jesus – Page 7 – thelifeididntchoose

Grief In Real Life: The Problem of [Un]Answered Prayer

I’m really thankful that more and more Christians are willing to shed false positivity and embrace lament.

Because the truth is lots of stories this side of eternity end in tragedy or at least unmet expectations and sorrow instead of glorious, victorious sunshine and roses.

Crops and marriages fail. Dreams come and go.

We hope for healing but don’t receive it.

Loved ones die.

Let’s just be honest about it-about ALL of it.

❤ Melanie

In the wake of burying Dominic, the most difficult spiritual discipline for me to recover has been prayer.

In part because my heart just doesn’t know what to ask for or how to talk to a God Who has allowed this pain in my life.

In part because I don’t really have a framework for placing the prayers I want to pray inside my ongoing struggle to commit my future and the future of my family to the hands of a Father Who didn’t step in to prevent Dominic’s death.

I still struggle with this.

When it’s not your kid you can think of all kinds of lofty, theologically correct arguments or reasons for why God answers one prayer and not another–for why one person is healed and not another–for why one person survives a devastating-should-have-killed-him accident but not another.

But when it is your child that doesn’t survive or isn’t healed or is stolen through the violent actions of someone else…well, that’s a different matter entirely.

I prayed every day for my children. I asked God to protect them, to give them wisdom, to draw them to Himself and to guide their steps.

I never thought I was “giving orders” to God, but I did expect that my prayers would be honored-that by praying in obedience to biblical commands and in accord with scriptural principles I was making a difference in the heavenlies.

Like Daniel, who received word that his prayers had helped Gabriel fight against the prince of the air opposing him, I sent my petitions as weapons and armor against any schemes of the evil one that might threaten to undo my family. (Daniel 10: 1-13)

Herein lies the problem: when things go well, when the job comes through, the test score is great and the person walks out of the hospital, healed and whole, we say, “God answered prayers.”

And I believe that He does.

But if we ascribe glory and praise and honor and thanksgiving for the blessings received, how are we to understand and talk about the ones denied?

The nation of Israel was looking for Messiah-expecting Him.

Yet when He came, most missed Him. They had decided for themselves what He would look like, what He would do and how He would rescue them from bondage.

God’s ways are inscrutable.

I’m not arguing that prayer doesn’t matter.

It does.

I am commanded to pray. And God’s faithfulness to answer prayer is documented from Genesis through Revelation.

But I would argue that the way we speak about prayer, as if we understand how it works and how God works in it and through it, is often unhelpful.

The book of Job pulls back the curtain on what was happening in the heavenlies when God allowed Satan access to Job’s life. We know that Job’s earthly suffering represented a testimony for God against the Accuser.

But there’s no evidence that Job ever knew.

There was no dramatic revelation by God to this man that had lost EVERYTHING except his own life (which he would have gladly given up) and his wife (who, it seems, went on to bear him more children-oh joy!). Instead, God confronts Job with questions, not answers.

My heart wants answers, not more questions.

I doubt that I will have them this side of heaven.

So I have decided to speak more honestly about my experience with prayer, to refuse to pretend I understand how it works any more than I understand how God breathes life into bodies or takes souls to heaven.

I will pray, as best I can-mostly recalling God’s own words to Him-and resist my desire to think that because I pray, I can direct His hand.

When Jesus was in agony at Gethsemene, He asked His Father to take the bitter cup from HIm, but in the end, submitted to God’s will and plan.

That is all I have left for me as well-to submit and be made into whatever God has ordained.

I will trust in the goodness and faithful love of my Heavenly Father, because He IS my Father.

I will lean into His heart even when I cannot see or understand the work of His hands and follow because He is the One Who will lead me Home.

Grief In Real Life: Picking My Path

We are only officially a few days into summer here in Alabama but we’ve already suffered weeks of extra hot weather.

And while I can’t do a thing about the absolute temperature outside, I can make choices that help me tolerate it.

It’s the same in my grief journey.

Everyday decisions make a difference in how well I cope.

❤ Melanie

I walk the half-mile stretch down and back on my driveway at least four or five times a day.

