God – Page 36 – thelifeididntchoose

Advent for the Brokenhearted: Kingship Foretold

There are so many surprises in the Christmas story.

A young woman “has” to get married. She and her husband are forced to make a long journey while she is large with child. Bethlehem is so full of folks there’s not a single place to lay their heads so she and he and the Son of God sleep in a “barn”.

But the birth is only the beginning.

God continued to bring forth His plan to save the world in ways our human hearts could never imagine.

Rejoice, people of Jerusalem. Shout for joy, people of Jerusalem. Your king is coming to you. He does what is right, and he saves. He is gentle and riding on a donkey. He is on the colt of a donkey.

Zechariah 9:9

Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Ruler over all the earth. He reigns supreme and cannot be conquered.

Yet He is also a Humble Servant, who gives Himself to all who ask.

My life is certainly not what I thought it would be. It’s upside-down and backwards from the plan I made for myself years ago.

It would be natural to turn away from God because what He has allowed is not what I want nor would choose.

But when I read the words of Zechariah, I am encouraged.

God turns the world’s wisdom on its head. He is not bound by my expectations nor my understanding.

I can rejoice because I know He is working His will even when the story is hard and painful and full of sorrow.

Jesus saves. Jesus redeems. Jesus restores.

That’s a promise.

Advent for the Brokenhearted: Birthplace Foretold

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    are only a small village among all the people of Judah.
Yet a ruler of Israel,
    whose origins are in the distant past,
    will come from you on my behalf.
³The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies
    until the woman in labor gives birth.
Then at last his fellow countrymen
    will return from exile to their own land.
⁴And he will stand to lead his flock with the Lord’s strength,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
Then his people will live there undisturbed,
    for he will be highly honored around the world.
⁵    And he will be the source of peace.

Micah 5: 2-5a NLT

One of the things I struggle with since Dominic ran ahead to heaven is this: is every detail of history planned by God? Or are there general outlines filled in by human choices (good and bad) and leading ultimately to God’s working out HIS story within OUR stories?

How do I reconcile God’s sovereignty and my free will?

I’m still working on that.

But there is one thing I do understand. God had a plan from the foundation of the earth to reconcile sinful man to Himself by the birth, life, death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

He sent prophets to point the hearts of His people toward the place the Savior would be born. He laid out promise after promise for hundreds and thousands of years so that when Jesus came, they would be ready.

It was no accident Jesus was born precisely when and precisely where the prophets foretold.

Bethlehem-The House of Bread-became the place that housed the Bread of Life.

Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree

It’s a question every hurting heart has to answer if you celebrate a traditional western Christmas: Will I put up a tree this year?

I had a few months of lonely travel through the Valley of the Shadow of Death before I had to answer that one.

Dominic left us at Easter, so by December I had learned that wishing didn’t make anything better nor did it make decisions disappear.

As Christmas drew near, I just could not bring down the usual decorations from the attic.

So I didn’t.

Instead of trying to work up the courage to dig through boxes and decide what I could or could not bear to see that first year, I bought a new, small tree and put it atop the table in the living room.

How do you arrange pieces of happy memories in a world where everything has changed? How do you touch bits of who you used to be when you have no idea who you are right now?

I decided that even if I didn’t put one other decoration on it, I would have the company of sparkling lights in the darkness of winter evenings.

The lights remind me that the night has limits.

Their tiny twinkling helps me remember that even a small bit of hope is enough to hold on to.

This is the ninth Christmas since Dominic ran ahead to heaven and it is just as hard as the first one.

Each year there are additional challenges and additional heartaches on top of the giant one I carry every day. I’ve found that these years since he left I don’t do well with a lot of the trappings surrounding Christmas.

But what my heart holds onto is the promise of Christmas:

That the Baby became the Man and the Man was Messiah.

I light the lights because they remind me that darkness has limits.

I declare by my defiant act of celebration in the midst of heartache that one day every hard thing, every sad thing and every broken thing will be redeemed and restored.

My prayer for all the hurting hearts this year is that God will make His love real to you in ways you neither expect nor could imagine.

May you find some symbol this season that speaks courage and gives you strength to endure.

And may the promise of Christmas give you hope, even in the darkest night.

Why I Watch the Sunrise

I’m up way before the sun each day-pecking away on the computer keyboard, puttering around in the kitchen, doing a few indoor chores, getting dressed.

But I always stop to watch the sunrise.

Because no matter how many times I observe the red and gold streaks make their way up over the black silhouette of trees and chase the night away, it never gets old.

Every single sunrise is a reminder that darkness has limits.

Every morning God whispers, “See, I’m still in charge.”

