On a whim during the second week of February I took my third daughter to the Boomer Marketplace near my house. I found this sign and I bought it on the spot. I intended to give it to my mom for Valentine’s Day, as I thought it fitting for her due to her worsening condition with ALS. I went to visit her the next day and found she’d slipped into a mostly incoherent state. She died ten days later.

I haven’t been able to pray for several weeks. Every time I start, I just cry instead. I haven’t been able to sing either. Every time I start, I just cry instead. And at some level I have to believe my tears are my prayers, are my songs, and that God does know my heart is trying to say something even if I, myself, don’t exactly know what it is.

The past six weeks have been possibly the hardest I’ve experienced to date. The foster boys we cared for as our own are no longer with us. I shared care giving of my mom’s last weeks with my sister as we helped my dad finish well with my mom and then the three of us watched her die, planned her service, buried her. Craig and I have argued about heart issues that seem almost insurmountable.

Any of those three things alone are discouraging, depressing, and somewhat debilitating for a season. Taken all together and they are downright disturbing. I will confess to questioning the goodness of God. I will confess to not trusting that those who love God all things will work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

Because I don’t see the good in a broken foster care system. I don’t see the good in the devastation brought on by Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. I don’t see the good in a lot of things I struggle with on a consistent basis.

And this is the point in the post where I’m supposed to turn the corner and tell you I know my life is going to feel better in the morning and I’m just going to magically move past the first quarter of 2014 like tossing the newspaper in the recycle bin and reaching for a new story tomorrow. Except that my life isn’t going to feel better in the morning and I don’t know how to toss out the past and start over again. I keep wondering when I’m going to stop marking time by what has already happened.

And once again I’m left asking God, Where in the world are You? When are you going to start caring again?

Only I have to do it silently because it’s the only way I know how to pray right now.

With tears.