In the winter I follow the sun.

In the summer I follow the shade.

The path I choose to take either adds to or subtracts from my ability to make the trek in relative comfort.

It would be foolish for me to not take advantage of available provisions. It would be silly for me to shiver or sweat more just because I was too lazy to adjust my trajectory.

I can’t change the absolute temperature outside but I can influence how I experience it.

I’ve found that the same practical wisdom applies to my grief journey: I can make things easier or harder on my heart by making even small changes in how I face a day or situation.

I can’t change the fact that my son is dead. But I can influence how I experience it.

On days when I am struggling with sorrow, I seek out some “sunshine”-both actual sunshine by getting outdoors and figurative sunshine by feeding my soul with positive images, thoughts and the truth of Scripture.

I minimize my interaction with “negative Nellies” and sites or shows or books or places that send me further down the path of despair.

I share my struggle with safe people who will listen and not try to correct me or force me into pretending that sorrow is not what I feel.

I go to bed early, knowing that each sunrise brings new mercies from our Heavenly Father and that one bad day does not have to define a week.

On days when I’m overwhelmed with the “heat” of commitment or too many people or too much activity, I seek out some “shade”-I look for a spot in my schedule where I can rest a bit and catch my breath.

I reassess and find things I can give up. I find other ways to meet obligations that give me more space and require less frantic scrambling.

I make myself sit down and slow down, even if it is for just fifteen minutes.

I’m honest with my family and friends, because if I’m not I will end up being ugly and hurting someone’s feelings.

So, so many things about grief are outside my control. I cannot anticipate every random trigger that might land me in a puddle of tears.

Life goes on and continues to demand my participation.

I want to be fully present for my loved ones. I want to show up and make merry for all the special occasions.

So I try to use wisdom in how I approach each day, assessing my grief “temperature” so that I can do what’s necessary to ensure I’m emotionally healthy enough to do what I really want to do.

Shade in summer.

Sun in winter.

Grief In Real Life: On Suffering and Redemption

If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.

~Julian of Norwich

Truth is this life is not easy.

There is joy.

Absolutely amazing awe-inspiring, breath-taking joy.

But there is also suffering.

Utterly devastating, heart-breaking suffering.

Mark then, Christian, Jesus does not suffer so as to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ exempts you from sin, but not from sorrow. Remember that, and expect to suffer.

~C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Morning

When I ponder the pain of child loss, it helps to remember that Jesus suffered too.

Not just at the end, when He allowed evil men to crucify Him, but throughout His life when friends abandoned Him, people tried to kill Him, religious leaders mocked Him and sought to destroy His reputation and work.

It helps me to know that my wounds and scars, like His, will be transformed from evidence of pain and loss into a testimony of grace and redemption.

The cross is both the symbol of our salvation and the pattern of our lives. Everything that happened to Christ in some way happens to us. When darkness envelops us and we are deaf to everything except the shriek of our own pain, it helps to know that the Father is tracing in us the image of his Son, that the signature of Jesus is being stamped on our souls. For Jesus, the darkness of night gave way to the light of morning.

~Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus

When Thomas doubted, Jesus didn’t perform another miracle or call down angels from Heaven to testify on His behalf. He said, “Here, touch my wounds.”

I don’t know what that felt like for Thomas, but it was the only proof he needed to believe.

And while Christ accommodated Thomas, He spoke a special blessing on those who would not have such proof.

blessed are those who believe without seeing

I have doubts some days too.

There are moments when suffering washes over me like a flood and I am swept under with the tide.

It’s then I cling tenaciously to the promise that my wounds, like Christ’s, will one day not only be proof of pain but also evidence of God’s redemptive power.

Could it be that God will wipe the tears from our eyes, but not from our memories, that the renewed experience of the glorified saint will be to recall those sadnesses with the transforming joy which God’s presence and God’s disclosed providence will bring? Surely part of our praise in heaven will not merely be that we are now saved, but that we have been saved, that the very title of being those who have conquered means that our memory of victory will include a transformed awareness of what the whole battle meant.