Every ray of light promises hope to my heart.

The Will of God

There are many things I do not understand about life this side of child loss. Many more I do not like and wish were different.

But this much I DO know:

God is here.

He has not abandoned me.

He has not left me to walk this Valley on my own. ❤

Trust After Loss: Access the Truth

“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.”

From Morning Is Coming

I have loved Scripture as long as I can remember. When I was in second grade I got the notion to read the whole Bible straight through-in the King James Version. I made it to Leviticus before I threw in the towel.

By the time my kids were grown I had read and studied Scripture for decades.

But three years before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I realized my reading had become rote-I felt like I “knew” all the stories. So I slowed my study to a crawl-only one chapter a day-and I usually copied the whole chapter plus my notes into a journal. I had just finished this time through the Bible in January before Dom was killed in April.

And all that truth stored in my mind and heart was what I “read” for months when my eyes were too full of tears to see print on a page.

Many verses stung-some still do-but I was committed to bathe my broken heart in what I knew was true. I would take it like medicine, even when it tasted awful. I knew-in the end-it was my only hope for help.

It’s easy when doubt creeps in to let my heart hold onto it-even in the face of Truth that puts the doubt to rest.

But if all I do is question, question, question and never still my soul to receive God’s answers or His comfort, then I will simply run out of oxygen and faith. I will lay prostrate with the enemy’s foot on my neck.

I will lose all hope and give up and give in.

I let my feelings, questions and doubts OUT, but I also choose to take the Word of God IN.

And when I can’t do anything else, I recite and cling to the names of God:

Jehovah-Roi-the God Who Sees Me. This is the name Hagar gave God in the desert. He didn’t change her circumstances but He assured her that she was seen, not overlooked and not abandoned.

Jehovah-Nissi–the LORD my Banner. God is the One I look to in the battle. He will not always save me from the fight, but He has guaranteed the victory.

Jehovah-Shalom-The LORD my Peace. Jesus is Sar Shalom-the Prince of Peace Who promises Himself to every heart that will turn in faith to Him. This peace is inner certainty that He is Lord over all, even when the evidence I can see is telling me that’s not true.

THE NAME OF THE LORD IS A MIGHTY TOWER. THE RIGHTEOUS RUN TO IT AND ARE SAVED.

I leaned hard on the Word stored in my heart. I was too broken (and some days still am too broken) to open my Bible.

God had prepared David for years as a shepherd to lean hard on Him. David’s Psalms don’t end with “Where are You, God?” they progress to a recitation of the character of the LORD, to an enumeration of His past faithfulness, to a true understanding that sometimes there’s NO understanding what He is doing.

And David leaned in, hung on and recited truth to his heart even when his head couldn’t figure out how what he was experiencing squared with what he knew to be true.

The whole book of Job is full of questions but it is also contains Job’s declaration he was firmly convinced that “as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and He will stand upon the earth at last.” (Job 19:25)

“You can’t hold your breath forever.

But when you first learn your child is dead you want to–oh, how you want to.

I don’t know if it was defiance or hope that made me certain that if I could just stop breathing, I could freeze time.

I could undo the truth.

I could stop the creeping terror that seized my heart.

But it was impossible. My body insisted that my lungs release the poison of carbon dioxide and refresh my oxygen supply.

There is a spiritual counterpart to the physical desire to stop breathing.

Most bereaved parents will tell you that at some point in their grief journey, whether they would describe themselves as “believers” or not, they have had to examine their notion of God.

They have to ask, “How am I to relate to this Person that controls the Universe–this Being that could have saved my child–but chose not to?”

I am a Christ follower. I believe in Jesus and I trust His Word.

But I will honestly confess that burying my child has made me reexamine just what that means and just Who He is.

Before my son was killed, I gave mental assent to the idea that “God is in control” but wasn’t forced to reconcile His control with my heart’s desire to guarantee my family’s safety.

But His existence, and His character does not depend on my understanding. And to be frank, a God I can comprehend wouldn’t be much of a God at all.

I could not will my body not to stop breathing.

And what I am learning in this grief journey is that I can’t hold my spiritual breath forever either.

The poison of doubt and the insistence that I be able to comprehend the fullness of God will suffocate my soul as surely as lack of oxygen will stop my heart.

So, “Hallelujah” is my exhale.

It is my letting go-my drawing in again the life-giving truth that God is God and I am not.

And acknowledging that while I cannot understand His ways, I can choose to trust His Father love.”

From Hallelujah is an Exhale

There is no easy answer for why children die-no sweet saying that can wash away the pain and the sorrow and the regret of burying your son.

But I know this: If my healing depends on me, I am lost.

