Emily Belle Freeman - Even This: Getting to the Place Where You Can Trust God with Anything

Interior images: Zebra Finch/shutterstock.com

2017 Emily Belle Freeman

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

(CIP data on file)

ISBN 978-1-62972-338-9

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Book design Ensign Peak

Art direction: Richard Erickson

Cover design: Kimberly Cook/Heather G. Ward

Cover photo: swissmediavision/Getty Images

Author photo: Macy Robison

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Celebrating a Christ-Centered Easter

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The Peter Potential

Maybe Today

For the one who wondered

if she could ever trust God again.

The dull brick walkway marks a solid contrast to the lush green lawn growing outside the cement building standing behind us. The afternoon sun blazes, the air swelters, and my heart pounds out the unsteady rhythm that follows a rush of uncertainty. We gather in silence outside the gray walls that hold the pain, the reality still raw.

Standing in the light, we think we have left the darkness inside with the mounds of shaved hair, the leather shoes piled high, and the black-and-white footage that doesnt lie. We stand in the light, but we cant shake the shadows. They cling to us, settling deep into our memories, never to be forgotten, leaving darkness like a footprint on the soul.

Its not long before the silence between us is shattered, and now I stare at my younger sister, silently pleading with her to take back the words that had just come spilling out of her mouth: I dont think I believe in God anymore.

I know exactly what she is thinking. If God is real, how could He have let this happen? Why? Why, God?

It was the first time in my short life I had ever heard the fear spoken aloud.

Is God good?

Can He be trusted?

Because where was God when six million of His people were killed?

Where was His goodness?

I dont remember how we moved past that somber afternoonbut we did. Perhaps the Holocaust Museum was absorbed into the Natural Museum of American History and the National Gallery of Art, and the embers somehow settled like so many ashes between the historical documents and colorful paintings. With time, what burned heavy and hot was blown carelessly away with the winds of ordinary life. The memories faded and so did the questioning, and we returned home, and went to church, and believed in God.

Perhaps you have experienced it. You know how it ishow we see the injustice, the unfairness, the death, the hatred, the pain, the anguish. And while it is there, in front of us, we feel the bitterness and sorrow. But there is something about the walking away that numbs us, and somehow we forget the fear and the doubt.

Until the story is our own.

Until the story is your own, and the pain isnt housed within cold museum walls, but burns a hot ache into the flesh of your heart and you feel as if life will never be ordinary again.

If you had told me when my children were small that they would all pick the same year to get married, I would have told you that you were crazy. Even if you had told me just one year ago that four of the five of them would find their soul mates at the same time and start planning back-to-back weddings, I still would have questioned your sanity.

People ask me all the time, How did you do it?! And it is a good question. Even now as I sit here and look at the photographs, I wonder, how did we do it ? Four weddings in seven months. I, too, find it hard to believe. The answer is simple, I tell everyone who asks. The main floor of our home turned into Wedding Central. Each corner was decorated according to the wedding that was stationed there. For the better part of a year people walked into our home at their own risk.

I look around the room that is completely clean now, but I remember what it used to look like. The white banner letters hung from silk ribbon with navy tassels. The apothecary jars with pearls glued around the top, waiting to hold the dozens and dozens of soft pink peonies. The piles of ivory lace doilies and old-fashioned crocheted handkerchiefs purchased from the antique store. Old pallets, white picture frames, tiny glass jars hung from jute, aspen wood centerpieces, handmade quilts, dangling glass garlands, and the photographs. There were photographs everywhere. Engagement photos, bridal photos, first-look photos. Every moment captured so it would forever be remembered.

The upstairs room on the left became the brides room. Only the girls were allowed entrance. There we hung the gowns, four gowns, each one so different from the others. The cream satin gown with sparkled pearl sequins from the scalloped neck to the very end of the train. Another made completely from ivory lace, with a pair of coral shoes that barely peeked out from under the hem. The third, a classic vintage design made from white satin and fine English lace strips, with a white, four-inch sash around the waist. The last, sewn from beautiful lace, with huge taffeta roses making up the entire skirt. Oh, the gowns, each almost as elegant as the bride who chose it.

Now the weddings are over, and I come into this room often to look at these photographs, to count blessings, and to remind myself what I have recently come to believethat wedding days are filled with magic, miracles, and yes, even happy endings.

But that hasnt always been the case.

It is four days before the happiest day of my life. The satin and lace hang pressed and ready, the hand-sewn veil is finished and waiting, the white roses and gardenias have been ordered, and we sit behind closed doors in sterile quarters for the news. Greg is sick. We consider allergies, strep throat, or a winter cold, but the doctor fears something worse. We see it in his eyes, in the way he touches the same spot on Gregs throat two times, three times, and then just one more time before he leaves the room.

When the doctor returns he asks if we can postpone the wedding. The happiest day of my life. The one Ive been dreaming of since I was twelve. The celebration I lay awake nights planningthe right colors, the right flowers, the right song. The invitations are sent; flights have been booked. We cant postpone the wedding. We wont. How long is the honeymoon? he asks. He is serious. I am twenty, and we are invincible, and our wedding is in four days. Four days. I try to think seriously, but the butterflies and the anticipation and the nearness of the celebration cloud out what he is saying. There is a possibility that Greg has thyroid cancer. An appointment with an oncologist is made for when we return from the honeymoon. We put the thought of it in the back of our minds as soon as we leave the urgent care clinic and drive back to the house to finalize the wedding plans and continue on with the celebration.