The Story Between Storms

April 28 -June 12

I should be planning outings right now.
I should be packing diaper bags and strollers into the trunk of my car.
I should be planning birthday parties and first holidays, not funerals.

But instead, I found myself sitting in a home full of silence, staring at a future that didn’t look anything like the one I had prayed for.

I was angry.
I was numb.
I didn’t want answers anymore.
I just wanted out of the pain.

And somewhere in that brokenness—God showed up anyway.

---

Not with lightning bolts or miracles.
Not with instant healing or hollow comfort.

He just sat with me.

No demands.
No loud lectures.
No fixing.

Just presence.

I didn’t want to hear Him at first.
Some days, I numbly ignored the gentle whispers brushing against my soul.
Other days, I heard Him—soft, steady—and I turned my face away.

It didn’t change anything.
She was still gone.
I was still broken.
The gap between what I believed and what I lived was still too wide to bridge.

I couldn’t understand why He would give her to me, light up my life with hope—only to take her back and leave me to make burial arrangements instead of birthday plans.

It felt cruel.
It still feels cruel sometimes.

---

But He stayed.

When I cursed.
When I cried.
When I stopped praying.
When I could barely lift my head.

He stayed.

And over time—not in an instant, but over months—something in me began to loosen its fists just enough to listen.

Very slowly, His voice started slipping back into the spaces where grief had been screaming.

I didn’t search for scriptures—they found me.
On sticky notes.
On mirrors.
On office walls.
On doors.

Little reminders, taped up and tattered at the edges, not because I felt strong—but because I needed something stronger than me to lean on.

Even as angry as I was—
Even as numb as I stayed sometimes—
The Word was everywhere.

Covering the silence.
Covering the questions.
Covering the fear that maybe I’d already lost God forever too.

---

All He asked was simple:
“Don’t give up on Me yet.”

Not “Understand Me.”
Not “Be okay with this.”
Not “Get over it.”

Just:
“Stay.”

Even if it was messy.
Even if it was bitter.
Even if it was broken.

Just stay.

---

I didn’t experience some grand awakening.
I didn’t “arrive” at perfect faith again.
But I stayed.
Somehow, by grace and grit, I stayed.

And slowly, I’m beginning to believe that this—even this—
is not where the story ends.