You've changed

 It's a subtle thing that I don't think people even realize they are doing but it's always there, that look in their eyes and the constant silent question...  "What happened to you?"  

What happened to the woman who would loudly proclaim God's promises?  What happened to the teacher?  What happened to your joy and your faith in God?  Why are your eyes always sad?  

Just like seeing me reminds people that I've changed, seeing them reminds me of the same.  Seeing people who know the woman that I once was or maybe who is just buried is painful and heartbreaking.  People remind me of a time when I was FULL of hope, expectation and certainty that I could make it through anything with just a mustard seed of faith.  

They remind me of a time when faith in God was effortless and easy.  They remind of before...  

You know those moments that divide history.  Moments so sudden and tragic that your life is now divided into before the tragedy and after.  I know you do.  Life happens to us all.  Universally a lot of life has happened to all of us in the last 4 years.  We've all changed.  We all take life more seriously.  We all count our blessings more.  We all try to focus on the good things in our lives a little bit more, but I know there is a universal feeling of being changed in deep and meaningful ways.  

Today as I encountered this experience once again, I thought about Naomi.  The Naomi who followed her husband and two sons to a foreign land to find food during a famine was not the same Naomi who showed up at the gates of Bethlehem years later.  Naomi who had lost her husband and two sons during that time returned to her hometown a very different woman.  

When the people came out to greet her, they were expecting to see the same sweet Naomi she had once been, but they encountered a bitter broken version of her who confessed, "I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty.  Why call me Naomi? The LORD had afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune on me."  

At first glance it looks like Naomi has lost all faith in God.  It looks like Naomi has given up hope and maybe even allowed her bitterness to destroy her relationship with God, but the truth is Naomi knew that God alone was her help and hope.  

Naomi's faith that God had not forsaken her is what drove her to head back home when she heard the Lord had visited the land.  She may have been bitter, but she knew where help came from.  She may not have danced into the gates of Bethlehem with bells on and shouts of praise, but with clinging fingers she held on to the hem of the Almighty's robes and expected to find help in God.  

Even though Naomi knew who had allowed the bitter things into her life she didn't walk away from God she clung to him.  

Here's the thing...  sometimes life is really hard, and it can change you.  Grief doesn't have an expiration date.  We NEVER know what is going on people's lives even when we think we do.  We don't know all that goes on behind the scenes of a person's life.  Life can sometimes be bitter and painful.  

The truth is I have changed, but GOD has not.  The truth is my heart hurts still, but my faith is stronger than ever, because it's not in anything else, BUT GOD now.  The truth is I'm not the woman I used to be, but HE is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The truth is my family experienced a season of tragedy that rocked our world, but not our faith.  The truth is there are constant reminders in my life of a time when two people filled our lives with so much love and laughter and now they are gone and that has changed me. 

The good news is the story didn't end for Naomi there... You can find her story in the book of Ruth.  It's a beautiful story of God's faithful love and restoration.  Naomi's story gives me hope and reminds me that seasons of our lives don't define us and bitter winters are always overtaken by the glorious beauty of spring.