Oh stars... could have Amanda challenged me any more? I don't do journaling well. But we have had a tragic thing happen in our circle of friends over the last day and it has caused me to question and examine a lot of things.
Some friends of our loss their daughter yesterday after she was hit by a van. The picture of Brooke is at the age of what the little girl who died was - 2 yrs old.

JOURNALING: Anger. Bitterness. Confusion. These are the things I get consummed with when facing one of the most difficult things any person has to face. The death of a child. All praise to God above I have not personally experienced the loss, but in the past year I have been in touch with 3 childhood deaths. The latest are people we were acquainted with in our previous hometown. We received word yesterday that their 2 year old daughter was killed when struck by a van. And the child was in the care of a family friend. Our circle of friends have been devastated by this loss. And now the mass of question evades our minds. How in the world can the Lord take this precious child? I know that I know that I know that my faith and trust relies on Gods ultimate perfect plan, but when it comes to something like this my earthly sinful selfish mind can not wrap around the logic of how this could happen. But we embrace the family, we embrace our friends, our spouse, and we look in to the eyes of our children and thank God for every moment we have with them. And this is what I tried to do after learning the news last night. I could not sleep. I could do nothing but think of the horror of being in their shoes. Consequently, I got out of my bed and went and climbed in to bed with my daughter and spent the rest of the night either praying over her, staring at her or cuddling with her - praying I would never have to experience the loss of her. And this part is what scares me the most. Should the Lord have it in His plan for that to occur Im very scared by how I would react. Would I have the strength to put one foot in front of the other and go through the grieving process and then continue on with life. The imagination reeling around tells me no. It says just bury me with my child. No one plans for the tragic loss of a child. Its just something that shouldnt happen. But somehow we are promised by the Lord to be carried through it. So as we drive to Austin to sit among the hundreds of mourners for this young life I will reflect on how our children are truly on loan from God. How they truly His and His alone and we have been given the priviledge and the opportunity to have them in our earthly possession for a short time. We get the responsibility of preparing them for the world, of guiding their course and direction and allowing God to use their lives for His Kingdom and His purpose. And at times His loan may drive us crazy (as mine is doing now), but Id rather be driven crazy by this sweet whiney 4 year old voice than go without it.