Tuesday's Trust - In Loss, We Are Drawn to Him...

Tuesday's Trust

In Loss, We Are Drawn to Him...

Fearing to launch on "full surrender's" tide,

I asked the Lord where would its waters glide

My little bark, "To troubled seas I dread?"

"Unto Myself," He said.

Weeping beside an open grave I stood,

In bitterness of soul I cried to God:

"Where leads this path of sorrow that I tread?"

"Unto Myself," He said.

Striving for souls, I loved the work too well;

Then disappointments came; I could not tell

The reason, till He said, "I am thine all;

Unto Myself I call."

Watching my heroes---those I loved the best---

I saw them fail; they could not stand the test,

Even by this the Lord, through tears not few,

Unto Himself, me drew.

Unto Himself! No earthly tongue can tell

The bliss I find, since in His heart I dwell;

The things that charmed me once seem all as naught;

Unto Himself I'm brought.

---Selected

~from Streams in the Desert, by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman (1925)

Tuesday's Trust - Specially Made...To Be Broken ~Nathan Prince

Tuesday's Trust

Specially Made...To Be Broken

~Nathan Prince

I wanted to share with you, my readers, my son Nathan's words on his blog this past week, describing his devastation from his loss of his sister, his best friend:

...(I)t is just...different when you lose a part of yourself. Didn't realize how MUCH she was a part of me, but it's just this gaping hole that has remained, and the harsh realization that not only has it not gone away, it has disabled my ability to brush things off calously like I used to easily do, to now, where

my sheer existence is like I am made of glass.

I picture myself as a vase, which not only is empty and the once beautiful designs that made it unique have worn off. It has been chipped around the edges, and has cracks all throughout its once unbroken structure, and even the slightest bump up against the table it rests on will send it crashing to the ground.

This is not to say that this vase is irrepairable, it is actually impossible to restore an actual broken vase to what it once was.

But the Potter that made this vase created it in such a way that only He can pick up the shattered vase lying helplessly and hopelessly broken, and restore it back to the way He originally designed it,

and through the compassion He has on it as His prized creation, He makes it even more beautiful and unique than before.

It now has a peaceful security in knowing how much care the Potter has for it, and has more joy than ever because while it was shattered on the ground, useless and forgotten, He stooped down and picked up every piece and made it anew.

The display of the love and compassion of the Potter toward His vase in this story shows the beauty of God's grace, and

how much compassion and understanding He has on this fragile vase I have become.

You should know that this story just flowed out of me from the Holy Spirit, not myself.

And He is why I write.

(highlights mine)

From Nathan's blog: http://bloggingthetruthinlove.blogspot.com/

Friday's Faith — Contrast of Worlds

Friday's Faith

Contrast of Worlds

In attempting to comfort my exhausted grieving brain, I allow myself to take a "visual vacation" by perusing my new Southern Living magazine—with its pictures of delicate flowers so appealing, happy people, scenes alluring, pleasant, conventional, and sweet...I was so enjoying the beautiful pictures revealing God's lovely world in this issue of "Charleston's Romantic Charm"...

...But my poor traumatized brain cannot let go. Like an olympic skating champion sliding around his opponent at the last minute, my traumatized right brain suddenly overrides my left brain, replacing these pictures of God's beautiful world with abrupt, raw, intrusive images of the stark, ugly, abhorrent world of death I've been thrown into with the loss of my baby girl.

Tears fall. The contrast is too great.

The magazine's delightfully displayed normal scenes of God's world that once accurately reflected the joy of my heretofore normal world are instantaneously contrasted with my world now, ugly and grey...horrid, repugnant, loathsome, and repulsive.

So, to help my further-traumatized brain, I write these words...

Contrast of Worlds

Beautiful world...roses cascading down...

My world is ugly...death throws me aground.

Exquisitely flowering azaleas...

While I'm floundering, helpless, disabled...

What's happened? We're all a part of God's world...

Some are happy...

Others to hell are hurled!

What happened to my life...once joyful,

Once playful...

Now looking for a quarrel,

my heart's agitated, full of unrest...

easily aggravated, sad, distressed.

Beautiful life--who am I becoming?

Her death transmutes...I'm volcano, rumbling...

Once happy, glowing eyes...to

eyes now haunted,

Life overflowing...

now, by death...taunted.

How do I deal with the repugnant mess?

I turn to God's Word; my pain I confess...

There I find answers to my dark distress...

If I go up to the heavens,

You are there;

if I make my bed in the

depths, You are there.