If the God of heaven is not the god of all, then I have no hope.

If Jesus didn’t really come, and die and rise again, I have nothing to look forward to.

Ann Lamott recounts this tale in her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith:

There is a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who alwasy told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, “Why on our hearts, and not in them?” The rabbi answered, “Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words fall inside.”

My heart is already broken-burying my son did that.

Now I’m waiting

and trusting

that the holy words will fall inside.

Trust After Loss: Acknowledge Doubt and Ask Questions

I am sharing from the perspective of child loss but the things God is teaching me have much broader application. If you are struggling because you feel like God has let you down, please read on. And please read the posts that follow this one.

God welcomes us to the divine dinner table to talk things out.

Join us.

Grief forces me to walk Relentlessly Forward even when I long to go back.

I can’t stop the clock or the sun or the days rolling by.

Those of us who are more than a couple months along in this journey (or any journey that involves tragedy and loss) know that it is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE to feel worse than in the first few days.

Because as the edges of the fog lift and the reality of an entire lifetime looms before you the questions form and the doubt sinks in:

Where ARE You God?

Why don’t You DO something?

Are You even LISTENING?

So many of us who have been in church for a long time think that Wrestling With God or entertaining doubt is sin-or, at best- unhealthy and proof of a weak faith.

But Scripture is filed from start to finish with God’s people asking God:

“Why?”

“Where are You?”

“What exactly are is Your plan here?”

Truth is, you can’t hide it. God KNOWS it anyway.

Some say faith precludes doubt but I say faith is exactly what you cling to in the margins of doubt-when you have exhausted all the possibilities that exist in the physical, you-can-touch-it world and yet you KNOW there is MORE.

Even in my most doubtful moments I knew God was there. Even if I couldn’t see Him, even if I couldn’t hear Him, even if I couldn’t feel Him-I still knew He was there. Somewhere deep inside me I knew He was still God.

But I was trying to figure out how to re-engage with this God that wasn’t at all who I expected Him to be and didn’t act in ways I thought He should. The relationship had changed because I was not the person I used to be before I buried my son.

HE is the same, but I am most definitely NOT.

God invites us to bring Him our questions and our doubts. He says, “Come let us reason together.” Questions are how you mark the borders of what you know and find the edges of what you don’t.

God is not diminished by my desire to understand and make sense of my world-He doesn’t owe me an explanation-but He gives me freedom to ask the questions.

Wrestling is not UNBELIEF. Wrestling is the hard work of true faith.

Walk through the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11-Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Gideon, Samuel, David-every. single. one. had questions for God.

God is not threatened by my wondering. His throne is in no danger due to my queries.

It is most often other believers who find the questions unsettling. Doubters can be shifted to the back pew-not because people are mean but because our presence is threatening. For someone yet to face the test of faith, our test can remind them that theirs may be coming.

I don’t want nor expect to have the last word, I believe that belongs to the Creator of the Universe. But I think He will hear my pleas.

In my trouble I called to the Lord, I cried out to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice. My call for help reached his ears.

Psalm 18:6 ICB

God is God of the day and God of the night-when I can’t feel Him, He’s still here.

He knows my frame-He made me.

He knows I’m strugging, I can’t hide it.

When I swallow my doubts instead of speaking them all I do is poison my own heart.

Lament is a biblical response to deep pain.

I have to exhale before I can inhale.

If my heart is full of unreleased anger and bitterness, then it has no room for the Spirit of God to move.

If I want to keep my faith, I’ve got to acknowledge my doubts.

Trust After Loss: Admit the Pain

Child loss is Unnatural-no way around it.

Out of order death is devastating.

When my perfectly healthy, strong and gifted son was killed instantly in a motorcycle accident on April 12. 2014 my world fell apart. My heart shattered into a million pieces. And after all these years, I’ve yet to even FIND all of those pieces much less put them back together.

So what does a heart do when that happens? Because, try as I might, I cannot stop time.

Even THAT awful day only lasted 24 hours.

When the sun rose again, the pain was still there. And behind that pain and mixed with it was something else-disappointment, disaffection, distrust.

Where were You, God???

God is sovereign-He rules.

God is good-He loves.

How do those two truths live together in a universe that includes child loss? How can I trust the rest of my life and my eternal future to a God who lets this happen?

It’s a process. And it takes time. It involves purposeful choices by me to place my heart where it can hear truth even when it doesn’t want to hear and doubts every word.

The first step toward trusting again is to ADMIT THE PAIN.

You may be thinking, “Are you crazy?”.

“Of course I know I’m hurting-my child is no longer here!”

