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How To Deal Now

It’s easy to write about God’s faithfulness after the battle is won, isn’t it? But what about when you’re in the middle of it? What about when all you can see is how you feel and how you’re messing up and what you wish you could handle better? What about when you don’t see what God could possibly be doing? What about when you’re torn between caring about your own mess and a much bigger mess worldwide?

The wars in Ethiopia, Ukraine, and Israel do the same thing to our psyche as the pandemic: they make us see what was always true, that nothing is sure and our control is an illusion and our normal daily life is a GIFT. All of that, the tension of these sentences, is a trap laden with guilt, fear, and a sense of responsibility. We struggle to have room for pain, loss, and processing in our lives but we are desperate for that space. We struggle to make room for prayer, too; we have never been more desperate and in need of being with the One who holds it all in His hands, Who grieves, Who sees the big picture, Who also speaks and leads, comforts and dwells with the lowest!

Would you agree that we as a culture, at least here in North America, do not know how to cope with disturbance and distress?

We are frustrated, saddened, and inconvenienced by our own struggles and others’ as well. The need either wakes us up or makes us want to hide in bed. We sometimes grab onto coping mechanisms or notice more erratic thoughts and behaviors because a sense of “I don’t know what even matters anymore” takes over. (And our teens and the next gen are feeling this even more than we are.)

But thank God, after painting that picture of my real internal struggle, I do actually have something positive to say here, brothers and sisters! I want to share some practices that are helping me live where I am in the moment, in gratitude and connection to God, but also allowing deep caring of which we all want to be capable.

1- We must acknowledge and accept that tragedies, and our inability to do a lot about them, are having an effect on our body and mind. We need to notice when thoughts like “you shouldn’t feel this way” or “your stuff isn’t even that bad” run through our minds. We have to accept weakness, accept that we don’t love how we feel, accept that struggles are affecting us, and also accept that we cannot fully fix what is broken about ourselves or others’ situations. It’s ok. We accept our place. We calm; we choose to be still and know that HE is God.

2- We bring our real self to Jesus. Why do we think we need to be strong all the time? Why?-when the very gospel is grace! Apply that grace to every shortcoming and everything about yourself that you wish was more or better or enough. Apply that grace to every soul around the world today, knowing that when they call on God in whatever language, whatever tongue, they will feel His presence! Hallelujah! Grace upon grace! It is ours and theirs in Christ Jesus. He delights in our receiving it way more than He would delight in our striving to not need grace! He is the Strong one; we are allowed to be shaky, unsettled, needy. Matt. 11:28-Come to Me, all you who are weary and I will give you rest. We can bring our sadness to Jesus as well as our weakness; we can bring our anger, our fears, and our numbness, too. He can truly and completely handle it. He loves His children, He loves us all.

3- We need to get the heck off of social media, constant news, talking heads, and video reports, as well as just brain-numbing scrolling through things that don’t matter. There are news sources to grab basic info: we can use them for that purpose and then stay off our phones or use our phones to connect to people we know and love! Take a break from the normal places you scroll or at least minimize it to one or two 30-min blocks a day and spend time with people in your home, church, neighborhood, and community.

4- I am going to get out my smallest Bible and carry it around instead of my phone. I’m not kidding. From what I hear and internally feel, if there was ever a time to do this, it is now. Our rock solid Hope is in Jesus and His Words, but if we aren’t dwelling on them, it’s a gold mine buried underground! We need to be changing the reel in our mind with His truth. His Word is the antidote to fear, guilt, and chaos. He tells us what matters and why. His Word narrows things down and simplifies what we are to be focused on and fighting for.

5- We really must pray, not just talk about or think about praying. Really do cast your cares and others’ cares on the Lord, really do raise your voices, knowing He hears. Really do intercede on behalf of brothers and sisters around the world. Really do read prayer emails from boots on the ground ministries (like Global Catalytic, City Serve, Embracing Hope Ethiopia, and so many more). Really do spend time talking to Father God, knowing Brother Jesus intercedes on our behalf and Holy Spirit leads, guides, comforts, and sends.

6- This one will sound a little shocking (if you know me well) but I’m going to say it: Enjoy your life. We have got to enjoy our lives! We do not need to buy more or do more, we need to enjoy what we have and be thankful and content. But what resources and assets do you have right now that you don’t even enjoy? People, games, art supplies, time, skills; don’t feel guilty to LIVE. God has you where you are. Right now, whatever we have, whoever we are with, let’s enjoy them. Let’s thank God for them. Let’s be generous and grateful. Let’s show the greatest respect for mankind that we can, and that is to celebrate freedom and the dignity of human life, living an example of contentment and gratitude and painting a picture of how it should be in a safe and loving world.

