bible – Page 20 – thelifeididntchoose

Morning Is Coming

Comfort-For-Those-Grieving-Alone

I wake before the morning light. Every. single. morning.

I get my coffee, sit in my chair and wait for sunrise.

I never worry that today it might not happen.

I’m never concerned that after all these years of faithfulness, this day may be the one where daylight fails to make an appearance.

There is no fear in this darkness because I know it will not last forever.

Morning is coming.

Morning. Is. Coming.

And that’s the hope I cling to in this longer darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death-no matter how many years it may be, the Valley has an end.

The same God Who keeps the earth in orbit around the sun has ordained that death will not have the last word.

Light will triumph.

Darkness will have to flee.

I look forward to heaven, where everything that the enemy has stolen will be redeemed and restored.

I’ve been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible-it is a remarkable way to re-imagine and re-engage with God’s Story.

jesus-storybook-bible

My very favorite part is a paraphrase of Revelation 21:4:

“And the King says, ‘Look! God and his children are together again. No more running away. Or hiding. No more crying or being lonely or afraid. No more being sick or dying. Because all those things are gone. Yes, they are gone forever. Everything sad has come untrue. And see-I have wiped every tear from every eye!’”

An eternal morning is coming.

Morning. Is. Coming.

sunrise trees

He Knows My Sorrow

There are many days when I cannot talk myself out of sorrow. Moments when I can’t distract my heart from the pain of missing Dominic.

So I don’t try.

Instead I remind myself of the fact that I serve a Suffering Savior.

I follow a Gentle Shepherd. I can trust a Compassionate Father.

I turn to God’s Word to encourage my heart.

Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 MSG

Jesus knows my suffering. He understands my pain.

Yet it was our suffering he carried, our pain and distress, our sick-to-the-soul-ness. We just figured that God had rejected him, that God was the reason he hurt so badly.

Isaiah 53:4 VOICE

God has promised blessing to mourners, He has promised comfort to hurting hearts.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4 NIV

The LORD will heal my heart-if not here, then in Heaven.

He is the healer of the brokenhearted. He is the one who bandages their wounds.

Psalm 147:3 GW

God will comfort me so that I can comfort others.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble

2 Corinthians 1:3,4

Jesus will not abandon me in my despair. He will uphold me when my own strength is gone.

Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Don’t tremble with fear. I am your God. I will make you strong, as I protect you with my arm and give you victories.

Isaiah 41:10 CEV

My Shepherd is right here with me. He will not leave me alone.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me

Psalm 23:4 NKJV

My son is not dead. He is alive with Christ. And he will be raised in the final day.

And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don’t want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word. Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus.

I Thessalonians 4:13,14 MSG

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. … So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’

1 Corinthians 15:52,54 NKJV

Every single thing the enemy has stolen, killed or destroyed will be redeemed and restored.

God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away

Revelations 21:4 NKJV

We Were Not Made to Die

My children grew up surrounded by life and by death.

On our small farm they got to see puppies, kittens, goats, sheep and horses take their first breath. We watched turkeys and chickens hatch-struggling in that last great effort to throw off the shell.

And we also witnessed life’s end.

Every. time. it feels wrong. Every. time. it feels like defeat.

And it is–we were not made to die.

God didn’t create this world to be full of endings. He made it to be full of life and fellowship and love and for His glory.

But we live in a broken world.

When the first man and first woman looked away from their Loving Creator and embraced temptation, death came in through sin.

That longing we have, that sense that death is WRONG-that death is not the way things SHOULD be-that’s the spark of God’s Spirit speaking to us.

It’s the Father’s call to our hearts to turn to Him.

God the Father has made provision for eternal life with Him through Jesus the Son.

Yes, this world is full of death-it has touched my life in a very personal and awful way.

But my heart and God’s Word tells me that death is not what we are meant for-that there is MORE.

We who have known only futility, decay, homesickness, and exile, have found strong encouragement to hold fast to our hope because we are no longer helpless and alone. He’s already gone before us, trail blazing straight through exile and death into life as our Captain. Yes, I know this is true. I can hope even in the midst of doubt.

Through his death and resurrection, he has flung open the gate, torn the curtain that divided us from God’s presence, and done it all as the incarnate Son of Man. God has not forever abandoned his creation. Mankind is still his good work. In the body of Jesus, Man has gone into the presence of God, to his throne room, to the company of myriads of angels dressed for a party (see Hebrews 12:22). I’m in a form of exile now, but exile doesn’t mean abandonment. Jesus has made sure of that.

~Elyse Fitzpatrick, Home

As we move toward celebration of the birth of Christ, I pray we look also to His life, death and resurrection and the promise of hope He has placed in our hearts.

What if My Testimony is Endurance?

Clearly marked boundaries, categories and rules make things easier.

But life rarely fits in the tidy boxes I like to create.

