It’s a hard, hard lesson to learn.
It’s even harder to carry it like a precious burden in the bosom of your heart.
Because while it is oh, so true, it does not take away the pain when circumstances just don’t change no matter how hard you pray, how long you endure or how much you wish they would.
God’s ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. He is not required to fit into whatever box I wish to place Him.
Read the rest here: And If Not, He’s Still God.
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.
Read the rest here: On Suffering and Redemption
When this video popped up in my Facebook memories, I was tempted to skip it.
Three years ago I was in a very stressful season of life. My mother was seriously ill, my husband was working away from home and facing daunting challenges, my surviving children were in various stages of transition and I was just plain worn out.
But I stepped out in faith and accepted an invitation to share at a gathering for bereaved parents.
I was used to hiding behind my keyboard, having days to edit and refine what I would say; not opening my mouth and spilling thoughts without any opportunity to call them back.
It was truly frightening and I had no idea it would be recorded.
I don’t like the way I look. I don’t like the way I sound. But I love the message the Lord laid on my heart and enabled me to deliver that day.
So I’m being brave, being transparent, risking whatever judgement others might feel and some might voice to share it here.
{I’m no tech guru and have absolutely no idea how to edit the video so here it is in its entirety. If you’d rather skip the worship music segment, fast forward to the 30 minute mark.}
Three years later I STILL need to preach to myself. I STILL need to exhale my doubts and questions and pain and inhale the truth and grace of Jesus Christ.
I continue to circle round and round, revisiting questions and issues and feelings I thought I’d conquered.
And every single time He meets me there.
I am more convinced than ever that I am only able to stand in the strength and power of my Father God.
Every day I reach out and take hold of the hem of His garment.
And every day that is enough.
He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but He said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.’
Julian of Norwich
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.
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
It’s a hard, hard lesson to learn.
It’s even harder to carry it like a precious burden in the bosom of your heart.
Because while it is oh, so true, it does not take away the pain when circumstances just don’t change no matter how hard you pray, how long you endure or how much you wish they would.
God’s ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. He is not required to fit into whatever box I wish to place Him.
I came to child loss with what I thought was a pretty good understanding of Scripture, of theology and of Who God is.
What I realized was that no matter how much HEAD knowledge I had, it was only HEART knowledge that could sustain me in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
He [Christ] said not, ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be trevailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased,’ but He said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.
•Julian of Norwich•
Some people live lives that make sense. They connect the dots-even of the hard and tragic things-into a picture that looks like something. They emerge from the ashes like a phoenix, wings outspread in victory and rising to new heights.
Not me.
I can’t figure out what God is doing with my life.
I don’t feel victorious.
Mostly I feel tired.
But I am absolutely convinced that God loves me and that He is doing SOMETHING. What that is and how He is doing it are hidden from me.
I don’t understand.
I can’t trace His hand.
But I trust His heart.
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•
thelifeididntchoose 