Friday's Faith - Another Pounding...

"Sometimes in the waves of change we find our true direction."

~unknown

Friday's Faith

Another Pounding...

Tommy and I have been thrown some curves of life lately that have thrown me almost completely off course. Child-loss itself presents a crisis of faith, and as a precious grieving mother recently said to me, it's almost as if we then feel that surely now, we would have a "free pass" --- no more tragedies, no more crises of faith --- as we've already been through the worst that life could offer! 

But alas, there is no free pass. More potentially tragic situations arise, ready or not. It has been a daily, really moment-to-moment, struggle for me over these past two months. God has faithfully met me every step of the way with His incredible sweetness, but for weeks, the darkness itself would not seem to lift for long. But everyday, there were tears before the Lord, and His presence brought very sweet relief with constant reminders of who He really is. But the darkness lingered…

Last night, God provided a breakthrough. Through the noise of this world's constant message that we should be making constant progress through our pain, God sent a quiet but life-changing message that had the effect of a hurtling meteor shattering the morass of my darkness with the stark reminder of the life to which He has really called us. 

Our Heavenly Father's eye is always on the eternal view, while our eye is often stuck in our own short-term struggles. We feel dropped, while He is not stumped at all, knowing exactly what He is accomplishing in our hearts and souls amidst our painful struggle.

