Friday's Faith - When Assumptive Beliefs COLLIDE With Reality in Child-Loss...-God Will Come and Meet You Where You Are...

Friday's Faith

When Assumptive Beliefs

COLLIDE

With Reality in Child-Loss...

God Will Come and Meet You

Where You Are...

When God "happens" to us, we are undone.

There is nothing more to say.

He is God -- omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent -- and we are not.

But He is also LOVE -- and when we feel that love, THAT makes ALL the difference!

*****

After God met Job where he was and challenged all His faulty assumptions about God, He then chastises Job's friends for their despicable words that misrepresented Himself to Job. He declares to these friends that He is pleased with Job who had spoken rightly of Him. So God tells the "friends" that He will not punish them if His servant Job prays for them...

Job prayed for his friends. God forgave them. Then God blessed Job and surrounded him with his loved ones to comfort and console him (Job 42).

Job's so-called friends had unleashed on him all their faulty assumptive beliefs about God, accusing Job of being prideful and that he must be hiding some sin or he wouldn't be suffering so...

We know now that Job was not punished by God because of any sins he had committed.

It was quite the opposite!

It was because Job was such a righteous, God-fearing man that Satan wanted to test him, trusting that Job would reject God when all his blessings had been removed.

Satan (NOT God) taunted Job!

And it was because of Job's righteousness, NOT because of his sin that Satan wanted to taunt him!

*****

When our own assumptive beliefs fly out of their nicely-ordered cage, what will we do? Will we bring our angst, our hurt, our questions, our concerns directly to God for His cage-cleaning?

Will we accept His assessment?

God comes to meet us where we are...exactly where we are.

You may not have Job's questions.

You may not have my questions.

Job's approach was, I'll take God to trial as if He were in a court of law, and I'll cross-examine Him. God allowed that, but He remained true to Himself and said, in essence,

"Now Job, let Me question you, cross-examine you, and put you on trial lest you think you can understand the Living, Infinite God with your limited, finite mind."

*****

My questions were different from Job's...

As a part of a group of three sets of sisters in my college years, I vividly remember our group, "The Singing Sisters," singing in beautiful four-part harmony a haunting and heart-wrenching song whose words resonated with my teenage heart and spirit.

This song gave me a strong sense of the life of suffering that God asks us to be willing to undergo for His sake, in order to love others...like He loved us.

The words to this song were so powerful to me that I wrote them in the back of my Bible almost forty years ago, and they are still in the back of my favorite Bible that I use to this day. Here are the heart-wrenching and soul-challenging words that I wrote into my Bible:

"So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,

To eyes made blind...because they will not see,

To spend though it be blood, to spend and spare not...

So send I you...to taste of Calvary...

As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you."

So when I came before the Lord in my angst and sorrow a few weeks after the dust had settled that Merry Katherine really had been killed and had been buried... then I took some time, came before the Lord, and finally I cried my heartfelt cry out to the Lord,

"Lord?! I knew You called me to a life of potential suffering and death for Your sake. And I was willing to do that...."

Then with angst and grief spasms, I cried out,

"But Lord?! This was my CHILD!"

Thinking there would be an equally strong reaction from God, either one of His recognizing His mistake and its gross injustice, or one of dismay with me and reacting by arguing with me, I began to listen. (I think too, I had uttered all that I could utter in that last cry. There was no more to say.)

Instead of God's agreeing that He had made a mistake of gross injustice, or His taking me on with torrents of recoiling and chastising reproof, He conversely met me, joined me in my sorrow, sharing His broken heart with me:

"I know. I lost My Child too."

His simple words of kindness, of truth, and of complete sacrificial love broke my heart in two.

His simple words were my soul's undoing. Like Job, I too was "undone."

*****

A similar song that broke my heart over and over long before I ever even THOUGHT about having any children of my own was the third verse of the song, "How Great Thou Art,"

"And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,

sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in,

That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,

He bled and died to take away my sin..."

Throughout my life and still to this day (I am weeping even now), these words penetrate my soul and bring my heart to its knees and tears to my eyes.

So when my very tender loving Father God spoke these very sentiments so simply to me as He came to me, to meet me IN my pain, His sentiments of

"I know. I lost My Child too,"

He knew these words would resonate with my childlike heart so pierced with the suffering of His Own heart over the loss of His Own Child.

My heart was brought down to its knees, completely undone at such LOVE that His Father's heart had shown to make such an unspeakable sacrifice of His Own Son for us.

(I could not bear to lose my child, much less would I be able to send her into this world In Order To Die!

It was, and still is, inconceivable to me, the amount of pain that His Son's death must have caused our Father God, and yet He carried that pain in His heart that we might live, that I might live, that my own precious child might live...)

I was immediately undone with that truth that as horrendous as my pain was, God Himself SENT His Son to die, for me, and for my child. He KNEW the hell His own Child would have to go through, but SENT HIM HERE for that purpose to rescue us.