But that’s the easy pain to recognize and own up to. For those of us who have swallowed the western church model of “Sunshine Christianity”*, we will have a much harder time admitting our dismay that as victors in Jesus we feel discouraged, defeated and disgusted.

And should we dare to whisper it aloud we may well be shouted down by voices afraid to hear what they themselves sometimes secretly think but never speak. So we convince our hearts these are phantom pains like those of a lost limb and try to ignore them.

But they will not be ignored.

The Bible is full of broken people bringing their hearts and their hurts to God.

He doesn’t despise my pain.
He doesn’t turn away from my tears.
He doesn’t hurry me through hearbreak.

Death is awful! We dare not make it small!

It was the penalty for sin and the price of salvation. To deny the presence of pain is to diminish the power of the cross.

I must admit my pain:

Own it.
Feel it.
Name it.
Speak it.

I’m not the first nor will I be the last to wonder about where God is and what He is doing. Nicolas Wolterstorff’s adult son was killed in a climbing accident and his little book, Lament for a Son, was one of the best I have read in grief.

It struck a chord with me both because of the similarity of our loss and his honesty in exploring the edges of pain and doubt.

He writes:

Will my eyes adjust to this darkness? Will I find you in the dark-not in the streaks of light which remain, but in the darkness? Has anyone ever found you there? Did they love what they saw? Did they see love? And are there songs for singing when the light has gone dim? Or in the dark, is it best to wait in silence?

Noon has darkened. As fast as they could say, “He’s dead”, the light dimmed. And where are you in the darkness? I learned to spy you in the light. Here in this darkness, I cannot find you. If I had never looked for you, or looked but never found, I would not feel this pain of your absence. Or is it not your absence in which I dwell, but your elusive troubling presence?

Nicholas Wolterstorff, LAMENT FOR A SON

C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed after the loss of his wife, Joy. And he also is honest and raw-asking aloud the questions that hide in our hearts, admitting the fear that the God we serve may not be the God we thought we knew.

Giants in faith-both men.

Yet they, like us, had to bring the shattered pieces of their broken hearts to the foot of the cross and beg God to put them back together.

Admit the pain.

God already knows.

*Sunshine Christianity is the notion that once one belongs to Jesus the road is smooth (God can make a way), the path clear of obstacles (if you have enough faith), and if I simply claim the promises of Scripture I have victory over every circumstance. It does not square with either Jesus’ own experience nor that of the 12 apostles.

Learning To Trust God Again After Loss

I am sharing from the perspective of child loss but the things God is teaching me have much broader application. If you are struggling because you feel like God has let you down, please read on. And please read the posts that follow this one.
God welcomes us to the divine dinner table to talk things out.
Join us.

If you’ve read the blog for very long, you’ve learned two things about me: (1) I am up front and honest about my feelings, my doubts, my faith and my heart; and (2) I’m not afraid to explore topics that often make the church uncomfortable.

So here I am again.

A few months ago I was asked to speak at a conference for bereaved parents and to take the topic of “Learning to Trust God Again After Loss”. I agreed, thinking that since I had already written extensively about this very thing, organizing my previously published musings would be easy enough to gather into a presentation.

But when I began trying to do that, I realized the bits and pieces needed an overarching narrative and theme to tie them together. I knew that LISTENING is very different than READING where you can go back and access the information over and over to make sure you understand what’s being said.

And I was operating on thin margins.

The weeks I planned on using to prepare were overtaken by a family emergency. So just two days before I was to leave home for Arkansas I was nearly paralyzed by panic-how in the world could I present a coherent message on such an important topic when I was having trouble stringing sentences together in everyday conversation?

But God…

Two words that are worth holding on to.

He gave me the framework. He gave me the words. He gave me the examples and the courage and the strength.

So for the next few days I’ll be sharing from my notes-putting into writing what I shared at the conference. Here I have the luxury of time and editing.

If you were there, I hope these posts can remind your heart of truth.

If you weren’t, I hope these posts can introduce your heart to truth.

It’s OK to doubt. It’s OK to ask questions. It’s OK to wonder if God sees you, hears you and cares about you.

That is part of the work we must do in grief.

It cannot be ignored and it cannot be rushed.

Come with me as we walk this Valley together, learning to trust our Shepherd again.

Out of the Depths I Cry

So many times I feel like this violet, clinging to a tiny foothold in a treacherous world-only enough strength for today, only enough bravery for today, only enough mental and emotional reserve for today.

But I know as surely as the sun rises, that tomorrow God will be present to give me what I need for THAT day too. ❤

Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD,
O LORD, hear my voice,
Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in His word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

~Psalm 130-selected NIV

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