We are not called to a life of constant progress from an earthly viewpoint, rather it is to a constant walk of faith, with no sense of our own control over anything. But that does not mean our Heavenly Father is not constantly aware of what is going on, of what challenges we have been thrown, and of what He wants to do in us amidst those challenges…

~~~~~

      7But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12So death works in us, but life in you.

      13But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, 14knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. 15For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

      16Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Picture, thanks to Marilynn Mitchelle via ~Pinterest

Monday's Mourning Ministry - The Hurt and the Healer ~MercyMe

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love where feeling is not.

I believe in God even if He is silent.

Inscription on walls of cellar in Cologne, Germany where Jews hid from the Nazis.

Monday's Mourning Ministry

The Hurt and the Healer

~MercyMe

The Hurt and the Healer

~MercyMe

Why?
The question that is never far away
The healing doesn't come from the explained
Jesus please don't let this go in vain
You're all I have
All that remains

So here I am
What's left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I've fallen into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the Healer collide

Breathe
Sometimes I feel it's all that I can do
Pain so deep that I can hardly move
Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You
Lord take hold and pull me through

So here I am
What's left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I've fallen into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the Healer collide

It's the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all the scars are understood
When mercy takes its rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of the weakness we must bow
And hear You say "It's over now"

I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take this heart and breathe it back to life
I fall into your arms open wide
When the hurt and the Healer collide

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here
When the hurt and the Healer collide

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here

When the hurt and the Healer collide

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here...

Picture, thanks to "Grieving Mothers"
Video: http://youtu.be/KeNSlQWdgec

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Till the Storm Passes By ~Ben Speer

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Till the Storm Passes By

~Ben Speer

Till the Storm Passes By

~Ben Speer

In the dark of the midnight

Have I oft hid my face

While the storm howls above me ~

Then there's no hiding place

Hear the crash of the thunder

Precious Lord, hear my cry

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Till the storm passes over

Till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast; 

Let me stand

In the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Many times Satan tells me

There is no need to try

For there's no end of sorrow

There's no hope by and by

But I know Thou art with me

And tomorrow I'll rise

Where the storms never darken the skies

Till the storm passes over

Till the thunder sounds no more

Till the clouds roll forever from the sky

Hold me fast; 

Let me stand

In the hollow of Thy hand

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

Keep me safe till the storm passes by

http://youtu.be/21VW741urFY

Friday's Faith - The Cry of "Why?" IS the Cry of Faith ~with H. Norman Wright and Michael Card

Friday's Faith

The Cry of "Why?" IS the Cry of Faith

~with H. Norman Wright

and Michael Card

The cry of why is a cry of lament. This cry is good. It is necessary. It is a cry of protest to God, but also a cry of faith. Michael Card's book, A Sacred Sorrow, describes how lament is a biblical pattern for our lives. He states:

"When then, does God enshrine so many laments in His Word? Laments, we must realize are God's Word. Why are so many Biblical characters shown as disappointed and angry with God? Do we seek to learn from all the other facets of their lives but this? I would put it to you this way:

People like Job, David, Jeremiah, and even Jesus revealed to us that prayers of complaint can still be prayers of faith.

They represent the last refusal to let go of the God who may seem to be absent or worse--uncaring.

If this is true, then lament expresses one of the most intimate moments of faith--not a denial of it.

"It is supreme honesty before a God who my faith tells me I can trust. He encourages me to bring everything as an act of worship, my disappointment, frustration, and even my hate. Only lament uncovers this kind of new faith, a biblical faith that better understands God's heart as it is revealed through Jesus Christ."

He also talks about the purpose of lamenting:

"What lament would have us understand: the answer is graciously being given. His Presence is always with us.

Lament is the path that takes us to the place where we discover that there is no complete answer to pain and suffering, only Presence.

"The language of lament gives a meaningful form to our grief by providing a vocabulary for our suffering and then offering it to God as worship. Our questions and complaints will never find individual answers (even Job's questions were never fully answered). The only Answer is the dangerous, disturbing, comforting Presence, which is the true answer to all our questions and hopes."

~H. Norman Wright, Helping Those in Grief

~Michael Card, A Sacred Sorrow: Reaching Out to God and the Lost Language of Lament

picture: "Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane" from AllPosters.com

Friday's Faith - "Listen to the Music" to Solve the Mystery

Friday's Faith

"Listen to the Music" to Solve the Mystery

It was Sunday morning, 6:24 a.m., and I was just finishing up another wonderful novel since I couldn't sleep... I was lying there in my bed, talking to my God, thanking Him for the amazing work I am watching some of my clients do in their very difficult healing work over the past weeks and months.

The thought crossed my mind,

