It’s tempting to try to hide our tears and fears from our living children and grandchildren.
Who wants to overload a young heart and mind with grown-up problems?
There is definitely a place and time to shelter little people-it’s never appropriate to offload onto small shoulders what we just don’t want to carry ourselves.
But it is neither helpful nor healthy to pretend that sorrow and sadness don’t follow loss.
In the midst of a difficult week, we got some disturbing news that had the potential to make it even worse.
My fleshly response was to go down rabbit trails of “what if” and “why us”. But I know from experience that is a fruitless exercise.
So I literally took a deep breath, reminded my heart that in every storm we’d faced, our Shepherd King had been there. He had never abandoned nor forsaken us.
This storm would be no different.
It might be rough (probably will be). It might be frightening (most certainly). It might even end with hopes dashed or worse.
But no matter what, He is here. He speaks peace when all seems lost.
We are safe in His hands.
❤ Melanie
Life is full of storms.
Some are outside myself and others start in the secret corners of my own heart.
All of them make me wish for quiet and calm, peaceful waters where I can sail the ship of life and not worry about sinking beneath the waves.
When I’m afraid I remind myself that Jesus is the Peace Speaker.
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.
f you have lived a blessed life where the greatest challenge to your faith has been disappointment and not destruction then I am so, so happy for you. Really.
Some of us have dragged our broken hearts through the church doors out of habit with little hope we might find the genuine comfort we need to survive inside.
Because experience taught us that while it is perfectly acceptable to raise a hand and ask for prayer one or two weeks in a row, it better not become a predictable pattern. Patience with unsolvable and messy ongoing situations runs thin as leaders turn the discussion toward “victory in Jesus”.
But that isn’t what Christ came for-not that we don’t have ultimate and even some temporal victory through Him.
He came for the broken and breathless. He came in the flesh because our flesh is weak and life is hard and bad things happen.
We’ve got to do a better job welcoming and ministering to hurting hearts.
We have to.
❤ Melanie
I am a shepherd. My goats and sheep depend on me for food, for guidance and for their security.
And every day I am reminded that a shepherd’s heart is revealed by the way he or she cares for the weakest and most vulnerable of the flock.
But most of us are far removed from the daily reminder of pastoral life that was commonly accessible to the authors and readers of the Bible thousands of years ago. So it’s no surprise that we tend to forget the connection between a shepherd’s life and a pastor’s calling.
This current worldwide crisis has both inspired me to write and constrained me from writing.
There is so much to say but I’m not sure most folks would understand.
Suddenly everyone is living a life they would not have chosen and for most, a life they couldn’t have imagined. But eventually most will resume the life they once had.
Things will return to normal. Kids in school, parents working, social distancing a thing of the past.
But some will never again know the life they had before this virus made its way across the globe. Someone or several someones they love will be snatched from the here and now and transferred to the hereafter.
So what if I’m not rescued?
What if my family isn’t spared?
What if all the faithful prayers lifted on behalf of ones I love don’t stop death from claiming them?
Will I still believe?
Will I still trust that God is a loving Father who is in control and working all things together for His glory and my good?
That was precisely the question before Jerusalem’s Jewish citizens on Palm Sunday and the week that followed. Jesus entered the city to shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”.
The faithful lined the streets and believed the Messiah had come to rescue them from the tyrannical rule and reign of not only irreligious Gentiles but corrupt leaders within the Hebrew hierarchy.
It didn’t take long for them to give up hope and call for His crucifixion.
He didn’t live up to their expectations. He didn’t act according to their timetable. He didn’t rescue them from persecution and suffering.
So they discarded Him.
Six years ago I woke to Palm Sunday wondering why my family wasn’t spared,why my son wasn’t rescued, why death had crossed our threshold and taken up residence in our home.
I had to decide if Jesus was Lord of all or if He was Lord at all.
I came face to face with the fact that God doesn’t need my permission to run the world according to His will. He doesn’t require my consent to do (or not do) anything.
But a God that needs my approval is no God at all.
I went to church that Palm Sunday, lifted my hands and voice in spite of my broken heart because I knew Jesus had not abandoned us.
thelifeididntchoose 