And because of that sacrifice, I had the comfort of knowing that even though my child had died, because of God's enduring the hell of losing His child, my child can now enjoy LIFE, and LIFE ETERNALLY, living with the LIVING GOD forever and EVER.

Wow! What a complete paradigm shift to my questions!

And what LOVE stopped me in my tracks!

Amazing Love! How Can it Be?!

*****

As I said, your questions may not be Job's questions.

Your questions to God may not be my questions to Him.

You have your own questions. You have your own confusion. You have your own hurts. And God knows where you are. And God will meet you where you are.

But also remember, God brings Himself to the equation (for nothing fits together without His Person in the midst of it). He does not alter His character for us, but reaches out to us in our hurt to minister to us, but also to challenge our assumptions that have led us down a dead-end trail. He does this with His Truth. He does this with His Love. He does this with His Presence.

Please don't expect to get anything like this from your church or any institution.

God is ALIVE, God is DYNAMIC, God is SPIRIT and can meet you in your spirit.

An institution too often clings to cliches, or principles, or "answers,"

but God comes with His Love, His understanding of you, His knowledge of complete Truth.

With complete love, Jesus met the Woman at the Well with her questions. In truth, He challenged her that she had five husbands to which she agreed was true!

But He was not offensive. He spoke truth to meet her where she was but also TO LEAD HER WHERE SHE WASN'T, AND WHERE SHE COULD NOT HAVE GONE ON HER OWN WITHOUT HIM.

Sometimes our assumptive beliefs can lead us right over the cliff into disastrous territory.

May we, like Job, surrender our faulty notions, all our faulty assumptive beliefs, and trust God to be God, and trust that He is LOVE, that He will guide us into Truth, into all truth about Himself and about this fallen world in which we now live, but in which we will not live forever. For, because of His LOVE, we have been provided the way to live with Him, and with all of His other children, in Heaven forever.

picture: Collide ~ http://speckyboy.com/2009/06/22/29-cool-and-creative-text-effects-photoshop-tutorials/

picture: The Black Coats ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/devosdelphin/3402119464/in/set-72157602180381081/

Friday's Faith - When Assumptive Beliefs COLLIDE with Reality in Child-Loss

Friday's Faith

When Assumptive Beliefs

COLLIDE

With Reality in Child-Loss

The grief and trauma therapist said to us two weeks ago today,

When your child dies or is killed, your "Assumptive Beliefs" have been VIOLATED!

Have you questioned God about why your child died or was killed?

Have you wondered if God was punishing you for having done something wrong?

Have your former beliefs of "being protected" been challenged, shot in the heart by your child's death?

What do we do when our Assumptive Beliefs about God, Our Children, and Their Safety COLLIDE with Reality?

I was reading a Child-Loss Mother's blog* today. This precious mother said that she had an unspoken, one-sided contract with God – I'll take all the sickness and pain onto me so that my children will stay safe:

"If it had to be someone in my family that was sick, I wanted it to be me. I felt that I had an unspoken pact with God that any suffering to befall my family should come to me.

"I never shared my feelings about my pact with anyone. I held it close as my way of keeping my children from harm. Like most parents I wanted my children protected and free from as much danger and pain as possible. Even those times when I was faced with death, I knew should anything happen to me, I had no doubt that Mark would love and care for our children. My silent pact boiled down to its essence simply put was, 'let it be me.'"

She silently held onto this belief that gave her a "sense of control" in protecting her children. Then the police showed up at her door...

"I know how foolish, superstitious and naïve I was to believe that I could have a contract with God that included an immunity clause for my children. It was still the deal that I wanted. I was to be the sponge that dealt with pain, my children would be spared. Intellectually I knew every time I whispered, ("I'm) glad it’s me and not the kids,” that I was operating under an illusion of control. There are no deals with God and he doesn’t offer immunity clauses. The fierceness of my Mother Love however, prevailed over logic and reason. Time and time again I truly believed that I was cocooning my children from harm. 'Let it be me.'

"Then the illusion that was my pact shattered. Our phone rings late at night and two police officers come to our door telling us the words no parent wants to hear. Our son was dead. Jordan was killed in a car accident. He was gone and all of the notions I had about my accumulated pain and suffering being the buffer that would provide my family some immunity from further tragedy was nullified."

All at once, amidst her devastation, she realized the impotence of those silent wishes with which she had hoped God would comply. For some reason, God didn't. It didn't happen...

~Quotes from blog: http://alwaysmomof4.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/let-it-be-me/

*****

I read another mother's blog** today. Another child-loss mother who for twenty years has suffered with the haunting taunts by her (now ex-) husband that their two-year-old son being killed was all her fault. And she herself had taunted herself with two major sins she had committed -- would her sins have caused God to rip this child from her breast? she wondered. Her assumptive belief was along the lines of

If I had led an upright Christian life with which God could have been pleased, then this tragedy would not have happened.