"Angie, if you can see God's hand enabling these precious souls to do THE most difficult psychological work known to man, then can you trust that your same God can also help you to solve some of the most entangled situations you are facing financially?"

(In working for ourselves, we can spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how we can continue to make a living when clients and/or insurance companies are not cooperating. We can sometimes outwit ourselves by trying to figure things out that can't always be solved by forethought.)

So I asked myself,

"If God can work such miraculous progress in persons who have been harmed in many of the worst ways imaginable, then why do I doubt that He can work out the details of our lives (as well as our livelihoods) as well, without my always understanding exactly how that may happen?"

It's like the quote I just read as I was finishing my mystery novel this week… These words were spoken to the main character Tess, who, as a detective in the novel, is trying to solve a complicated murder through her own ability to be clever… She was being rebuked by a wise friend,

"In opera, if you don't know the language, you have to listen to the music. You have to leave words and cleverness behind. Cleverness is the last refuge for smart people. That's your problem, Tess. You're too clever. You're listening to the words instead of the music."

~from Baltimore Blues, by Laura Lippman

Lord, may I learn that You are the Shepherd; I am the sheep. I am designed to follow You. Help me to lay aside my need to be clever, often out-smarting myself when You stand by, ready to show me the way…!

Now, it is the end of the week, and my Lord has already dissolved the mystery that had me so stumped earlier in the week. And NEVER could I have predicted how well it would play out! May I learn to put my trust and faith in the proper Source for my life, which is in my Lord, not in my lofty imaginings. May I learn to listen for His music…

Picture, thanks to Google Images

Friday's Faith - God's Way versus "My-Way" Highway

Friday's Faith

God's Way

versus

"My-Way" Highway

I am perusing the book, On mission with God: living God's purpose for His glory, by Henry T. Blackaby and Avery T. Willis. Blackaby is the author of the amazing Bible Study guide called, Experiencing God.

These are the Seven Realities taught in Experiencing God:

1) God is at work all the time.

2) He initiates a personal loving relationship with you.

3) He invites you to join Him in His work.

4) God speaks to you.

5) You experience a crisis of belief.

6) Crises of belief call for major adjustments in your life so you can relate to Him and His mission.

7) As you make the adjustments and obey Him, He moves you into the middle of His activity. You then are a part of God's mission.

We do not come to God saying, "What great thing can I do for You?" Instead, God comes to us and tells us what He is about to do and invites us to be a part of it. God's activity is not our agenda. God reveals what He is doing and invites the person to join Him. Blackaby and Willis state in their new book,

You may have thought you were saved just to go to heaven when you die, but God says,

"I saved you to be on mission with Me to redeem a broken world. I'm bringing you back to My original mission, where you will participate in My purpose of redeeming and reconciling a lost world to Me." As you follow Christ, the Master sets the direction and tells you where He is and where He is going. Where the Master is, the servant must be. The servant responds--not initiates."

*****

I remember as a young bride when I first came here to Knoxville, Tennessee, I had just graduated from graduate school in Atlanta, Georgia, married my hubby Tommy, and was ready to begin my work in my field of psychology. I did not understand it when God opened doors for me to go to work full time in working with families where incest had occurred. Who really makes that their life dream? I hadn't. It was quite an eye-opener for this new bride to see the tragedies unfolding in this world within the sacred walls of family, where children, through no fault of their own, are abused, often by their own parents, and in the most sacred human arena of their sexuality and their souls.

I remember soon thereafter going to a Career Prayer Breakfast at the large Presbyterian church we began attending… the prayer breakfast filled largely with men I might add. I'll never forget the shock I felt after an older man asked me what I was doing in my work and I told him of my new job and its responsibilities, and his ignorant and sexist remark was,

"Your husband shouldn't allow you to work in such garbage!!!"

It was another eye-opener for me that many who attend church actually can be so prejudiced and ignorant to God's ways yet are really quite proud of it! I really thought that serving this particular clientele to whom I had been called was probably just a rigorous training ground for me to learn how to do the most challenging of all the diagnoses, but I had no idea God would ultimately make this a specialty area in my lifetime counseling practice. Now I marvel at how many other "Christian" therapists refuse to work with this clientele (the concomitant diagnoses of "Borderline Personality Disorder" and/or "Dissociative Identity Disorder" can often be so grueling on the therapist due to the client's natural fear of trusting yet another authority figure, fearful that they may encounter yet even more harm into their war-torn lives; plus such clients often can be extremely self-destructive, often suicidal in their walking through the healing process of their former inhuman torment and abuse). Can these fellow Christian therapists not see that these precious souls are really the apples of God's eye? These victims do not ask for the resulting troubles to be brought into their lives, yet they are left to battle their way through them, help or no help.

So, yes, God chooses the mission for our lives; it is ours to obey or not to obey. May God continue to give me the strength to obey. And though it is one of the most "dangerous" of callings, I feel honored to have the privilege of working with some of the sweetest and humblest of souls. And God meets us all along the way. But, yes there are many crises and tests along such hallowed ground that none dare walk without the Savior close beside…

