Motorway picnics and crises of faith

We are home! We are home we are home. I am glad to be home. I am in my own bed, with familiar smells and sounds and feels. I have my husband close. I am happy. For the moment. I will deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.

Another early-ish morning, and Ben did not want to leave Gran and Grandad's house to go home. So I packed the car around him, and left him there while I went to get diesel and collect some stuff from my parents' that I'd forgotten. Charley fell asleep pretty quickly so I raced to get done and back to pick Ben up before Charley finished his nap. Official setting-off time 11am. We made it about a third of the way home before Charley woke up and started hollering. Ben of course had only just fallen asleep... So we had lunch at the services, and got back in the car to carry on. Charley cried almost the whole way - 20 minutes - to the next services. So we stopped and got out and he stopped crying instantly, glad to be back in my arms, and we had a picnic in the sunshine on the grass by the carpark, and gave him a chance to stretch and play. Back in the car, and he cried all the way to the next services. Ben was shouting at him to stop, and at me to put my finger in his mouth to make him stop (last te, with Steve driving, Charley had settled sucking on my finger. He didn't do it again though!)... The next set of services were another 20 minutes away and Charley cried the whole way again. He sobbed himself to sleep just as we got onto the exit slip road, so I didn't stop, and we drove home non-stop from there. He woke again maybe 50 minutes away from home and we had another half an hour of crying. Home by 5.30pm though, which was wonderful. So for a total driving time of about four and a half hours (that is, not including time spent at services) he cried for maybe an hour, just over an hour total.

It breaks my heart to hear him cry and be unable to do anything about it. I HATE it when he cries himself to sleep. I remember crying myself to sleep, both as a child and as an adult and it's horrible. The way he wraps his tiny arms tightly around my neck when I get him out of his carseat when we stop, the instant cessation of crying, the relief to have mama holding him again... My baby really doesn't enjoy car journeys. He tolerates them in the morning. But not any other time of day!

We've had cuddles on the new swing seat, played, had dinner, and the boys have crashed out. I won't be far behind.


But what I really wanted to record was the other journey I went on today. The CD in our car stereo at the moment is called Passion:Awakening, it's from some American (I think) Christian music fedtival / camp thing. It's really not the sort of thing you want to listen to if you are shattered and therefore already emotionally fragile, hurting for friends, going through a bit of a faith crisis, AND want to be able to concentrate and not break down in tears while driving on a long motorway journey.

Still, that is what was in the machine and Ben wanted the God song (a particular one).

I have believed in God my whole life. As long as I can remember. God has ALWAYS been there, part of life. I can't imagine life without God. It's like trying to imagine life without the colour blue, or without a limb, - something that's always been there and there's not normally any reason to imagine life without it. But today, I hurt. I hurt for a beautiful friend, who is hurting so much. It hurts to see her in so much pain. It hurts, not just because of the pain she is suffering, but because she is a child of God and I just can't understand why God doesn't heal her. My faith was being shaken to its core. Is there really a God? If there is, why is He letting this happen? Why does He heal some and not others? I don't know. "Water you turned into wine. Opened the eyes of the blind. There's no-one like You, none like You." I couldn't sing the song. I couldn't sing it, wondering if I really believed it. Say, say, say you believe it. Sing for the whole world to hear it. We know and we declare it, Jesus is King." I know faith comes by hearing. I know that what you hear repeatedly, you will believe (That's an old Ceri Jones-ism for any Kings people reading!). "Say, say, say you believe it. Sing loud, sing like you mean it. We know and we declare it, Jesus is King." But I couldn't. I cried. And then, the faith in the deep places welled up. I cried out to God. I prayed. God IS my rock and my salvation, I needed to remind myself of what I believed in my heart. I needed to hear those words "Our God is healer, awesome in power ... No matter where I am, healing is in His hands"" and I needed to sing them, and believe them again. To draw close to God. When we are at the end of our Selves, that's when we can start to learn utter reliance on God. I prayed and listened and prayed and sang. I saw the core of a beautiful woman being wrapped up in God and protected from all that is happening to her body. The rest is for her.

I started out having a huge crisis of faith, and finished my journey home with pictures and promises full of hope.

Now to sleep, and try not to think too much about going for dental work under sedation tomorrow.