My heart is breaking apart today for a family I personally do not know.

They are experiencing some of the deepest grief known to man, that of the loss of a child.  I can’t even begin to imagine.

My daughter graduated with this young man.  Her boyfriend played football with this young man.

In times like these there are no words—none–that bring relief from the anguish and grief.  Every word, every platitude, even the beautiful true words of scripture can ring hollow in the waves of helplessness and hopelessness.  The questions of why??  The search for answers that are not to be found.

My friends, despair is a very real enemy.  The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. (John 10:10a)  Despair is a darkness with no light.  The words “If Only….” are meaningless when trapped in the darkness of despair.  I know this full well.

Who do you need to check on today?  Who needs to hear from you that you love and care for them?  Who needs to know today that you have not forgotten them, that they are not alone, that there is hope?  Who needs to know that you see, that you know, that you care?

Whew.

We are called to love each other.  With a love that this world does not understand.  With a love that is all-encompassing, that is strong, that is gentle, that is genuine, that is forgiving, that is real, that is not of ourselves but is of God.  I need to learn to love more like my Jesus.  I need to learn to love.

What can we do for this grief-stricken family in our community?  Seaford Baptist Church, what can we do as a church family to meet the needs of this family and our community in this time of deep sadness?

Yes, even the beautiful true words of Scripture can ring hollow at times like this.  But the circumstances of this imperfect and very fallen world do not make them any less true, and today, especially, may all that are grieving and mourning-wherever or whatever your circumstances may be-find some measure of comfort in Psalm 34:18:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

 

I gave up hope this morning.

Aren’t we silly people sometimes?  We learn something, we think we have a grasp on it, only to go right back to our old way of thinking and behaving.  How we must make God sigh sometimes.

Just two–2!!–short days ago, I was filled with hope.  Filled with the encouragement that my God is a God of hope and that Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare[a] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. — was truth for my life.  That out of the mess I have made of my life, God all along has been permitting the story line of my life and that He has a plan for this broken, chaotic life of mine.

I went to bed last night a bit goofed up, questioning the truth of Jeremiah 29:11, and I woke up under a thick fog of discouragement.  Where had my hope gone?

As I’ve mulled it over this morning during work, I came to a couple of conclusions:

1.  It’s not my hope.  It’s God’s.  His plans include giving me a future and a hope.  But the hope is not mine, it belongs to Him.  It looks very different from my hope.  My hope is wrapped up in the dreams and plans I have made for my own life–and I still, many times, selfishly expect God to fulfill them the way I would arrogantly demand Him to fill them.  I have to let go of those dreams–the man-made dreams of my mind and my heart.  For a very personal and hurtful example:  I don’t want to live alone the rest of my life.  I have prayed that God would send me someone that I could commit to in a godly, covenant marriage.  That God would send someone to fill the loneliness of my heart.  It has been my hope.  But it hasn’t happened yet, nor are there any good prospects on the horizon. 🙂  What if God is calling me to lay down my dreams (more than just for a husband–I have lots of dreams:  dreams to write a book, dreams to live an adventurous life) in order that He can fulfill His plans for me?  What if His plans for me mean never marrying again?  Oh, it hurts to lay down our dreams.  It hurts to surrender them over to God, especially when we can’t clearly see what plans He has for our future.  But that’s where trust comes in.  The hope he longs to give me and does give me is His hope.  The hope He longs to give you is His hope.  We must be willing to lay down our own dreams in order to make room for Jeremiah 29:11 to be truth in our lives.  From there, we will be given a hope that will not be shaken.

2.  Sometimes–and this is embarrassing, but I’m hoping that some of you can relate–sometimes God firmly places hope in my soul and I find myself purposefully dropping it.  Not holding on.  Part of this is a trust issue–do I, do you really trust God to give us a future and a hope?  Do we truly believe that He has plans for our lives?  Sometimes the idea is too wonderful, too overpowering that I let my default of doubt-which is sin-drop that line of hope.  I don’t want to be hurt again, therefore I’ll refuse to hope, especially if it is God’s hope that He has given me.  How ridiculous is that??  But wait, it gets worse.  Other times I drop the hope I have been given out of more nefarious reasons, such as self-pity, selfishness, pride, stubbornness–the list could go on.  Why do we do this?  I believe this is where I was at this morning when I woke up terribly discouraged.  I dropped the line of hope that had been given me for all these reasons and more, including the realization that I need to surrender my dreams to Him, realizing that they may never come true.  We watched Frozen last night–which, of course ended in the typical “Happy Ending”.  Well, God may have a “different” Happy Ending for me–am I going to accept that?  Are you?