Then, to my horror and disbelief, I read the comments that followed beneath her post. And a person who claimed to be a strong Christian piled on to this precious child-loss mother's fears by telling her, in effect,

Yes, it is your fault. You committed such horrific sins, why wouldn't God take your child; after all, that is what you deserve.

***

When I read this today, I was horrified, hurting for this mother already steeped in her own pain, only to suffer a blog-compatriot coming along by her side to dump the burning lava of condemnation into her lap, even worse, upon her already bleeding heart and war-torn soul...

Paraphrased from ~ Blog, "I Am Barking Mad": http://bit.ly/b8rk32

*****

I too have asked God questions. I had such complete trust in Him that He would keep my child safe, that when I discovered she had been killed, my first question to God was,

What?!

Were You looking the other way?!

Did You not see this coming?

assured that if He had, He would have stopped it. Like me, her mother, if He had known deadly danger was coming, He surely would have intervened, thrown a "pillow of protection" down to cushion her fall. After all, I knew He loved her at least as much as I did, indeed, even more... But it did not happen. God did not break her fall, and she was killed...

*****

– Our "Assumptive Beliefs" –

• What we think we can predictably count on to happen in this world,
• What we assume will be true of God's character,
• What we assume to be true about our child's safety

– are challenged, if not blown to bits, by the death of our child.

We are left in a vulnerable position to begin to put the pieces of our spiritual foundation back together at a time when we most need that foundation to be as solid as a rock.

*****

In the Bible, the book of Job tells us so much about suffering as we watch Job, a man of God, go through deep losses.

Job was "blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had 7 sons and 3 daughters, and he owned 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East."

Job, like us, had assumptive beliefs:

After every party Job's children would throw, Job would ask God to purify them. He would get up the next morning and sacrifice a burnt offering for each of his children, for each of his seven sons, for each of his three daughters, thinking,

"Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts."

The Bible says that this sacrifice for each child was a regular custom of Job's. Was this his protective safety-net for his children?

One day, Job's children all met together at the oldest brother's house for a family celebration when a messenger came to Job and said,

"The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put all of your servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you."

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said,

"The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you."

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said,

"The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put your servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you."

While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said,

"Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother's house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them, and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you."

Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said,

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised."

In today's lingo, we would probably be tempted to declare that Job must be in a state of shock to be able to worship God at such a time!

After all these tragedies, Job's problems escalated. He developed

"painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head."

At first Job accepted the painful burden even as he sat among the ashes.

His wife could not believe he could just accept all this misery so she said,

"Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"

But Job did not.

Then, just like the "friends" coming alongside in today's blog, Job's 3 best friends agreed to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

"When they saw him they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads."

Then they sat with Job in silence for 7 days and 7 nights.

"No one said a word to him because they saw how great his suffering was."

(Good job so far! But hold on, Job's friends begin to turn on him like the blogger's "friend" in the blog I read today began to cruelly turn on her.)

Like the blogger, Job was in touch with his pain and began to turn on himself. He cursed the day of his birth...

Then the first friend spoke up to Job with his faulty assumptive belief and dumped it into Job's already tortured lap with the same sentiment as the blogger "friend" I read today – that

"If evil has happened to you, you must have done some horrible deeds to deserve it!"

"Consider now. Who being innocent has ever perished?

Where were the upright ever destroyed?

As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.

At the breath of God they are destroyed; at the blast of His anger they perish."

All three friends ultimately piled guilt onto Job's head, in essence saying,

Surely, he deserves such punishment.

Job first said he wished he could speak to the Almighty, to argue his case with God.

But to his friends, he lashed out:

"You however smear me with lies; you are worthless physicians, all of you. If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.

"Hear now my argument; listen to the plea of my lips. Will you speak wickedly on God's behalf? Will you speak deceitfully for Him? Would it turn out well if He examined you? Could you deceive Him as you might deceive men?"

Then Job proclaimed,

"Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him; I will surely defend my ways to His face."

He later said to his "friends,"

"How long will you torment me and crush me with words?"

Job eventually asked a question of God very similar to my own to God:

"Does He not see my ways and count my every step?"

Finally, the Lord answers Job...but not really with answers. God told Job,

"Brace yourself like a man;

I will question you and you shall answer Me."

Chapters 38 through 41 of Job found in the Old Testament of the Bible reveals God's amazing words – mostly questions – to Job...

Then, after God talks to Job, showing His own true character (similar to what God does for me in the throes of my grief and despair), Job replies an amazing response...

"My ears had heard of You

but now my eyes have seen You.

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

Blog One* http://alwaysmomof4.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/let-it-be-me/

Blog Two* http://www.iambarkingmad.com/spotted_dick_and_other_mu/2010/03/and-so-the-battle-rages-ona-followup-about-my-thoughts-on-christi.html

Pics

http://speckyboy.com/2009/06/22/29-cool-and-creative-text-effects-photoshop-tutorials/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/devosdelphin/3402119464/in/set-72157602180381081/

Job ~the entire book found in the Old Testament in the Bible