7- Let’s make sure to ask God how He wants us to give. Not if, but how, when, where, and to whom. “It’s Your’s, God, where shall I send it? I’m Your’s, God, where shall You send me? Make me a vessel of Your love and light, Lord. I lay all that I am before You, for such a time as this. I am not much but what I am is Your’s. Live through me.”

8- Praise the Lord, let His praise be on our lips regardless of our feelings or a dark cloud we may feel we are under. It’s ok and normal to feel like we are carrying a grief, shaken by things we don’t understand or aren’t even experiencing ourselves!! It is normal to feel off, tired, sad, out of it…and while we accept that, bring that to the Lord, stay in the Word (rather than constant barrage of the world), pray, and give, we also choose to lift Him high. When we praise Him, we are changed and I believe when we praise Him, things change!!! Pound the enemy with the praise of King Jesus who WILL COME AGAIN, who does see and hear and act, and who is present on the scene.

This is my hope for every human heart. That the same God who comforts and conforms me is available to ALL who will call on Him in their darkest night.

It’s okay to admit the night is dark and that we are affected greatly by it. It’s okay to not feel or be awesome in the shaking. Why? Because it was never our faithfulness or work or ability on display-it was God’s.

God is faithful. GOD is faithful! And He always will be.


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Belonging & Behavior, Part 2

Last week, I unraveled my thoughts about both OT and NT characters seeing (or missing) their chance to simply belong to God – be chosen, be beloved, be enough in His sight, be His. 

Ezekiel said yes; the masses of Israelites said no.

Mary said yes; most of the Pharisees said no. 

This is how I am challenged right now and here is what I pray becomes crystal clear in the Belonging & Behavior connection training book, which is an adoptive parenting book with a whole other layer of truth built in~

God is inviting people into His family and that belonging piece is not just a step up into a more important level (like how we act). No, belonging is our roots, it’s our trunk, it’s our branches! It’s almost everything. It’s who we are! It’s how we survive in this environment! He knew we would need, more than we realize, to be in the family with Him! And when it really has soaked in that this fellowship is real, that this goodness is true, that we have a Provider, Protector, Father, Counselor, Ever-Present-Help in times of trouble, then…we begin to reflect the good heart with which we have been communing. 

His family has certain ways they act because they have been dwelling with perfect Love. Just like in any family, the members branch out and look different, but in God’s family, all those differences are still going to point to the same beautiful, good, true things about who He is and what He does. Their behavior is the fruit. The bearing of fruit, the harvest, never comes before the planting season! This is where we go wrong when we focus on the rules of what we are doing or not doing, rather than focus on knowing Jesus personally and dwelling with Him in a relationship. 

Sometimes we need to stop and see that our behavior problems are really belonging problems…and oh how the Father would love to help us with that! Soaking in His love, we are changed. 

Like I said last week, it is repeated dozens of times in the OT that God was saying: “I want you to be My people and I want to be Your God.” And God went on multiple times to also say the following, which I think is absolutely worth mentioning…these are Family Basics, per Yahweh. This is how we act when we are His.

We will:

•Be generous to the poor and foreigner, whether that is spiritually, emotionally, or financially poor. They are in our midst for a reason. This shows we know the “Family of God” basics; this shows we know we lack nothing and can give what He gives us away without fear of lack. Giving shows we know our roots, deep in abundance with Father God. 

•Keep the Sabbath, meaning rest and don’t do what you normally do. Don’t catch up or get ahead. Literally, cease! Regroup. Recharge. Give your mouth a break from idle words. Meditate on the beauty of the Lord. Give over to Him all that makes you strive, signifying a release of all our own man-made goodness and accomplishment. This shows we trust our Provider and that we put Him above our abilities, our reputation, and anything we could build for ourselves. Resting shows that who we are comes from the work of Jesus, not us, and that the world will go on without us. It’s more than sacrifice, it is a practice of humility. 

•Know He alone is God. Regardless of past hurts or fears, He is on the throne. He is sovereign. His Word is true. He alone is God, meaning we are not…that takes the load off responsibilities that were never ours in the first place. 