I would like to say that I’m overflowing with hope this afternoon, but that’s not true.  However, maybe I’m not intended to, because sometimes that overflowing hope can be deceiving and disappear as quickly as it comes.  Instead, maybe God intends for us to have a steadily growing hope–which, as I look back over the past years, I have to admit I see it.  I see someone who has gone from life-ending despair, to having this ember of hope that is slowly but steadily growing into a fire of love for her Savior.  “Hesed” love–enduring love.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, I finished reading Paul Miller’s “A Loving Life”.  I would recommend it to anyone, especially to married couples or couples who are struggling.  As a divorcee where remarriage to my former spouse is not a possibility, it was a painful book to read.  But it was a hopeful book as well.  I’ll close this post with one last quote from Paul Miller:

Suffering is the crucible for love.  We don’t learn how to love anywhere else.  Don’t misunderstand; suffering doesn’t create love, but it is a hothouse where love can emerge.  Why is that?  The great barrier to love is ego, the life of the self.  In long-term suffering, if you don’t give in to self-pity, almost imperceptibly, self dies.  This death of self offers ideal growing conditions for love.  So, not surprisingly, this book on love, the book of Ruth, begins with the descent of Naomi’s family into a crucible of suffering.

I want self to die.  We need ourselves to die, so that love can grow.  Suffering truly is a crucible for love.  Read the book of Ruth.  Slowly.  See what God does.  Then be willing to lay down your dreams and allow His plan for your life to unfold.  This is what I’m trying to learn.

 

“Love will not grow if you check out and give in to the seductive call of bitterness and cynicism. We have to hang in there with the story that God has permitted in our lives. As we endure, as we keep showing up for life when it makes no sense, we learn to love, and God shows up too.”~Paul Miller

I think I’m in over my head.

I received a new book today by Paul Miller.  He is the author of A Praying Life, which was a tremendous, tremendous book.  I’ve been looking forward to his next book, A Loving Life, for awhile–and was excited to read it when I received it today.

I’m 23 pages in, and I’m unexpectedly wrecked.  Not what I expected.  But maybe exactly what I need.

I did not know that the book was going to dive deep into the story of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz….a story I already find hard to read after the destruction of my marriage.  I knew the book was going to be–as the title states–a book about living a loving life.  And I want to be known as living a life that, however imperfectly, demonstrates the love of God.

But I didn’t know that it would get to the core of my soul, examining bitterness and cynicism; examining how to live a loving life when you are abandoned.  Whew.

When I read the quote at the top of this post, I was reduced to tears.  Wrecked.  For many reasons.

For one….I’m the queen of checking out.  Oh, my.  The author talks about checking out of life.  Yes, I know that action very well; too well.  He also speaks of checking out of life and into the cycle of bitterness and cynicism.  Cynicism is my default mode.  I have to work hard to keep out of that gear.  It is a seductive call, the call to bitterness and cynicism.  Maybe you know this well in your life, too.  Where it’s easier to be cynical than it is to believe truth of God’s Word, because the truth exposes us for who we really are–and exposes our situations for what they really are.  And bitterness–isn’t it easier to be bitter than it is to be loving when we are hurting?

But it is that next line that got me:  “We have to hang in there with the story that God has permitted in our lives.”  Wow.  Whew.  We can’t check out–that’s not God’s call on any of our lives.  Instead, we are called to hang in there.  To hang in there with the story–THAT GOD HAS PERMITTED IN OUR LIVES.  Good grief.  We each have a story.  God is writing the stories of our lives.  You have a story; I have a story.  And sometimes that story includes tremendous joy; other times that story includes tremendous suffering.  Job-like suffering.  But whatever storyline your life and my life takes, it is a story line that God has permitted!

This both greatly encourages and greatly disturbs me.  First, it disturbs me because I don’t understand.  I don’t understand why, in my situation, I would see and experience what I have experienced; do the terrible things I have done, and lost all that I have lost in the imprisonment of my husband due to the sins he committed.  I don’t understand.  It hurts.  And maybe you don’t understand either.  Maybe the cry of your heart is often like mine: “Why God, O Why?”

