Friday's Faith - Is It Good to Question God?

Friday's Faith

Is It Good to Question God?

We have shared a post before in which was argued that perhaps asking: "Why?" IS the faith question. (See Friday's Faith - The Cry of "Why?" IS the Cry of Faith ~with H. Norman Wright and Michael Card) found on our blog in the post on March 23, 2012.

Such a concept of allowing ourselves to cry out our questions to God is the very opposite of what we as grievers are so often chastised, in essence: "You shouldn't question God, because we won't know the "whys" this side of Heaven, so don't even go there with God; it's not ours to question."

We grapple with this conundrum in this way:

Perhaps it IS good to question God, not necessarily like Job who wanted to put God on trial…

Rather, we feel it's good to question God with, say, our honest hurts and feelings of betrayal, because now you've got a relationship going with Him, an honest relationship. When you feel hurt and betrayed by God, the emotional intensity of that angst says you have a relationship with God. If you didn't have a relationship with Him, you wouldn't feel hurt by Him.

Grief, Anxiety, Anger, Hurt - these are all what we call "negative" emotions, not negative because they are bad, but negative because they make you feel bad. Positive emotions are not positive because they are good, they are just positive because they make you feel good.

What we tell our clients is that emotions are not "bad" or "good" in the moral sense of the word, they just ARE; it is what you DO with them that is most important. (For another time, we can address the deep-seated, long-harbored negative feelings that can do damage if left to fester and even be acted out by taking out our negative emotions on others, etc.)

To deny having hurt, or anger, grief, or anxiety is a type of lying to oneself. God created us in His image, complete with many human emotions.

Jesus felt anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane; He sweat drops of blood as He realized what He was facing with His upcoming death. Jesus felt hurt, and abandoned by God on the cross and even cried aloud, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" If even Jesus had these "negative" emotions, won't we as well?

God gave us our emotions so that we would have relational capacity with ourselves, with one another, and most importantly, with Him. Without emotions, we would not have relational capacity!

May our emotions be honest, and may they be cried out to the Living God who knows our questions even before we ask, but who longs for us to cry them out to Him so that He can come alongside in relationship with us, especially in heart-wrenching and soul-searching times such as these.

To deny our hurts is to deny our humanity, and it is to deny ourselves any genuine intimacy with our Lord.

Picture, thanks to Google Images

Friday's Faith - Questions of Grief and Faith

Friday's Faith

Questions of Grief and Faith

Somehow we may have gotten the notion that real Christians are beyond grieving, that faith takes away the pain.

It surely helps.

There is no aspect of grieving and healing more important than faith, none that gives us more hope, more ability to cope, to rebuild.

But, at the same time, our flesh aches for the flesh of our child, for that which we beheld with our eyes and touched with our hands.

We would do less than honor to the creation of God if we did not mourn the loss of the riches God had given us in that child.

If we need assurance that it is all right to cry, we can remember that at the grave of his friend Lazarus,

Jesus wept.

To be a Christian is to know something of the risks God has taken for love’s sake. To be a parent is to know the risks we have taken for love’s sake.

We are not alone.

And we have promises:

Let not your hearts be troubled….

In my Father’s house are many rooms….

I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.

Or , in the words of the hymn “How Firm a Foundation”:

For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

But this will not happen unless

• we are willing, with the help of faith, to
• meet our child’s death on its own anguishing terms,
• grieve over it,
• ask questions and,
• in time, allow it to become a part of our life’s complex pattern.

~Excerpts from Martha Whitmore Hickman, I Will Not Leave You Desolate

John 11:35, John 14:1,2,18

http://twitpic.com/dbi97

Tuesday's Trust - What Happened to Life-As-We-Once-Knew-It?

Tuesday's Trust

What Happened to Life-As-We-Once-Knew-It?

I trust that I will have what I need, but may lose all I now have.

~My husband's words to me, reading from his journal written this morning...

My words today:

God is an interesting Economist. The day our child’s Life was saved, our lives (as we once knew them) ended...

I always knew at some level,

When any parents lose their child, their lives are “over.”

I guess I didn’t know the details of just how much their lives were over!

Everything is being challenged. My faith is being challenged. My view of work is being challenged. My relationship with others is being challenged. My relationship with family is being challenged. In the meantime, being self-employed is another challenge: how do you function as an owner of your own business/practice when facing all of these challenges? Even our work itself is being challenged—our type of work out of necessity will change as will the type of client with whom we can work—reflecting the nature of the new character we will become.

It is not that we cannot function. It is that we cannot seem to function in the way we once did.

Let me say here, the way we once functioned may have been misguided. Our intentions were good and noble, but our efforts were many times humanistic (defaulting to solely rational ways to solve our human problems). The way we function now is very different.