What a difference this could make to my suffering. The scars I bear in my body, my mind, my soul, the adversities and setbacks, the pains that may yet await me before I get to heaven, the relational wounds, the memories from which I struggle to recover, the darkness of doubt and the battles with unbelief, will not necessarily be removed when I get to heaven, but they will be redeemed, they will be transformed by the long view that being perfected in the presence of my perfect God will bring. What an experience it will be to probe the scars, but to no longer feel their pain – to see them as contour lines of God’s grace by which I ascended into glory. What could it mean for my wounds to sing his praise, for my scars to record his perfections, for my memory of old pains to be set in the context of a new and never failing joy. That makes suffering sufferable now, and glory all the more glorious then.

~Andrew Roycroft, Thinking Pastorally blog, 6.23.19

Grief In Real Life: Heartache and Hope

I am so very thankful for the hope I have in Christ.

I am dependent every moment on the strength of Jesus and the Word of God to point my heart to the eternal truth that my son is safe in heaven and that I will be reunited with him one day.

I honestly don’t know how a person who does not share my hope in the finished work of Christ can bear the burden of child loss.

But hope, strong as it is, and effective as it is, does not erase the pain.

It gives me the endurance to bear the pain.

It allows me to see past the pain to something better.

But I still feel the pain.

Hope is not anesthesia.

Hope does not dull my senses nor does it render my heart hard to the longing and missing and hurting of life without the son I love.

I believe in Christ.

I believe that “God so loved the world He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. (John 3:16)

And often, when inviting someone to believe in Jesus I will explain that God loves them SO much, He gave up His Son, just to save them.

Only the hardest heart would think such sacrifice was small or insignificant.

If it was painful for the Father to allow wicked men to kill His Son, then it is painful to me for death to take mine.

It is unhealthy to ignore pain.

But when it comes to emotional pain, we sometimes shut people out or shut them down.

I submit that we diminish the power of the cross when we deny or minimize the presence of pain.

Believing that God is in control and Jesus lives does not undo grief’s storm-it is a lifeline that keeps my desperate and hurting heart from sinking under the waves.

One day my hope will be made sight. One day the faith I hold onto will be realized in full.

Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, even though He knew that death would not win and Lazarus would walk out of the grave.

For now, I place my broken heart in the hands of the One Who made it because I know He knows my pain.

And I know that He longs as much as I do for the day when all will be redeemed and restored.

Grief In Real Life: Did God Take My Child?

I try to share this post a couple of times each year because it discusses a question many bereaved parents desperately want to answer: Did God take my child?

These are my thoughts-ones I believe are backed by Scripture and align with what I know personally about God’s character.

They are the result of many months of wrestling. I offer them in hopes they will help another heart.

❤ Melanie

This is a question that comes up all the time in bereaved parents’ groups: Did God take my child?

Trust me, I’ve asked it myself.

How you answer this question can mean the difference between giving up or going on, between turning away or trusting.

So this is MY answer. The one I’ve worked out through study, prayer and many, many tears. You may disagree. That’s just fine. I only offer it because it might be helpful to some struggling and sorrowful soul.

I believe that God is the Author of life and the arbiter of death. What that means (to me) is that He is ultimately in control of everything and could (if He chose) intervene and stop the death of any person if He wanted to.

Nothing and no one is stronger nor more powerful than God.

However, we live in a fallen world where sin has tainted the original creation God declared “good”. So there are natural disease processes, genetic malformations, undetected birth defects (that may go unknown until well into adulthood like heart defects) that lead to death.

God does not intervene each time-but He could.

People make sinful and foolish choices that have natural consequences. My son was going way too fast in a curve on his motorcycle. God did not override my son’s free will (just as He does not override our free will all day every day) and my son ran off the road.

There are universal physical and biological laws that most of us are thankful for each day that then took over in my son’s case and doomed his motorcycle to certain paths and his body to certain death when it impacted the ground.

God didn’t intervene but He could have.

Job was ultimately protected by the fences God placed around his person. I believe each of us are too.

Yet God is weaving a bigger tapestry, writing a bigger story than only the part that includes me and my family. So my son’s death and the changes it has wrought in me, in others that knew and loved him and even further out into the world are part of God’s big story.