But then, I am strangely encouraged.  If God has permitted this story in my life, doesn’t it follow in logic that He–who is above all and in all–sees and knows and is in control?  If He has allowed it, then it MUST be for His purposes, and His purposes would never be to ultimately destroy me.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  It hurts.  And I have often felt destroyed.  Often.  But you know what?  I’m not.  Instead, I have known God’s grace in ways that I NEVER would have, had these events not been a part of the story line He has permitted for my life.  Tears.

The last sentence of Miller’s paragraph is this:  “As we endure, as we keep showing up for life when it makes no sense, we learn to love, and God shows up too.”

My heart beat faster at the words “as we keep showing up for life when it makes no sense”, because that’s it exactly.  That’s exactly what it is like, what it has been like, and–on some days–what it will be like in the future.  I wanted to check out.  I wanted to sleep and never awaken.  But by His grace and ONLY by His grace, I have kept showing up for life, even when it didn’t make sense to.  And through this long process–I have learned to love better.  I have learned to love my crew better.  I have learned to love my church and community better.  And most of all, I have learned to love God better.  Oh, I’m far from perfect, just ask any of my kids!  I have far to go.  But I can tell that where there was once hardness of heart, there is a new tenderness and love that I could never have manufactured on my own.  Ever.

And God shows up.  He does.  No, I don’t always sense His presence.  But I assure you He is here with me.  How do I know?  Well, it’s like this.  I am like Thomas who doubted Christ’s resurrection.  He demanded proof.  I, too have demanded proof–in my pride and stubbornness.  But one day I realized that my life is proof.  My life is proof that God is real.  And  He is here.  With me.  With my crew.

He will not abandon us.

 

My soul now to stand.

 

The awe of it all.  The idea that He stands before my failure—my daily failure that debilitates me.

The awe of it all.  The idea that He carried the cross for my shame—the deepest shame of the worst nightmares that paralyze me.

The awe of it all.  The idea that the weight of all my sins weighed upon His shoulders—my ugly sin that I despise.

 

What can I say??  There are no words.  I could fill a thousand notebooks and never come close to expressing all that is within me to express to my God.  I could write songs and prose and poetry, yet they would only say a fraction of all that is in my soul.  What can I say??

 

What can I do??  My sinful self wants to work for Your grace.  To earn your grace.  But that’s not how this strange thing called salvation works.  I could do all the good works in the world and yet not atone for my own sin.  You did that for me on the cross.  All I can do is offer my heart–completely to you.

 

So I’ll walk upon salvation.  I tread this path that you have laid before me–the beautiful joys and the Job-like sufferings.  I’ll walk upon your salvation, for to walk anywhere else is to fall, like Peter in the water.  Your spirit is alive in me–even when I do not sense you, you never leave.  I want my life to declare your promises.  I want others to see you in me.

 

My soul now to stand.

 

1 Thessalonians 3:8 For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.

 

My soul now to stand.

 

And I’ll stand God with my arms raised in praise to you.  I’ll stand out of respect and in worship of You.  I’ll stand with my heart, mind and soul abandoned to you.  Abandoned of my own selfish dreams and desires; replace them God with only what you want for my life.

 

I’ll stand, in awe of you God!!  In awe!!  For you gave it all.  You gave your son.  For me.  For us.

 

I’ll stand God, my soul surrendered to you alone–no idols.  I’ll stand God, my soul surrendered to you alone–I give up.

 

All I am is yours.  This mess of a life.  This broken life.  My failures, my sins.  My gifts and my talents.  My fears and my confidences.  The very essences that make me who I am.  It’s all yours God.  It’s all yours.

 

I’ll stand.

I’ll stand.

I’ll stand.

 

You stood before creation
Eternity within Your hand
You spoke the earth into motion
My soul now to stand

You stood before my failure
Carried the Cross for my shame
My sin weighed upon Your shoulders
My soul now to stand

So what can I say?
What can I do?
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You

So I’ll walk upon salvation
Your Spirit alive in me
This life to declare Your promise
My soul now to stand

So what can I say?
What can I do?
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You

So what can I say?
What can I do?
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You

So Ill stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
So Ill stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

So Ill stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
So Ill stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

So Ill stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
So Ill stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

So Ill stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
So Ill stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

So Ill stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
So Ill stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

So what can I say?
What can I do?
But offer this heart O God
Completely to You!

 

 

 

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