And when it doesn’t I’m tempted to ignore the parts that don’t fit-tempted to pretend they don’t exist-so I can maintain the world I’ve created for myself. I would rather march on in ignorance than drag out my underlying assumptions to figure out if they are true or false.

That takes a lot of work.

In the church we like to line up the “Overcomers” to give testimony of how faith in Christ has turned their life around.

And He absolutely does that.

Some are delivered from addiction, sin and abuse. Some receive healing-none the less miraculous if it comes through the hands of skilled physicians. Some enjoy restored relationships.

But not everyone gets what they long for. Not every loss can be undone.

And those left to live their lives hoping but not healed can be labeled “losers”. We can be marginalized because our story is messy and can’t be tied up in a neat spiritual package.

It MATTERS how we frame the very personal tragedies that people around us experience.

My friend and fellow loss mom, Janet Boxx, has written a beautiful post that exposes one of the ways life doesn’t fit the neat categories we like to use.

Please take a moment to read her post It’s Personal .

Sometimes people outside our experience toss Scripture at us who are suffering like confetti in a parade-as if we are heroes who only have yet to take the podium and declare the victory.

But what if there IS no victory in this life for some of us?

What if there is only endurance–which is a sort of victory but one not highly valued?

Paul never declared a final victory over his thorn in the flesh. He characterized his life as one “poured out like a drink offering”. He said he “groaned” in his earthly tent and “longed” to be clothed with the heavenly.

I am living. I don’t spend my days curled up in a ball (even when I want to).

But I groan–I groan for the time when what the enemy has stolen will be restored.

Until then, even if I have to crawl, battered and bruised:

“I push myself forward toward the goal to win the prize. God has appointed me to win it. The heavenly prize is Christ Jesus himself.” (Philippians 3:14 NIRV)

The final destruction of death is still in the future. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. Not only will I see Lenya again, but I will hold the same body I held here, only better, because what the thief has stolen will be restored sevenfold (Proverbs 6:31)!
This is why it’s crucial for you to see that we don’t need to put a nice face on our pain or hurry people through a process that can’t be rushed; the fact that our sadness doesn’t go away makes our triumph even more powerful. Our faith works in the fire, and not just when life is fun. We can be hard-pressed and yet not crushed, struck down and yet not destroyed — not because we know general facts about the resurrection or that there is a heaven, but because we trust in the one who said that he is the resurrection and the life, who took the keys from death and hell, was dead, and lives forever. His name is Jesus, and he always leads us in triumph!
~Levi Lusko, Through the Eyes of a Lion

Yielded and Still

potter-clay

I can’t claim to be satisfied with this life I’m living.

I do not like this path I am forced to walk, this darkness that hides the light, this pain that burrows deep in my bones.

But I can say I’m learning not to fight it.

Sometimes I still pitch a fit.

Sometimes I still yell at the sky, “Where were You?” Sometimes I lie down in the floor and beg for relief. Sometimes I quietly rebel with only a single tear.

Most days though, I get up and give in.

I turn my face to the rising sun and choose to carry on. I submit my heart, again, to the One Who created it.

I don’t struggle.

I don’t fight the facts that greet me.

“I don’t think the way you think.
    The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
        God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
    so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
    and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
    and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
    producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
    not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
    they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”

Isaiah 55:8-11 MSG

I am not God.

His thoughts are not my thoughts.

His ways are not my ways.

His plans are bigger than me, bigger than my hopes and dreams, bigger than anything I can imagine.

He has created me for His glory-not the other way around.

So I join with thousands who sing:

Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way;
Thou art the Potter,
I am the clay.
Mould me and make me
After Thy will,
While I am waiting,
Yielded and still.

Have Thine own way, Lord,
Have Thine own way;
Wounded and weary,
Help me, I pray.
Power, all power,
Surely is Thine,
Touch me and heal me,
Savior divine.

#CoffeeTimePrayer: Wave offerings — notes

Lee does a beautiful job sharing how the Old Testament is full of pictures of the heart of God. This brief devotional spoke to my heart this morning:

What makes “wave offerings” so interesting is that, even though there is a sacrifice, in God’s goodness the offering itself becomes a blessing. God doesn’t hoard offerings; God doesn’t need offerings. But sometimes we need the act of offering to bring us back to God.

All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold jewelry of all kinds: brooches, earrings, rings and ornaments. They all presented their gold as a wave offering to the Lord. – Exodus 35:22 NIV GotQuestions defines a wave offering as “a portion of a sacrifice presented to God, then released by God for […]

via #CoffeeTimePrayer: Wave offerings — notes

Bridle your Tongue

In this journey of loss I have been blessed and wounded by words.

I have been encouraged and disheartened by stray comments. I’ve been thrown a lifeline and pushed under the raging waves of grief by friends, family and acquaintances who often had no clue they were doing either.

Our words matter.

Our tongues have the power of life and death.

Whoever first wrote “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me” was either in denial or lived a very sheltered life.

Please, for the love of love, think before you speak.

