Recently I had a small glimpse of how God continues to use
the pain of my past for good in the present. It has been going through my mind
for a few weeks, and just wanted to write about and share here. Because it’s all about giving God the glory.
Outback’s Blooming Onion has always reminded me of Andrew.
Steve and I had dinner at Outback the night before I went into labor with
Andrew. After giving birth we joked that it must have been that blooming onion
that sent me into labor, and we blamed his very chubby cheeks on those fried
onions rings.
On what would’ve been Andrew’s first birthday we went back
to Outback for dinner. It was really hard, as it was the first time we had been
there since that night before he was born.
Somehow we ended up being seated on the exact same table that we had
been seated a year before. It was so painful but we decided to order the
dinner, with of course the blooming onion as an appetizer in remembrance of
Andrew.
We have been back to Outback every year around his birthday
since then. And every year we order the blooming onion as a small way of
remembering him.
A few weeks ago we went to Sunday morning service at our
church Fishhawk Fellowship. Our friend Ashanti came with us that morning, she is
a sweet girl I have been mentoring for some time and she enjoys coming to
service on Sundays. That day we went out
to Outback for lunch, and as we were getting ready to order she mentioned she
had never been to Outback before. Steve of course jumped in and said ‘Well
then, we have to get the blooming onion!’ And she smiled and nodded, as I told
her to get ready for the best meal of her life :)
And later that day it hit me. Something that had been a
reminder of Andrew and the pain of losing him, would now going forward be a
reminder of Ashanti of the day she tried the blooming onion for the first time.
It would be a reminder of how blessed we are just to even be able to go to
Outback. It would be a reminder of the joy I’ve experienced over the last few
months in being her mentor. Now don’t get me wrong- it will always remind me of
Andrew, but now there is great joy associated with it.
And for that I am thankful.
The truth is I could still be Ashanti’s mentor today even if
we had not lost Andrew six years ago. God could’ve laid it on my heart,
convicted me, asked me to be her mentor in a million different ways. In an alternate
universe I could be sitting in Outback with Steve, three boys, and her trying a
blooming onion for the first time. But I would not have been able to connect
with her as we have over the last six months. I would not have been able to
relate to her pain. I would not have had any platform to tell her to trust God
even when life seems really unfair. Yes that horrible pain of my past, the loss
I really didn’t want to walk through... is something that feels so precious to me
today. And although I would never choose
the loss and will never be able to understand why it happened, I am thankful
that God is using some of it for good and for His purposes.
Please keep Ashanti in your prayers as she will be moving to
Pinellas county sometime over the next few weeks.