Picture, thanks to Google Images

Friday's Faith - The Fallacy of Being Labeled "Backslidden": The Truth Behind the Charade

Friday's Faith

The Fallacy of Being Labeled "Backslidden":

The Truth Behind the Charade

A precious grieving mother, a sister-in-Christ, wrote me this week,

"We also have not been back to church since we lost (our child). (Our) Pastor... doesn't have any deep insight in the Scripture.... We have church at home, watching some favorite ministers and reading, also having communion periodically. We have been classified as 'backslidden' which is far from the truth. Yes, I still question WHY? (My husband) is so steadfast in his faith, that although he grieves deeply, he is able to look ahead to the Blessed Hope that awaits us...."

What happens when we grievers are so traumatized that we cannot be around crowds? What happens when we have such a desperate need for God that we cannot tolerate the inane jokes and frivolous fluff that often come from the preachers' mouths amidst their sermons? What happens when the "church service" grieves our hearts because we do not sense the God of love there, the One who would lovingly reach out and touch our pain at its deepest places? We often retreat into our own solace with the Living Lord Himself, away from the hustle and bustle of crowds, away from the chintzy chatter designed to placate people, not usher them into the presence of the One who can soothe, heal, and comfort.

In a sense, we have been thrown into the pit of hell when we lose our child, as we have been exposed "up-close-and-personal" to the Evil One who our Lord said came "to steal, kill, and destroy," and we have witnessed him kill our own child, one who is most sacred in our lives. So we are standing in need of crisis intervention, not entertainment from the pulpit! Our hearts have been pulverized through no fault of our own. Evil has landed in our lap by squelching out the very sacred life of our child.

Where then are the compassionate brothers and sisters of the ekklesia ~ the true church ~ the congregation of people who love God, not a church building, not a place we "must" go to worship. Where is the love of Jesus in their hearts that would come alongside us in our pain versus shouting down at us from their ivory towers that if we don't get ourselves into the church building, then we are "backsliders" of the faith!

Seriously??? At a time when we need God the most, we are being attacked by mean-spirited fools??? Or ignored by those who are called to love because it is just too hard to climb down into our pain??? (Of course it is! And we understand that! NO ONE can come alongside us in their own strength alone, nor should they ~ that would be totally unhelpful anyway. But Christ-in-them who reaches out in Love empowering them to show His love is the ONLY way they could come to us, and the ONLY way they ever should come to us! That is the healing way.) But instead of seeking God's help to do what they are called to do in a loving, compassionate way, they choose instead the world's way out... they rationalize, minimize, and justify their bad behavior by telling themselves,

~Well, they should be over it by now anyway.

or

~They brought this on themselves somehow.

or

~Their child brought this on him/herself.

or blaming us in a different way,

~If they had God, they wouldn't be hurting...

So, they take the chicken's way out and decide to just put the burden back on us:

"You just need to come to church, and if you don't, you are 'backsliding'!"

As if the church building were really God Himself, and therefore staying away from a building (due to our trauma and hurt, mind you), to them anyway, is like we are rejecting God Himself!

Quite the contrary, most of us grievers are longing for God. Or if indeed we are feeling the crisis of our faith (like the psalmist himself often did, and yet he was declared by God to be "a man after God's own heart!), and we cry out such crises of belief as, "Where was God???!" or "Why wasn't my child protected when I cried out in prayer over them to God???" or like His own Son cried out in His distress, "My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken Me???" we are crying out for this discomforting spiritual tension to be resolved. We need God, but we are suddenly afraid of Him. We may feel betrayed by Him. We are confused. We are frightened. We are in a crisis of faith that is quite a common phenomenon that comes with such a life-altering crisis.

This is the very time we need our brothers and sisters in-the-faith to be "Christ-with-skin-on." The living, loving Lord who is full of compassion coming alongside to hold us up when we are flailing, fainting from the heavy load that has shattered our lives and our hearts. He would NEVER throw fiery darts of condemnation at our hurting souls. So where is the loving Christ within our brothers and sisters' hearts?

Like Peter abandoning Jesus in a crisis, they tuck tail and run from us. They are not "prayed up," "loved up", nor prepared to face the temptation to flee.

So we are abandoned.

Then we are accused.

Then we are scorned.

Shame on them. We grievers are at our lowest; what an ideal time to live out our Lord's love, be with us, be gentle, allowing us the space to cry out, to question, to find safety, to be authentic in our pain, as they love us like Christ would...

As Christian psychologist Diane Langberg says so well,

• The church (should be available to) offer long-term community support and care.
• Crisis intervention is not as much about doing as it is about being.
• Crisis intervention is one of the toughest ministries to be a part of, because the helper will be walking through some of people's darkest times. If one chooses to do so, he/she will have the blessing and honor of being there for someone when he/she is most open to God's transformative power.
• People are not human doings; they are human beings. The value of presence is what Christ calls believers to.
• It is a sacred trust to engage with people at their moment of crisis and need, and believers have the opportunity to be the body of Christ on this earth.

Picture - http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/203769/