I have made peace with the fact that I do not understand nor like what God has done in my life by allowing my son to die, but I will trust His loving character and wait to see how it will be redeemed in eternity.

No, God did not TAKE my son. But He allowed his death.

I gain more comfort in a God Who could have saved my son but chose not to, than a God Who does not have that power.

His word declares that He keeps my tears in His bottle.

I believe it.

And I believe that one day He will redeem every one and restore what my heart has lost.

Tempted to Judge Someone Else’s Grief? Please, Don’t.

I’ve never been divorced or lost a spouse.

I’ve never fled for my life from a war torn country with only the clothes on my back or what few belongings I could fit in a small bag.

I’ve never watched my home go up in flames or heard it destroyed around me by wild winds.

But I’ve buried a child.

Grief walks through the door of a heart in all kinds of ways. Bad things happen-even to good people.

Bad things happen to believers in Jesus-even those who have dedicated their lives to living out the gospel message and loving others.

Sadly, when devastating or unbearable tragedy visits those who have devoted time, talent and treasure to building the Body of Christ, they can be most vulnerable to judgement from those who, up to now, would have described them as “pillars of faith”.

Because when their humanity squeezes (or even bursts!) out of the cracks in their hearts, others doubt their testimony.

I was just subjected to an uncomfortable conversation at Wednesday night Bible Study in which someone (who had not lost a child) declared that if a parent responds to this devastation with outsized emotion, they may not have an authentic relationship with Jesus.

They started with the (what I consider to be faulty) premise that “if you are a Christian, you ought to be stronger”.

And then they stepped into territory NO person outside of another’s grief should ever venture: They proceeded to assert that “all that wailing and screaming” some parents exhibited was, essentially, evidence of a weak faith.

I stopped them right there.

I was very upset but calmly defended the fact that this is untrue. Being human is something our Great High Priest understands full well.

So it was more than a “God wink” when this morning I woke to the perfect graphic shared by my dear friend, Jill Sullivan, of While We’re Waiting Ministry:

Child loss is not a hammer in the hands of God. He is not “teaching me a lesson”. He is not waiting to see if I’ll fail some kind of test. He knows I am made of dust.

My Shepherd King is neither surprised nor offended by my weakness or my deep sorrow over my son’s untimely, sudden death. He does not chastise me nor turn His back on me.

Instead, He gathers me in His arms and sings mercy, grace and hope to my battered soul and broken heart.

His banner over me is love.

And nothing I do will change that because that is not only what He does, it is WHO HE IS.

Grief in Real Life: He Knows Your Name

I have family members and friends who are facing situations where they feel alone and lonely.

Some are wondering if God is listening, if He cares, if He sees, if He actually even knows they exist.

I get it-really I do.

When awful storms cross your own threshold and you’ve previously clung to the notion that God is everywhere, that He is good and that He is controls everything; it’s hard to square that with what you’re experiencing.

I can’t answer all your questions. Goodness, I’m waiting for my own to be answered!

But I can tell you that I am absolutely, positively convinced that the Lord of Heaven, our Shepherd King-Jesus-sees you, knows you and loves you.

And I pray His Presence is made manifest to you today in whatever mess you find yourself in.

❤ Melanie

Grief can be isolating.

It separates me as one who knows loss by experience from those who have only looked on from the outside.

It opens a chasm between me and people who aren’t aware that life can be changed in a single instant.

And I can feel like no one sees me, no one cares about me and no one notices my pain.

Sometimes it even feels like God has forgotten me-that He isn’t listening, that He doesn’t care.

But Jehovah hasn’t abandoned me.

Have you ever wondered why there are lists of names in the Bible? Do you, like me, sometimes rush through them or pass over them to get to the “main part” of a story?

But look again, the names ARE the story.

The God of the Bible isn’t the God of the masses. He is the God of the individual.

He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. He called out to Cain, ‘Where is your brother?”

He took Enoch, guided Noah, chose Abraham and Moses.

