Christ – Page 10 – thelifeididntchoose

He Knows My Name

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.

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.

Jehovah-Jireh: The LORD My Provider

The first time God reveals Himself as Jehovah-Jireh, The LORD Who Provides, is Genesis 22.

Abraham and Sarah have received their son of promise. But God tests Abraham.asking him to sacrifice Isaac.

Abraham obeys in faith, trusting God even in this request that seems to undo every promise the LORD had previously made to him.

How would he be the father of many nations if his only son was taken from him?

As they were going, Isaac noticed something unusual, “See here is the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for the burnt sacrifice?” (Genesis 22:7)

To which Abraham replied, “My son, God Himself will provide a lamb for the burnt offering.” (Genesis 2:8)

Jehovah-Jireh, the LORD My Provider was his answer.

He couldn’t see the provision, there were no loud bleats in the distance, but Abraham knew the character of the God he served and he trusted that what he needed God would provide.

And God did provide.

Isaac, bound on the altar, Abraham’s (trembling?) hand raised, the Angel of the Lord calls to Abraham:

“Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide” Genesis 22:12-14

I wasn’t asked to give up my son.

There was no miraculous intervention on that day.

No angel stayed the hand of circumstance that slew my child.

But I do believe that even in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the LORD is My Provider.

He provided His own Son, Who conquered sin and death and Who made a way through the Holy of Holies for my child to enter eternity straight into the arms of Jesus.

I don’t have to fear that when Dominic left us, he was left alone.

I don’t have to worry that our seperation is forever.

I don’t have to wonder if he was “good enough” to get into heaven.

I can trust in the character of my God, The LORD My Provider, that He has made full and adequate provision for me and for all those who trust in Him through Jesus to be redeemed and restored.

And He has provided friends and family and online communities and His Word to bring me comfort in the waiting.

He fills my heart with hope when my soul is weary.

He grants peace when I am overcome with anxious thoughts.

He pours grace and mercy and love into the empty places so that being filled, I can overflow.

There are days when I wonder, days when I am afraid. When those days come, I run to the tower of the Name of the LORD. I remember that He is The LORD My Provider.

He has provided. He does provide. He will provide. He IS His Name.

When struck by fear, I let go, depending securely upon You alone. Psalm 56:3 VOICE

God Uses Broken Things

It is a hard lesson to learn: that my brokenness is more useful for God’s purposes than my strength.

When I feel strong, I’m like the Israelites who, being full of good things, forgot the One Who gave them. I carry on, giving God a nod, but feeling quite capable of accomplishing things on my own.

Sure, it’s nice if He blesses me here and there-but the blessings are icing on a very thick cake.

I’ve got resources.

But when I’m broken, in the dust on my face, begging for the touch of His hand, pleading for His Presence, I am open to what He wants to say to me.

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― C.S. Lewis

My brokenness allows the life and light of Christ to shine through the cracked veneer of self-assured independence.

It makes me useful in God’s Kingdom.

What I see as ruin, God views as the seed of victory:

Jar of Clay

Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

“On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more.

On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall. Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.” It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.”

~C.S. Lewis, Miracles

Bury a child and suddenly the death of Christ becomes oh, so personal. The image of Mary at the foot of the cross is too hard to bear.

I trusted Jesus at an early age and I have lived my life beneath the shadow of the wings of the Almighty God.

But I never-not really-grasped the horror of the crucifixion until I watched as my own son’s body was lowered in the ground.

Death. is. awful.

We should hate it-we should long for the day when its black arms no longer claim victims. It reminds us that this world is not what it was created to be.

But one death is also beautiful.

Jesus.

Yeshua-“The LORD saves”.

The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Jesus’ willing obedience to suffer in my place made Him the one and only perfect sacrifice, sufficient for eternity to make relationship possible with His Holy Father. I can come boldly before the heavenly throne, because I come by His blood.

Good Friday–“good” because now we know that Jesus didn’t stay dead. Good because we know that through His death, burial and resurrection, those who trust in Him have everlasting life. Good because Christ’s death conquered the power of death.

Don’t rush past this remembrance of the price paid for our rebellion.

Don’t tick off the hours and neglect to embrace the cost of Christ’s compassion.

Don’t fail to linger at the foot of the cross, looking up into the eyes of Love.

Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Psalm 85:10 KJV

Making Space for Brokenness at the Table of the LORD

As we enter the week on the Christian calendar when most churches celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am reminded that often we race past the road that lead to Calvary and linger at the empty tomb.

