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

Friday's Faith - How to Hold Faith Amidst Raw Grief

Friday's Faith

How to Hold Faith Amidst Raw Grief

~by Angie and Tommy Prince

A newly bereaved mother wrote to me by e-mail this week, having lost her beloved child less than one month ago. Her message was brief (I am amazed she was able to write at all, of course!), leaving her final request amidst her raw pain asking if I could write her back with anything I might have to say that would give her comfort.

What a sacred privilege. What a shudder-in-your-boots responsibility. To speak to the abject pain of one so steeped in shock one moment, raw paroxysms of grief the next, hoping that one word or sentiment shall be the right one to bring comfort to this dear soul trembling over her recent loss that has brought her to her knees. 

You and I know the inadequacies we feel to describe what we have been through, what we are still going through. 

We can't slickly reel out false promises of,

~Hang in there; it gets better and better!~  

because we know, we KNOW, many times it does not:

After the shock wears off in about a year, the reality begins setting in, and it seems at times our lives get disheveled beyond recognition. Post-traumatic stress often then sets in to where we not only have lost our child, we feel we are losing our minds too, our sanity hanging by a thread. Too often we are left questioning our own judgment for our bodies are screaming danger at every turn while our minds are asking,

~Is there really danger, or have the years of stress wreaked havoc with my heart, body, soul, and spirit to the degree that ALL has become a crisis to which I am too poorly equipped to adapt?~ 

Our relationships become stressed, whether with friend, family, children, and even spouse (which hits especially hard as our soul mate is often our strongest help-meet in a crisis, but as we are both in our own individual raw grief which shows itself in a myriad of different ways depending on the person, the odds are great that at times our styles will clash, and in our raw states, the sparks may fly, and added hurt is piled on our already-decimated hearts). 

Our belief systems have also been accosted, leaving us to question and rework every single belief and idea we had about God so that we can hold on to the Truth and discard forever the tinsel-town empty assurances we had dished out to ourselves, whether wittingly or unwittingly, over the years. We cannot afford to be fooled. Too much is riding on needing comfort, needing what is Real about God, needing His love, His tenderness, His stability, but not any false concepts we may have been holding onto that led us astray in regard to our understanding of Him and His heart. As the beloved grieving father / pastor (whose name I cannot now recall) proclaimed amidst his "Dark Night of the Soul" after his child's death, in essence,

"When we cannot understand God's actions . . .

May we trust His heart."

Grace is the courage to go on believing in the presence of suffering and death. This is real believing, not just the intellectual kind. "The thinking part is not all that hard. It is the feeling part that comes hard the part that lets you know in the deep places of your soul that it is all right even when your head tells you everything is ghastly."

~Lewis B. Smedes in his book, How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?

Pictures, thanks to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/7859013/30-electrifying-pictures-of-lightning-and-thunderstorms.html?image=16