He anointed David, spoke to and through the prophets and He CAME, flesh to flesh to bear the sins of His people, redeem them from death and cover them with His blood.

My name is graven on His hands.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands”

Isaiah 49: 15-16a NIV

My life is hidden with Christ.

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life,appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:3-4 NIV

He has a new name for me, a secret name I’ll receive in Heaven.

“To the one who conquers through faithfulness even unto death, I will feed you with hidden manna and give you a white stone. Upon this stone, a new name is engraved. No one knows this name except for its recipient.”

Revelation 2:17b VOICE

The enemy wants to convince me that God has forgotten me.

That He has abandoned me in my sorrow and pain.

That when my son breathed his last, He was looking the other way.

That’s a lie.

And I refuse to listen.

Years ago I heard this song for the first time and it touched my heart:

He Knows My Name by Israel (listen here)

Lyrics:

I have a Maker
He Formed My Heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands

(Chorus)
He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And hears me when I call

Not everyone reading this has lost a child.

But everyone has lost something or someone.

And everyone, if they are honest, has experienced moments of anguish wondering if God in heaven cares.

He does.

He hears.

He knows your name.

What’s STILL Hard Eleven Years After Losing a Child

Since last October I’ve had the privilege of hosting three separate bereaved mom retreats.

Each one has been put together by God-weaving lives and stories and needs and strengths into a four-day weekend of life changing conversation, study and sharing.

What’s been particularly helpful for ME is that as I’ve poured out what the Lord has shown me over these past years is that He’s also helped my heart acknowledge what is STILL hard, what is STILL fresh and what, in all likelihood, will NEVER get easier.

The theme of each weekend is “Broken into Beautiful: Inviting Hope to Heal Our Hearts”.

I can testify that I am absolutely, positively not in that deep, dark despair that marked the first hours, days and even years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

I have experienced a measure of healing that I couldn’t imagine was possible that awful morning I heard the news.

I am better able to lean in, take hold of, and trust the unfailing love of my Shepherd King TODAY than I was the day before my world was shattered.

I am oh, so thankful for every heart that led the way in darkness, for the Word of God which is unchanging and ever true, and for Holy Spirit who refused to let me forget Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and in Him every promise of God is “yes” and “amen”.

But some things are STILL hard.

It’s still hard to see social media photos of intact families -not because I wish they weren’t-but because they remind me in living color that mine is not.
It’s still hard to hear of graduations from college (Dom was in law school when he left) and weddings and birth announcements of growing families of my son’s peers.
It’s still hard to face holidays when I need (and want to!) be fully present, yet part of my heart always marks the place Dominic should occupy but doesn’t, longs to hear his voice among the laughter and banter, wants desperately to buy HIM a present to put under the tree or for his birthday.
It’s still hard to hear of people’s petty “problems” elevated to the height of major issues when I want to scream, “IT’LL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF, TRUST ME!“.
It’s still hard to sing some songs about God’s goodness even though I have completely embraced the truth that His idea of goodness doesn’t necessarily conform to mine.
It’s still hard to deal with my own lack of energy and emotional reserve when other people expect me to be “back to my old self”-goodness, gracious, it’s been eleven years! Problem is, grief is always running in the background, sapping what little bit of extra I might have. I’m closer to the edge than anyone who loves me might want to know or admit.
It’s still hard to deal with the truth that there is no limit to pain in this earthly life. People I love will die. People I love will suffer. Life will not be what I want it or wish it to be. Pain is part of this broken world and burying a child doesn’t inoculate me from anything that might follow.
It’s still hard to watch my earthbound children deal with the aftermath of sibling loss. They make choices (some beautiful and some heartbreaking) that reflect an understanding of death and the precariousness of life that prick my heart.
It’s still hard to be courteous to those who continue to be ignorant (on purpose, not innocently) of other people’s struggles and pain. I have zero patience at this stage and phase of life for folks who judge others for paths they’ve never had to walk.
It’s still hard for me to sit through sermons and Sunday School lessons that suggest trusting Jesus makes life beautiful and “blessed” (in the Instagram coffee, journal and sunshine through the window way). Jesus walks through and strengthens us through the unbearable. He said, “in this life you will have trouble”. His early followers were persecuted, tortured and murdered. Why don’t we preach on that? At least then those of us living through hard times would have a model.
It’s still hard for me to accept that the Body of Christ is sometimes the most difficult place to be honest about our struggles.
It’s still hard for me to write every day, to show up every day, to choose every single day to expose my heart and share my story.

