lips drip warmth and wonder, hope in the grave of despair and loss When darkness threatens to invade all that I am, all that I have Your love is the flicker of light, dispelling the darkness When I cannot conceive of the light, you sit with me in the dark, groaning and waiting I can feel your warmth beside me, hear the echo of your own lament I could howl this guttural wailing forever but your person settles my soul I am but a shell of my former self, but you love me more than her, your light-hearted bride Why?   Oh how I’ve asked that question  Why? Your pain  You find purpose, calling out into the darkness Those truths that rocked the whole world Top to bottom Upside down Inside out Under and over Everything in between Those are the honey on you
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His Grip

 Haddy’s fake fuss.  He wanted my phone.  I have survived immeasurable yearning for every mundane moment with him for more than 1,000 days.  The touch of his skin, the sound of his voice, the feel of his hand in mine, his disobedience, and all of the training required to bring a two year old to a five year old.  I wanted it all.  I am so jealous for him.  Still.  Time does not heal all wounds.  That is a lie.   For more than 1,000 days, I have been in the furnace of affliction, staring my greatest fear in the face with the challenge in front of me to still live, to offer myself to my children and my husband who all have great need.  Truly, I love them more than my own life. I’m here to tell you.   When you come to the end of yourself perpetually, there is a God who sees you.  His grip is unmistakably strong and gentle, loving and firm.  He knows suffering.  No amount of fiery anger, bitter weeping, or cursing the day that you were born will keep Him away, although the comfort is easier
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It’s been 3 hard years

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Love my crew.  I haven’t posted much on this trip or written much either.  Maybe I just needed to disconnect?  From Haddy’s birthday on May 7th to the 4th of July, I feel like I’m trying to grip the wheel and hang on or something.  The world just feels different, darker.  It is, I suppose.  My view of it most certainly is.  I’m thankful the Lord uses every season and every reason to remind us of our need for Him.  I’m learning that my expectations don’t always need to be written in stone and that grief requires me to slow down way more than I’d like to admit and reassess those expectations.   I look at these faces every day.  Man, I desperately want to do this thing well.  I can get fearful and fast for how far I feel in over my head.  ...yes, I know that’s dang near a ‘drowning’ reference.  Life, hardship, grief, anguish...it can feel like a whole lot..a whole lot of the time.  I suppose if there’s something I’m coming home with, it’s this; Hope doesn’t always equate to an outcome tha
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