Tag: elisabeth elliot

No Middle Ground: Faith After Loss

There is so much work to do in grief.  

I had to sort through feelings, sort through my son’s belongings and sort through the scattered shards of my faith.  

I picked each piece up carefully, turned it over and over and was forced to determine whether I could still believe.

It took time-not because God was elusive or silent-but because circumstances demanded that I figure out how child loss, God’s sovereignty, His goodness and His love fit together.

And what I realized was that there is no middle ground.  Either it was all true (even though I still had unanswered questions) and everything was going to be alright or none of it was true and nothing would ever be alright again.

Either God is God or He’s not.  

I love this quote from Elisabeth Elliot: 

Now if I had had a faith that was determined God had to give me a particular kind of answer to my particular prayers, that faith would have disintegrated. But my faith had to be founded on the character of God Himself. And so, what looked like a contradiction in terms: God loves me; God lets this awful thing happen to me … I had to leave in God’s hands and say okay, Lord, I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. But I only had two choices. He is either God or He’s not. I am either held in the Everlasting Arms or I’m at the mercy of chance and I have to trust Him or deny Him. Is there any middle ground? I don’t think so.

~Elisabeth Elliot, Suffering is Never for Nothing

Jesus told His disciples to expect life to be full of trouble.  

I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]

~Jesus  (John 16:33 AMP)

But He also promised they wouldn’t be alone.

And I will be with you, day after day, to the end of the age.

~Jesus (Matthew 28:20 VOICE)

same God life is hard he is near

 

 

Though the Mountains Fall

I spent my teen years living in a suburb of Denver where the mountains marked west and you didn’t need a compass or GPS to get around.

Man and woman mountain biking, Dolomites, Italy

It never occurred to me that the mountains might crumble or that I might wake one morning to find them somewhere else.  

They were steady, sure and absolutely dependable.  

When I moved to Pittsburgh and was forced to navigate without mountains to guide me, I found it easy to get lost (and I got lost a LOT in the first few months!).

The landmarks I had depended on were gone.  

That’s what it felt like when I received the awful news. 

In the first shock of death everything that has seemed most dependable had given way. Mountains were falling, the earth was reeling. In such a time it is a profound comfort to know that although all things seem to be shaken, one thing is not: God is not shaken … the thing that is most important is to do what the psalmist does later, to be ‘still’ and know that God is God. God is God whether we recognize it or not. But it comforts us and infuses strength into our faltering spirits to rest on that truth.

~Elisabeth Elliot

The earth beneath me gave way.  I was falling. 

But God…

When my heart was shattered, my hope hanging on by a thread, the Spirit of God brought truth to mind and gave me the strength to hold on.

though the mountains

I trust God’s Word and His character, even when I don’t understand what He is doing.  

His faithful love endures forever. 

I can depend on that.  

No matter what.