It is not that we cannot function; it is actually that we are forced by severe circumstance, to function at a much deeper level than before, actually a more life-producing way than before.

Grief by necessity simplifies life; it clarifies life.

With limited energy, you have to define what is important, and what is not. The important gets addressed; the unimportant often gets discarded.

For instance, we may forego cleaning our house to the more important task of

Ø Working intimately with God to cleanse our souls, or

Ø Grieve our losses, or

Ø Discover our new after-child-loss identity, or

Ø Console other grieving parents, or

Ø Learn more about social-media connections on the internet, or

Ø Start a foundation in memory of our child, or

Ø Write our books, or

Ø Write in our blogs…

Yes, it is hard to function. We struggle daily to maintain our sanity, our emotional, and our physical health. Within the last two years, I have had an at-fault car accident, a bone-breaking bicycle wreck, and another bone-breaking incident within my own home. (And, by the way, none of which is alcohol-related!)

Spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, I struggle with intensive, complicated grief brought on after the death of my child and the concurrent post-traumatic stress over the terrorizing years before her death as well as after the sudden, violent death of our teenage baby girl.

So, as I say, God is an interesting Economist. The day our child’s Life was saved, in many ways our lives ended…

But what value can you put upon a child’s soul? There is nothing more valuable than my child’s soul. There is no sacrifice too great for my child’s soul.

If our lives (as we knew them) had to end so that her Life in Heaven could begin, so be it!

Breaking that down into a nuts-and-bolts, day-to-day acceptance of reality is difficult; indeed, it is a walk of faith in/dependence upon our Lord. But, isn’t that what all Christians are called to do? Yes, but perhaps other Christians feel they have a choice of whether or not to obey.

We, Valley-of-the-Shadow-of-Death people have no choice; to survive death, we must walk the Way of Life.

God have mercy on us as daily You teach us to accept our sacrifice (take up our cross) even as we embrace Your Gift of Life to our child. Even as You taught Your own Son, please teach us to keep our eyes on the Gift, not on the cost...

(See Hebrews 12:2)

So, as I say, God is an interesting Economist...

The day our child’s Life was saved, our lives ended…or, did our deeper, more Life-producing lives just begin?

Can we trust God’s faithfulness to us as we obey Him by taking up our cross of grief?

Tuesday's Trust - What Happened to Life-As-We-Once-Knew-It? - Angie Bennett Prince 12/8/09

Merry Katherine's Valentines Day Present for Me, 2009

Continued from my 2/24/09 Post:  Today I found the song to play for you of Merry Katherine's gift from Heaven to comfort her mommy's grief -- she knows my heart; she knows my fears.  I found this c.d. on 2/10/09 that she had made for herself which included this song:  "Only Hope" by Caedmon's Call; its words reassured this mommy's heart that she knew and reveled in the saving grace of our Lord for herself.  I think she wanted me to find it just in time for Valentines Day!  Thank You, God for Your tender mercies!  Thank You for showing me her trust was firmly planted in You.  Thank You that she is now safe in her Savior's arms.  

I miss you, Merry Katherine, and I love you with all my heart.  Thank you for this precious Valentines Day Present!  Hug Jesus for me; thank Him for me for saving your precious soul, for holding you, and for hugging you for me!  And Happy Valentines Day to you too, my precious baby girl!

"Only Hope"

Caedmon's Call

Found on 2/10/09 on a c.d. she had made for herself!

Depth of mercy, can there be

Mercy still reserved for me?

Can, my god, Your wrath forbear--

Me, the chief of sinners, spare?

It's my only hope,

You're my only hope!

It's my only hope of Heaven--

At the cross forgiven!

I have long withstood Your grace,

Long provoked you to Your face,

Would not hearken to Your calls,

Grieved You by a thousand falls,

It's my only hope,

You're my only hope!

It's my only hope of Heaven--

At the cross forgiven!

There for me the Savior stands, 

Shows His wounds and spreads His hands,

Face to face before the Son, 

And like Isaiah, I'm undone . . . 

Depth of mercy vast and free,

So much deeper than the sea,

God of love, You heard my cry,

Now into Your open arms I fly!

It's my only hope,

You're my only hope!

It's my only hope of Heaven--

At the cross forgiven!

What Was Lost, in Darkness Found

What was lost, in darkness found.
(By Nathan Prince)

The worst of all realities had come: I no longer had my dear companion by my side. My closest friend, one who had helped shape me into the man that I am, was gone. Our lives now utterly and completely separated, Merry Katherine, the sister I knew would always be there, had died. The many roles she had in my heart that used to be so precious to me had now formed gaping holes. I lost the baby sister I cherished; the young woman I lovingly watched over; the sidekick in whom I delighted; the soul I had dearly bonded with; I would never know any of them again.

