Growing Through Grief

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Y’all. I was instantly drawn to Amanda the moment I read her words about her hot husband plowin’ up potatoes on their farm. Not only is she a wife to her farmer man she is a mama to SIX little ones, and she can write some beautiful truth. I got to meet her and pray with her a few years ago and have been blessed by her wisdom ever since. I know you will be too. Here is a lesson she has learned from the farm:

He held out his hands, a frown on his face and disgust in his voice. “This is gross! It’s hot…and wet!” The rest of the homeschool group visiting our Farm Days cracked up laughing. He’d grabbed a pile of fresh manure to fertilize the vegetable garden with instead of the drier mounds.
The frugal and resourceful part of me loves that nothing gets wasted on the farm, but the realistic part doesn’t always love the smell that accompanies what looks like waste. What often appears as a lifeless mound of manure turns into rich fertilizer once it’s plowed into the soil or spread around the plants. It provides necessary nutrients allowing the crops to return a plentiful harvest.
Throughout our lifetime, we will experience painful, hard moments but it’s what we do with those moments that has the power to propel us forward in faith or push us backward. A few years ago, I experienced my biggest faith fertilizer. I call it this because it stunk. I’d never felt such pain, as if someone had ripped my heart clean out of my chest.   My mom, my best friend, suddenly passed away.
I wondered how God could do this to me? I’d just given birth to a set of twins –our 5th and 6th babies and I needed my mom for advice, encouragement, love, and an extra set of arms. The next several months left me crying out for comfort. Tearstained pages left my Bible crinkled where I’d held it late at night when everyone else slept. In the margins of Psalm 30, faint pen marks read, “I long for that day when my mourning turns to dancing.”I could only see two options –cling to the promises of God or doubt everything I’d known about him until then.

When it felt like the world moved on and all I wanted was to do was hide from my friends and family, something pulled me toward those tearstained pages, night after night. A gentle, yet relentless tug had me flipping through Psalms. Words written thousands of years ago filtered their way through my foggy mind, filling it with God’s promises.
During those quiet, solitary late nights, I realized I wasn’t the only one to ever suffer. Psalm after psalm was filled with laments followed by praises. My heart and my mind knew God is good all the time, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
If you’ve faced those fertilizer moments, remember this –the pain won’t last forever. It’s temporary. Be that as it may, in the meantime, it hurts deeply. But during those times, it’s easy to stuff the hurt inside, to pretend all is well when it’s not at all.Friend, can I tell you something? Resist that urge to refuse comfort from your friends and family. They love you and want what’s best and they’ll understand the personal moments you need to grieve.

When you want to hide from people because the pain is too great, turn to the Father. Hide in the shelter of His wings. When you feel like fleeing, fling yourself into His arms, finding comfort from the pain. When the temptation to run from God is great, stand firm in his promises. Lay your burdens down at the cross and let the peace that surpasses all understanding comfort you like no one else can.Rest in the promises that this pain won’t last forever. Let the stinky, seemingly useless mound of manure be made into the necessary fertilizer that forms you into a more beautiful creation. Let your mess be made new. To God be the glory.

Amanda Wells is the proud wife of her smokin’ hot third generation farmer husband and they have taken Psalm 127:5 literally –raising their quiverful of six kids on the farm. She loves baking, reading, writing, and arithmetic (kidding!). Amanda enjoys speaking with small groups of women–even little women–about where their beauty comes from and the truth about their worth. She creatively weaves hilarious stories of their family and farm life throughout her topic and you’ll be sure to hang onto every word!