"I lost my tooth. God has blessed me"~Shalom

I love reading Ann Voskamp's blog. Because I see myself in the mirror in her writings.
No, our lives are not the same or similar but I see myself in the things that she writes about.
Not all. But most.
I realize lessons from ordinary things she talks about.

Ordinary, yet meaningful.

She shares her life, her thoughts,her family, her faith, her children.
Her children.

Shalom, she is the littlest child of the six.
The girl with the golden tendrils of a hair who knits upended and scrubs the floors to a gleam and who sings praises to the Lord slightly off-tune.

My first memory of Shalom is the first poem I wrote for my One Thousand Verses blog I know God is Going to Bring Nanny Home

The goats, Ninny and Nanny. One got lost...and was found again.
Shalom, she prayed desperately. And God heard her prayers.
What if God did not hear her prayers to bring Nanny back? He is still God.
It is a reminder of who and what God is.

 I see one of Ann Voskamp's most recent blog entries~How To Handle Losses
and Shalom, she lost a tooth and said, “I lost my tooth. The Lord has blessed me.”

Ann~ she sees wisdom in things that I would probably could never see and when I see it through her, it blesses me.
 "How does she do that? How does she fill her gaping with celebrating and who sees blessing in loss..." She was talking about Shalom.

The words turn round and round in my head.

I lost too.
I lost the entire set of my reproductive organs. Hysterectomy.
I never knew what that medical term meant until I had to dig deeper a few days before my surgery.
Hyster -- I wondered why the term. But I think I see now. I am almost hyster-ical. Who would not be?
All the horror stories about hormonal imbalance, about emotional and psychological changes.

I lost too.
Like Job, he lost everything. Sons and daughters. Wealth. Health. 
But God blessed him. He restored everything.
He is indeed the God of restoration. He restores the lives of His children.

“I lost my tooth. The Lord has blessed me.”
It touches the heart ~ a child's understanding of what losing something meant to her.
And celebrates the loss.


"Who am I to complain in losses — when what I lost wasn’t mine to begin with?" - Ann~she's right.
Nothing is really "ours". Nothing is really ours to begin with.
Even our physical bodies that we call our own.


"The toothless Job child, standing there with her tooth in her hand: I lost — and the Lord has blessed."

How do we all become like Shalom? Or Job?

The wild, tenacious thanks.
    “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.
    The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
    blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:20–21).

I lost too.
I gave thanks for the deliverance from the operation.
But I missed the point that my loss was a blessing.
Until I read about the toothless Job child announcing the Lord has blessed her after she lost a tooth.

 Thanking the Lord is Shalom's default.
And Ann is right again.
"When thanksgiving is your default — the enemy gets his defeat."

And I continue to quote Ann:
"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord — because praise is breath to a child of God. Praise is the only way to really breathe."

Is it why I feel choked?
Is it why I feel short of breath?
Is it why I have this dying, drowning feeling?

I lost and didn't realize it was a blessing.
And I started sliding to the depths of depression where my breath slowly comes in gasps.

PRAISE IS THE ONLY WAY TO REALLY BREATHE!

I see a vision of God, lowering a rope down to me where I slid into the ugly depths of depression.
And I started my ascent....still gasping...but above me, I see the toothless Job child showing me her tooth and smiling saying:
  “I lost my tooth. The Lord has blessed me.”

 Ah Ann, I see there is more to be heard from you:

"Is it robbery for everything that has breath to take oxygen from His world and not praise the Lord?"


At the recovery room, as my consciousness returned, all I can remember is the thousand and one wild beasts clawing at my insides. The doctors took it away. I lost an organ. And I can remember struggling to remove the oxygen mask off my face. It was hard to breathe but the oxygen mask wasn't even helping.

 
Praise the Lord!!! Because He is worthy of praise!!!

I breathe.
I received my oxygen.
Not in a mask connected to a tank
But straight from where it comes from. Naturally.
Straight from the Lord who gives and takes away and blesses us.

Shalom. Ann.
Mother and child who showed me where to be in the dark parts of this world.

At the feet of the Giver of Everything.
Thanking Him continually.
Because...
"You defeat your dark when thanksgiving is your default."



NOTE: This blog was inspired by Ann Voskamp's blog, How to Handle Losses