As you can probably gather, we were close, and pretty inseparable growing up. We actually referred to each other as our other half most of the time. Her death had indeed left me with a feeling of incompletion. I had to suddenly accept that of all the people in this world, it would be her presence that my life would now be missing. I do not know what it would be like to lose the mother who had given me life and love. Or my father who had inspired me to be courageous and a humble servant of the Lord. Or my brother who had brought me constant laughter and camaraderie. No, of all people, this was the single most capable person that “got me.” Merry and I shared a lifelong commitment of intimacy and partnership.

I think (the) majority of the pain was the timing of it all. Both of us being in college, we had regained our solidarity. This was the time in our lives when we most needed each other and we could really appreciate having the other to count on. Her troubled romantic life and my lack of a romantic life gave us the solace in knowing the other would be there for us. Through thick and thin, we trusted it. In depression or elation, we relied on it. In quarrels or harmony, we understood it. Both of us knew deep down that neither of us would ever leave the other’s side.

Neither of us would lose the hope we shared when we were little: “You’ll always be my best friend no matter what.” It was a pact that we were confident nothing in this world could break…but we never considered it could be broken without either of us deciding it to…or so suddenly.

As much grief that I experienced in the next 2 years would provide me with a lingering feeling of betrayal that I had no say in losing my best friend. I had zero say in the matter. Oddly, I did not blame God for it. I did not really blame Satan (as much as he is the root of all deaths). It felt kind of like the feeling when you lose the one object you hold most precious to your heart. Whatever that thing is, you greatly value it in your heart. When it goes missing you feel almost incomplete without it, and losing it devastates you to the core. Depending on what that thing is, the amount of sorrow that follows varies from situation to situation, but we have all had it happen. You don’t have anything else to do but accept that it’s gone. You don’t look at God to blame that it went missing, it just did. No matter who is to blame for losing it, it just hurts, and that’s all that matters to you.

. . . This was how it was after her death, when I had to start from scratch in my perspective on life itself. I began to view life in an eternal sense, simply because I had to. Peace only came when looking at things eternally. Temporarily, her death was certainly tragic, but eternally it was majestic. My sister was now in the presence of the King. How could I stay in a state of sorrow when the one I looked out for the most was now in the loving arms of her Creator? The one that loved her the most had welcomed her home, and I accepted my new life out of the trust that she now had a new, perfect life.

When we both were at Lee (University), I used to cry when we would worship in the same room because I knew that she was rekindling her relationship with the One who wanted her most. I felt at peace knowing she and I were worshiping the God that had blessed us with each other and that we were sharing in the joy that comes from being in His presence. The world would assume that it would only logically follow that with her absence, my worshiping God without her would feel incomplete or lacking. Illogically, the next time I worshiped the Lord, it was even more emotional. I was worshiping the One she was now with, and I felt her with me more than ever before in the presence of our Father. It was as if there was now an overflow of joy like never before knowing that she now worships as a way of life as I do it with a conscious effort. More tears had never fallen out of my eyes when one day, during worship in chapel, I was standing, hands raised toward heaven, singing along with all the angels, and I could feel her hand in mine as we truly worshiped God in awe of Him in all His glory.

I now see (from) her death. . . a gift from a loving God. Do I think (God) caused (her death) to happen? I don’t believe so. Did He just let it happen? I think He has more control than that. . . . He mourned with me over it . . . . I had never felt the Lord like I did when I was at the depths of suffering in, (grappling) with the loss of my truest friend I had in this world. That is when God came down to me; He took that hole that she left, and not only filled it, but replaced it with a perfect friendship with Himself.

I understand my heavenly Father as love. I felt His love more powerfully at 21 than many people ever get to. . . . I miss (Merry Katherine) and the closeness we had with all my heart. But it was with losing her that God was able to make Himself all in all in my life when I had to start from scratch. On August 2nd, 2006, I lost my best friend, but I gained a Savior I had never known before. I had known a lot about who He is, but I had not known Him as He is. He is not a God that loves us from atop the clouds, but a God that stoops down low, comes into our deepest places, lifts our eyes, picks us up, wipes away our tears, and holds us…as long as we’d like, and covers us all over with the comfort and peace that surpasses understanding. That my friends, is the love that I could never have known before she left . . . and it’s a priceless gift that I would wish (for) all of you. Let God bring you out of tragedy and into His arms. He loves you, and He waits for you.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. ----Romans 15:13 (KJV)

I love each and every one of you. . . . (A)s much as we need love, I pray for all of you to find it in the only Person that can love you infinitely and unconditionally.

(Written by Nathan Prince for Facebook Friends, highlights mine)
Yesterday at 7:26am (Feb. 27, 2009)