For The Kingdom of Heaven Belongs To Such As These...
I've been kinda quiet for a bit. Not really, but web-wise..well...you know what I mean.
It's been a little on the nuts-ish side ever since Pop passed...Passing on that Wednesday, back and forth to Brooks to comfort "Momma", help sort and and find pictures and figure out all the details involved with an unexpected death on Thursday and Friday, nephew's first birthday party (at which I almost lost my cool and jumped a heffa...thank you JESUS for a little girl who KNOWS her momma..."Mommy? Come walk with me?"), Church on Sunday (which my Abba is so precious...had me scheduled to sing a song about peace and resting in his arms a month before Pop even passed... <3 ), Veiwing that night, Funeral on Monday, and somewhere in between, 5 out of 6 kids AND myself managed to pick up STREP (I had blisters and lacerations in my throat..ACK!) which pretty much wiped us out for the rest of that week and the beginning of the next....SHEESH!
OH! And THEN I remembered that we had given out birthday invites the last week of school for Maddie Rose's birthday and her party was set for the upcoming Saturday (I realized this on THURSDAY) and I had NOTHING set up for her. Being that Her Poppa had just died I wanted to make it wonderful for her so, with the help of my AMAZING seester, Andrea (OMGSH! HAHA! I just totally tried to tag her name....woowwww...) We made it happen.
SO! I'm just getting a chance to sit down and process all this...and I'm tired, yall! Haha! (And Ana says, "PREACH!" lol)
But as I'm looking back over this craziness, I just have to say that Maddie Rose..... just...wow. This little girl impresses the heck outta me. Sometimes, this past week or so, her capacity for trust and healing has humbled me to tears.
On the Wednesday that Pop died, we had the monumental task of breaking the news to our little one that her hero had died. At that time, we really weren't sure about where he stood with the Lord. Every time we would bring up the subject with him he would make a face and a snide comment and change the subject. He never really took us seriously...but that was our fault.
He had seen us get hurt by the church and turn our backs on God and go from passionately running into God to passionately running in the opposite direction and then back again. Pop loved us deeply and he saw our hearts and knew why we had run, but the strength of our witness was hurt by the strength of our rebellion and inconsistency.
Anyway, we did the best we could breaking it to her and we sat in my mom's floor with her encircled in our arms and wept together for all the giggles and tickles and snuggles she would miss.
The next two days, she was sad, but not terribly and there were no more tears. I was concerned that she was internalizing her pain and was praying for wisdom on how to minister to my baby girl. On Friday, she went with her daddy to visit her Nanny(Shane's mom) against my better judgement. I was concerned that being in his house with his things with a distraught Nanny would do more damage than good at that moment, but Shane felt it was important.
**Ladies** God moves thru your men. Even if they make decisions that you dont agree with, if you submit and let them lead your family and be MEN...you just might surprised at the outcome...
As they made the trek to Brooks, Maddie Rose just randomly says, "Daddy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"You don't have to worry about me. I'm okay."
Shane, slightly confused, "Okay?..I'm glad, but why?"
"Cuz I'm over it."
He chuckles, "You're over it?"
"Yep...You know...Poppa dying and all."
Realization sank in.
Tears formed in his eyes, "Baby, I'm so glad, but why do you say that?"
She smiled as she looked out the window, "Because I talked to Jesus and He told me that Pop is in heaven with Him...not to be sad."
And that was the end of it. From that moment on, for the rest of the day, she was a ray of sunshine for her Nanny as they snuggled together under Pop's blanket in Pop's recliner and talked about their favorite times with him, looked at pictures, and held and smelled his T-shirts. It was a precious thing for her to receive one of those T-shirts to have for her very own.
Shane told me all of this when they got home and we both got a little emotional about it...#1) because HOW OLD IS THIS CHILD?? Her depth and discernment... and #2) it wasn't that long ago that she had been frustrated because she didn't know how to "hear" God and we had had SEVERAL discussions about how to hear Him and what He sounds like(BTW...kinda hard to explain to a 6 year old..lol). So for her to say, "I talked to Jesus and He told me..." was HUGE for us.
On Sunday, at the veiwing, we tried to prepare her for what she would see...it would be the first time she had seen her Poppa in 5 months or more because he was working all the time. But again, she blew our minds.
Our Executive Pastor's amazing wife(and a close friend of mine) met us in the parking lot and our kids mingled and laughed and I watched my little girl as she bubbled about her day to her friend...which was intriguing to me because we were walking in to see her dead grandfather. She seemed unaffected by everything.
As we came into the room I checked on her.
"I'm okay, Mommy"
"Baby, it might be hard to see him like that...and if you dont want to remember him that way, its okay if you don't want to see him at all."
"Mommy. I want to see."
So we walked up to the casket, and she slid her hand into her Nanny's as she looked at Pop and said, "It's okay Nanny. That's not Poppa. He's not here." I had to walk away.
The most powerful words spoken over my mother-in-law that evening...the words that gave her the most comfort, were spoken by our 6 year old daughter.
Except for a brief moment at the service on Monday, there have been no tears from this little joy-bird. Even after everyone had left the grave site and we were lingering there with his body, and she and Nanny blew one last kiss to Pop and said goodbye, she was all smiles...and it occured to me.
The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these. We relate it to faith, and it does relate to faith, but have we ever thought about what, "the kingdom of heaven" that belongs to them entails? I began to see that the fruits of the Spirit...and everything that heaven holds belongs to my daughter. She has access to it without effort...because she just knows it. Jesus said it, so she believes it.
Oh the gifts and power that we have access to....the kingdom of heaven BELONGS to us if we could just see Him the way she does. As TRUSTWORTHY.
We say we trust Him, but in reality...many times, we treat Him like he's a liar. In our hearts we even accuse Him of it... like He hasn't "come through" with His side of the bargain...when there is no bargain. There is no deal. There is only Him.
Does she miss her Grandfather? Yes, of course. She will tell you about him, even if you dont ask, haha. Does she grieve him? Not at all. Why? Because Jesus said he was with Him...so why would she? Why cant we grasp that? To her, he's not dead. He's just gone away for a while...Because that's what her Abba told her...And that's truth.
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