If I rise on the wings of the

dawn,

if I settle on the far side of

the sea,

even there Your hand will

guide me,

Your right hand will hold

me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness

will hide me

and the light become night

around me,"

even the darkness will not be

dark to You;

the night will shine like the

day,

for darkness is as light to

You.

Give me Your vision, my child's death to see

through the vast prism of eternity

where darkness becomes light, night shines like day,

night reveals Light, in darkness, show the way...

"I'm in the dearth of death's darkness!"

(Then) You say,

"I am your Light... despite darkness rife...

In death's dark night of the soul..."

You say,

"Child, I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life...

Death's dark night pales in the Light of My Way.

Cling to Me by faith; I'll light up your way..."

With God's healing balm caressing my ravaged heart, with promises that no matter how dark the way, He will walk with me. For me right now, in this moment, that is enough - He soothes my heart; He lights my day.

Scripture ~Psalm 139:8-12

Poem - Contrast of Worlds - Angie Bennett Prince - 2/22/2010

Tuesday's Trust - Dim Reflections

Tuesday's Trust

Dim Reflections

God, I cannot handle dim reflections

Of your image, of who You really are.

I need all of Your tender affections:

Tenderness gathers my tears in a jar.

Your tenderness takes my heart in Your hands

And pours Your balm of healing through and through.

I need Your truth, not th’ religion of man’s

To penetrate my soul and spirit true.

Of all th’ times I need You, I need You now

When my heart is broken, torn through with holes…

I need not ask You what, when, why, or how;

I need Your presence, Healer of men’s souls.

Your presence holds me, takes me in Your arms.

Your presence shows me who You really are.

Your presence shields from all Satan’s alarms.

Your presence nurtures, helps me fight Grief’s war.

Your presence was there for her that dark night…

You took her in Your arms; You saw her plight.

Your presence is here for me this dark night…

You take me in Your arms, resting my plight.

“Be near me Lord Jesus; I ask You to stay

Close by me forever, and love me, I pray!”*

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

Psalm 56:8 NLT

*Part of the third verse of the beloved hymn, “Away in a Manger”

Version of Scripture used: NLT-New Living Translation

Poem - Dim Reflections - Written 10/13/2009 - Angie Bennett Prince

Tuesday’s Trust - Letter to My Readers

The (story) we sit down to write and the one we end up writing may be very different, just as the Jesus we grasp and the Jesus who grasps us may also differ. ~Madeleine L’Engle

Tuesday’s Trust

I apologize to you my readers. I fully intended to set out some scriptures to you to help you get a better glimpse of God's heart. So I did. I wrote out the scriptures; I even posted them in the early hours of today. But my post seemed lifeless. It appealed to the intellect, to give some sort of answers to many of our questions to God during grief. It talked about His amazing love for us, but I took the post down. Why did I take it down?

My Lord is living; He is alive, dynamic! The words that I wrote, although very true, were taken out of their proper context and thrown before you, to give you “answers” to some very tough questions we grievers often have of God. But THAT is not my experience of how God meets me in the middle of so many of my questions. And therefore, just spitting those “answers” out to you would not be true to my real message; spitting those “answers” out would not be fair to you my reader.

You deserve a better picture of God that is more true to how He presents Himself to me, fully engaging in my life, with His love overflowing, and a tenderness that surpasses all my expectations or what I could ever imagine from Him!

And so, the list of scriptures, although part of God’s Living Word, when set on my blog post, felt empty. They were separated from story, from the story of scripture, and from the story of my life when they ministered to me. So they rang hollow, emptied of the flesh they were poured into, the flesh of my life when I was in the throes of grief – in the throes of a mother’s worst desperation.

When I ask God my questions, He doesn’t give me “answers.”

He gives me Himself, not “answers”!

And He Himself is what satisfies, because when He comes to me, I know He loves me, and I know He loves my child. And how do I know that? Because He shows it; He doesn’t just “tell.” And that, after all, is the real answer to my need.

He owes none of us any explanations, but when we come in humble grieving before Him, He comes to us. He doesn’t have to, but He wants to. He hears our broken hearts, and it breaks His heart…because He loves us. And He attends to our wounds, our misconceptions, our hurt, our confusion, and our dismay.

Sure, I think over time, you may very well read each and every scripture I had posted earlier today. But hopefully, this time, you will hear them in their context: in story, in my story, in this grieving mother’s outcries to her Lord, and you will hear His loving responses—not always “answers,” but guides to get me back on track, of remembering who He really is, not who I, in the throes of grief, have made Him out to be.