But to understand the beauty of forgiveness and the blessing of redemption, we MUST acknowledge the sorrow of sin and the burden of brokenness.

When our sacred spaces draw boundaries around what we can bring to the Lord’s Table, we exclude the very ones who are desperate for the bread and cup. When we treat the path as unimportant and only acknowledge the destination, we discourage those that are struggling to keep up. When we welcome only the triumphant, we exclude those that are trying.

Let’s throw open the doors to the church and

Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness [remove the obstacles]; Make straight and smooth in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3 AMP)

Let’s invite the outcasts, the limping, the hurting and the broken to the table.

Let’s declare to the wounded that in Christ there is healing!

As I’ve written before: “The truth is that none of us escape hardship in life. All of us have hidden heartache. We all have cracks in our polished persona.”

Who is the Keeper of my Faith?

No one has dared to say it to my face, but they don’t have to. In the darkness, whispers abound and they taunt me: “Where’s God now?”

“What has this faith in Jesus done for you?”

And my first response is to add up the “good” things that have happened in my life and weigh them against the “bad”.

How do I balance scales that on one side include burying my child?

How many good things would have to be piled up to outweigh the heartbreak of losing my son?

But then my heart reminds me that this is the wrong equation. The underlying premise of this arithmetic is that I can give proper value to the things I’m adding up. Even more, that the scales I am using are correctly balanced, unbiased and trustworthy.

I want my relationship with God to be one I can comprehend. I want to be able to explain Who He is and what He is doing. I want to KNOW.

Adam and Eve KNEW-they walked in the cool of the Garden with the Lord God. And even that was not enough to keep them from doubting His goodness, His promise, His heart.

So is it any wonder that on my weakest days, in my most broken moments I doubt what God is doing as I walk this valley?

If my faith depended on me, there would be no hope. If my feelings were the measure of truth, there would be no way to gauge falsehood. If my future is in my hands, I am doomed.

But all is not lost–because from before the foundation of the world, God planned my redemption, He arranged my adoption and He keeps my faith and my future secure:

Praise be to God for giving us through Christ every possible spiritual benefit as citizens of Heaven! For consider what he has done—before the foundation of the world he chose us to become, in Christ, his holy and blameless children living within his constant care. He planned, in his purpose of love, that we should be adopted as his own children through Jesus Christ—that we might learn to praise that glorious generosity of his which has made us welcome in the everlasting love he bears towards the Son.

Ephesians 1:4-6 PHILLIPS

Well With My Soul?

If you have been in a church that sings hymns, I’m pretty certain you’ve heard the backstory to the hymn, “It is Well With My Soul”.

Or at least the most popular version–Horatio Spafford lost four daughters in a tragic accident. Only his wife survived the sinking ship on its way to England. Once there, she sent a heart-rending telegram, “Saved alone” to Spafford who had not accompanied them on the voyage.

As the story goes, Spafford, upon crossing the Atlantic to meet his wife, passed over the spot of the sinking and the words to the famous hymn came to mind:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
it is well, it is well with my soul.

But, as Paul Harvey was famous for saying, here’s “The rest of the story”.

Spafford belonged to a congregation that staunchly believed difficulty and tragedy were divine chastening for sin or lack of faith.

Apparently, in the minds of at least some of his friends, the awful things that happened to Horatio and his wife were their own fault. Eventually, Spafford and his family removed themselves from the church and created their own fellowship.

Tragically, it seems that Spafford died confused, dismayed and perhaps, disbelieving.

Why is this important?

Because the support (or lack of support) bereaved parents receive from their fellow Christians can make all the difference between losing sight of Jesus and finishing well, with our eyes fixed on the “Author and Perfector of our faith”

We love the shortened version of the Horatio Spafford story because it ends with a triumph of faith, a crescendo of hope and a tidy finish to a messy story.

But the same reason the broad sweep of Spafford’s life is rarely brought to our attention is the same reason many find it difficult to walk beside grieving parents in their journey–even sincere, committed Christians can have doubts.

Even those who have read and believe the Bible can take longer than anyone would like to settle firmly on trusting God again after tragedy.

And even when we who struggle because of deep grief reach the place where our hearts can again rest in the sovereignty and goodness of God, we may always have unanswered questions.

Believers in Christ are called to minister to the members of His Body. We are commissioned to encourage, uplift, care for and help each other.

It often involves more energy, time and effort than we are willing to give.

But if we believe, as Paul said, that every single member is called by God to serve a specific purpose then can we afford to ignore even one of them?

The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

I Corinthians 12:25-26

Hallelujah is an Exhale

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.

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