Dominic was a no nonsense kind of man.

He didn’t put up with anyone’s subterfuge or equivocation. He told it like it was. Even when it cost him friends.

I’m committed, as long as the Lord allows, to do the same.

I’ll advocate, educate, and shout from the rooftops what it’s like to live with loss and what toll it takes on body, mind and spirit.

I’ll share the hope and light of Jesus with whomever will listen.

And I’ll keep on keeping on, even when it’s hard.

Just Enough Grace for Today

If I had my way I’d store up grace like green beans-stacking one can atop the other “just in case”.

Then I could decide if and when to open it up and pour it out.

But grace isn’t like that. It’s a perishable though infinite commodity-like manna.

When God led the Israelites into the desert, He promised to feed, nurture and sustain them.

Daily bread rained down from Heaven every morning-enough and more than enough-for their needs. But He warned them not to gather more than they could use THAT day.

He promised there would be another bountiful plenty the next morning.

Manna and the land: God's methods of miraculous provision – Acton ...

Faced with the choice to trust God or trust themselves, some tried to hoard this gift and guarantee (so they thought!) tomorrow’s bounty. It turned to maggoty mush by the next morning.

God was making a point.

He wanted His people to know that He was the Source of their provision. He wanted His people to learn that His faithful love endures forever and shows up every morning.

Many of us grew up reciting this blessing without understanding the deep truth hidden inside:

God is great,

God is good,

Let us thank Him for our food.

By His hand we all are fed,

Thank You, Lord, for daily bread.Children’s Blessing

Few of us live on daily bread anymore.

Most have pantries and refrigerators and freezers full of food. It’s hard to hearken back to a time when the penny you earned for working a field was the penny you used to purchase that day’s meal.

So, in some ways, the idea of having only enough and no more is both foreign and frightening.

But my Father wants me to trust Him, to lean on Him, to wake looking for His face and reaching for His provision.

Like manna in the desert, if I try to gather more grace than I need it rots before I can use it.

God greets me each morning with the grace I need for that day-no more, no less. It is always enough for the work I must do and the challenges I must face.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sunrise-trees.jpg

He nurtures and sustains me.

His daily grace is sufficient.

I can rest in His bountiful provision without fear for tomorrow because His faithful love endures forever.

Jesus is MORE Than I Can Imagine. He’s Enough-Even for This.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that the One Who holds me in His hand IS “All That” and MORE.

He is more than I can imagine,

more than I need,

His resources are limitless

and His grace sufficient for every day

and all eternity.

HE IS-

The Way and the Way maker:

“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”

~Isaiah 43:19 KJV

The Truth and the Truth Speaker:

“When swearing an oath to confirm what they are saying, humans swear by someone greater than themselves and so bring their arguments to an end. ¹⁷In the same way, when God wanted to confirm His promise as true and unchangeable, He swore an oath to the heirs of that promise. ¹⁸So God has given us two unchanging things: His promise and His oath. These prove that it is impossible for God to lie. As a result, we who come to God for refuge might be encouraged to seize that hope that is set before us. ¹⁹That hope is real and true, an anchor to steady our restless souls, a hope that leads us back behind the curtain to where God is (as the high priests did in the days when reconciliation flowed from sacrifices in the temple) ²⁰and back into the place where Jesus, who went ahead on our behalf, has entered since He has become a High Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”

~Hebrews 6:16-20 VOICE

The Life and the Life Giver:

“The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.”

~John 1:4 NLT

The Promise and the Promise Keeper:

“Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.”

~2 Corinthians 1:19-21 MSG

I cannot see the end of this journey but He is already there.

It looks black as night to me and I am fumbling around in the dark, but there is no darkness in Him at all.

My flesh and my heart will fail, but His never will.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: