Monday's Mourning Ministry - Walk On the Water ~Britt Nicole

Relying on God has to begin all over again 
every day as if nothing had yet been done.

~C. S. Lewis

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Walk On the Water

~Britt Nicole

Walk On the Water

~Britt Nicole 

You look around 

It's staring back at you 

Another wave of doubt 

Will it pull you under 

You wonder 

What if I'm overtaken?

What if I never make it?

What if no one's there? 

Will you hear my prayer? 

When you take that first step 

Into the unknown 

He won't let you go 

[Chorus:]

So what are you waiting for? 

What do you have to lose? 

Your insecurities try to hold to you 

You know you're made for more 

So don't be afraid to move 

Your faith is all 

it takes in you 

You can walk on the water too 

So get out 

And let your fear fall to the ground 

No time to waste 

Don't wait 

Don't you turn around and miss out 

Everything you were made for 

O I know you're not sure 

So you play it safe 

You try to run away 

When you take that first step 

Into the unknown 

O my God won't let you go 

So what are you waiting for? 

What do you have to lose? 

Your insecurities try to hold to you 

You know you're made for more 

So don't be afraid to move 

Your faith is all 

it takes in you 

You can walk on the water too 

[Bridge:]

(Step Out) 

Even when a storm hits 

(Step Out) 

Even when you're broken 

(Step Out) 

Even when your heart is telling you, telling you to give up 

(Step Out) 

When your hope is stolen 

(Step Out) 

You can't see where you're going 

You don't have to be afraid 

No no no

So what are you waiting for? 

La la la la la...

What are you waiting for? 

What do you have to lose? 

Your insecurities try to hold to you 

You know you're made for more 

So don't be afraid to move 

Your faith is all 

it takes in you 

You can walk on the water

Walk on the water too

Yeah yeah yeah yeah

You can walk on

Yeah yeah yeah

You can walk on the water too

Quote ― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

Video: http://youtu.be/Wddc8UzNiG8

Friday's Faith Can a Good God Be a Cosmic Sadist? ~by Angie Prince, with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Friday's Faith

Can a Good God Be a Cosmic Sadist?

~by Angie Prince

with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a cosmic sadist.

The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed--might grow tired of his vile spirit--might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety.

But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless.

But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.

Either way, we're for it.

What do people mean 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?' Have they never been to a dentist?

~C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

*****

Early on in our grief, my son Nathan and I would talk and would agree that if our God felt the need to take Merry Katherine at the time He did, it must have been what was best for her in the long run, and as much as we love her, we want what is best for her, even if it means we will suffer the rest of our lives. She is safe, and she is in Heaven. Well, God gave us many, many moments of grace like this early on...

Living this faith out has been a living nightmare, often feeling more like a living hell.

I even had the audacity early on to say to Tommy,

"We did everything we knew to do (and then some) to try to keep her alive, but now she is in Heaven, safe with God. So now we just grieve; how hard can that be?"

Sounds great on paper. But the devil is in the details as they say. And it seems every detail is like living hell. Every day is painful in its own unique way. Every day we miss her. Every day we realize how much our worlds have changed without her in it. Every day we feel the parent's angst of losing our little one before we could even get her launched into life.

And yet indeed, the truth still remains: God is good. He works everything--ultimately--to our good. He has conquered death. Our baby girl is alive--just away from home here, but safely Home There. And we do trust God. We don't understand all His ways. But we know He knows what He is doing. And we know His ways are not our ways. But we know His way ultimately wins.

Even so, her loss is painful. Every day is a walk of faith. Every day is a trial of faith. We walk "without seeing," and so our faith muscles are stretched every day. It is hard. We cry. We are comforted. And then we hurt again, and cry more. We miss her. We love her. We long for her. Our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls have been traumatized.

We have been face-to-face with the devil and his work, facing evil of the worst kind. We have seen death itself. We have seen not only death, but the death of our own child. We know evil now like we've never known it, and we will never be the same.

We walk with a limp. We often barely function. We live the invisible disability. Cortisol courses through our bodies. We don't recognize ourselves any longer. We are accident-prone. We are not thinking clearly.

We still have the graces of early on, of knowing she is with our Lord which is an absolute blessing. But never, ever should anyone think this walk is easy. It is a life interlaced with debilitating pain.

The Surgeon would not stop before the operation was complete or all the pain up to that point would have been useless....

but what if, in the process, He cut out our hearts...?

Pictures thanks to FotoSearch.com

Wednesday's Woe - Spiral of Grief - Going Up or Down? ~Angie Prince with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Wednesday's Woe

Spiral of Grief - Going Up or Down?

~by Angie Prince,

with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare unreality, the wallowed-in tears. For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say,

"I never realized my loss till this moment"?

The same leg is cut off time after time. The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again.

~C. S. Lewis

*****

Yesterday, as Nathan came in from his new job, we began to talk. I was asking him what songs have ministered to him in his grief. (About that conversation, I will share more later.) He described some poignant moments he had had amidst some sweet music, sharing with me some of the heartfelt feelings he had had about Merry Katherine. Then he left the room.

Even though I had been grieving all day long (as I do everyday, tears coming here and there throughout each day), after my conversation with Nathan, somehow it hit me anew:

She is gone.... She is gone, and she's not coming back!

My heart was stabbed anew at such stark reality.

(How does this happen? I KNOW it's true: she died, and I have been grieving her now for 4 1/2 years, but then suddenly, I realize it anew in its bleak reality.)

Oh God, how do I live with this pain -- as bad as it is all the time -- and then it dive-bombs me with its abject starkness, again!

So, today I wrote this poem:

*****

Clouds of Gray, My Mainstay

It's become a novelty again ~

This realization that you're gone.

It wreaks its havoc once again:

Never... again... will you... come home...

The world outside is cloudy gray;

So too is the state of my heart...

The clouds outside may go away,

But never the ones in my heart.

And even though my heart e'er knows

You've gone away, n'er to return,

My mind plays tricks, forgets it knows,

Then recalls, sets my heart again t' churn...

(The mind cannot take such drastic loss ~

If so, how could it e'en function?

Continual recalls are my cross;

Grief becomes my divine unction.)

My baby girl, you've gone away,

In your place, only clouds of gray.

But soon one day, the Son will shine,

Give life t' this heart, now dead on th' vine...

Disperse Death's shadow, O Light Divine,

Join me anew to sweet baby o' mine!

Give us Your hope, with an eternal mind.

Pictures - thanks to FotoSearch.com

Poem - Clouds of Gray, My Mainstay - Angie Bennett Prince - 2/1/2011