Choose to listen before you lob a response bomb across whatever divides your heart from another. Count to ten if you have to, take a deep breath, read and re-read your words before you press “post”.

And, if all else fails remember: if you don’t have something nice to say, maybe it’s better not to say anything at all.

The one you think is invincible may be on the edge of crumbling. The one you think is strong may be hanging by a thread.

We all make mistakes in all kinds of ways, but the man who can claim that he never says the wrong thing can consider himself perfect, for if he can control his tongue he can control every other part of his personality! Men control the movements of a large animal like the horse with a tiny bit placed in its mouth. Ships too, for all their size and the momentum they have with a strong wind behind them, are controlled by a very small rudder according to the course chosen by the helmsman. The human tongue is physically small, but what tremendous effects it can boast of! A whole forest can be set ablaze by a tiny spark of fire, and the tongue is as dangerous as any fire, with vast potentialities for evil. It can poison the whole body, it can make the whole of life a blazing hell.

James 2-6 PHILLIPS

Every person on this planet bears the image of the God who made him or her. You can’t disrespect the person without also disrespecting the Lord.

tongue-has-no-bones

Lesson From the House of Mourning

Our culture consumes death like candy bars-video games, violent television series and gory movies. Halloween is one of the biggest “holidays” celebrated in America.

We are desensitized to news stories of destruction and devastation because we’ve “seen” it all.

Yet we are a society that shuns mourning.

We can’t stand to hear the keening wail of mothers following the linen clad bodies of their fallen children.

We segregate funerals to special buildings that look like low-slung country clubs complete with ornate light fixtures, clean bathrooms and temperature controlled environments. In many places we no longer bury our dead next to a church where the living and the gone before mingle, waiting the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All this so we can ignore the lesson of Solomon.

“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all mankind, and the living should take it to heart.”

Ecclesiastes 7:2 HCSB

I was only three but I remember my great-grandaddy laid out in the living room.

My parents didn’t hide me away in some corner and allow me to grow up pretending death didn’t exist. They didn’t shield me from visiting my ailing relatives or from standing by the gravesides of my ancestors.

I brought my children to funerals from an early age.

There’s no use pretending that people’s bodies don’t die. Sooner or later it catches up to you.

But while our bodies don’t last forever, our spirits do. We are eternal beings, you and me.

It’s not a question of IF we will live forever, but WHERE.

And that was Solomon’s point: decide while you still can who and what has your heart.

Because that choice determines where you spend eternity.

There is only one way to the Father’s House-through Jesus.

In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.

C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

Do you know Jesus?

He KNOWS you. He LOVES you. And He died for YOU.

He rose to conquer death for you.

He has made a Way where there was no way.

No one gets out of here alive…choose this day whom you will serve.

It makes an eternal difference.

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of alland richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:9-13 NIV

Waiting With Hope

Oh, we mamas are experts at waiting.

We wait for nine months to hold that little person growing inside us. We wait for them to learn to crawl, walk, talk and read. And then we wait to pick them up at school, for piano and dance lessons to be over and ball practice to end.

As long as our children are with us, we are always waiting for something.

We never expect to be waiting to join them in heaven.

But some of us are.

And this waiting is real hard-not like the other times when I knew about when the waiting would end. Even though it was sometimes tiresome, lessons and practice wouldn’t last much longer than the appointed time.

I guess I believe there is an appointed time for this waiting to end as well.

I do believe that God has my life in His hands. When my work here is through, He will call me home, just as He called Dominic.

Trouble is, I can’t find a clock that tells that time. I can’t look at a calendar and know for certain THIS will be the day.

And not knowing how LONG I have to hold on is a huge part of what makes it

so.

very.

hard.

Sometimes I want to give up. Sometimes I want to let go of hope and dive into despair.

Some days I am afraid I can’t keep on keeping on.

Not. one. more. step.

But God has promised to meet me even here.

His Word tells me that there is a reward for those who wait with hope, who trust even when it seems foolish and who lean in even when they would rather run away.

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.

  We wait in hope for the Lord;
    he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
    for we trust in his holy name.
  May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
    even as we put our hope in you.
Psalm 33:18-22 NIV

The Amplified Bible renders that last verse like this: “Let Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, in proportion to our waiting and hoping for You.”

In proportion to my waiting and hoping, God will fill my hurting heart with HIS mercy and loving-kindness.

He will strengthen me regardless of how many days I must walk in this waiting.

If I hold onto the hope I have in Christ, He promises not to let go of the other end.

Assurance

I know many who wonder about the eternal destiny of loved ones.

God in His mercy extends grace to everyone who believes.

thief-on-the-cross-yancey

NOTHING can separate us from the love of God:

nothing-can-separate-hands

God promises that HE holds on to US–HE finishes the work He began in us.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Philippians 1:6 NLT

Even if the last choice someone made was a foolish one, or a desperate one, The Good Shepherd brings all His sheep home.

“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.” ~Jesus

John 10:27-30 MSG

sheperd

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