Lord,

We are a tribe that longs to know You and look more like You, our Leader, our Author, our Father. But we are in an atmosphere that makes it feel so complicated as we parent, work long hours, pay for things, and deal with things that don’t seem to matter much in the Kingdom! Show us how to live here, as Yours.

Amen.

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Belonging & Behavior, Part 1

It has always been a dream of mine to write and publish a book, and last week, I crossed the finish line of that idea; thank You, Jesus! I had been working off and on for four years to write a book about how adoptive families connect, based on our experience and what we learned – both before our adoptions, and during the “hot mess” years! Ultimately, we learned a lot that paralleled the love of Father God and His invitation into the Family!

Lately I have been reading Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a prophet, whom God called to do many crazy things to show the Israelites who He was and what He was after. When you read Ezekiel, you see that while God brings new and creative visual lessons to His people, the bottom line of all these lessons is the same. Yes, He was echoing through these books that the people were horrible, belligerent sinners. But why didn’t the sin of the Philistines or the Edomites cause Him the same grief? Because God’s priority was His family: “I want you to know that I am God, your God, and that you are a people, My people.” He was upset about their behavior, He called out certain actions – but He just kept saying in all of His decisions: “Then they will know I am God.” It reminds me of Ps. 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God…”

Again, and again, and again. In Isaiah, or Lamentations, or Exodus, or just about all the Samuels, Kings, and Chronicles, God is warning: I will punish you to bring you back to Me and teach you what you really need; I will make you see that I had a special position and place for you which was the best plan for you; I will make you sorry so that you will understand and never stray again! And eventually, He lets a great number of them die, be exiled, etc, never to return to their promised land because of their consistent choice to sin and not be His people. While He left a remnant, as He promised, His warnings did come to pass. 

And in all this, the thing that keeps standing out to me is that, in my opinion and from what I can see across the Word, God’s greatest desire was simply: “a people”. A people that belonged to Him. A people that were proud to be His. A people that reflected His heart and His ways. A people who enjoyed knowing that He was God and happy they did not have to be. A people at peace, knowing that while they lived in a foreign dark world, they had a secret identity and connection to the King of a much better and more important Kingdom.

And yet that was the one thing they did not do, the one thing they refused to be. The Jews rejected this belonging. 

In the New Testament, we see that Pharisees and Sadducees were finally some Jews that had their acts together. They weren’t going to hurt the reputation of their God! They weren’t going to get punishments like their ancestors had, no way! They finally had a grip on what God wanted out of them…or so they thought. Unfortunately, they had it backwards! It was a different version of the story, but still sin and still separation from God. They couldn’t care less if they belonged to God; they really just belonged to their law books, their religion, and their self-righteousness. They had their act, and I believe they believed it was enough, I really do. But they were missing the fact that God wanted their behavior to flow from their joy of belonging to Him – in humble awe calling Him their God, in humble awe praising Him for saving them because they couldn’t possibly be near Him without mercy, and in humble awe obeying Him through serving others. This is not what the leaders in Jesus’ time on earth lived like. That’s why He judged them more harshly than the drunks and the prostitutes.

The religious leaders rewrote the story of what God wanted from them…or at least they tried to.

We make things complicated sometimes.

The question to be asking is, truly, am I thinking and living and enjoying Him…like a child of God, beloved and secure?

Lord,

Help us recognize the value, the priceless value, of belonging to You, of being Yours! Lord, the gift and the beauty of this…Thank You.

amen.

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Saying Hello

It is always hard to say goodbye to an era, to a season you were highly invested in. There’s a loss and it deserves time, and I believe time is healing. But time itself is not enough…

How do we move on, really, in wholeness and peace and new motivation?

For me, the loss is relatively quite small. It’s the end of my homeschooling era. It’s the end of my “family years” with Selah. It’s entering mid-life, leaving behind the skin and body (and sometimes brain) of a younger me.

Others have more grievous losses, like the death of a child, a major job transition, or a health scare or long term disability.

We know in our heightened focus on mental and emotional health that we can’t shove all this down. We can’t just keep busy until we forget. We can’t self-medicate with idols like overeating and numbing out.

We have to make room for it.

Some ideas for that are to write in a lament journal, just taking time to write when the sadness or confusion hits; prayers written to God who does grieve with us. Sometimes we need to take time off to caress our senses with beauty outdoors, friendships, and things we enjoy- as opposed to bingeing Netflix and ice cream. Sometimes we need to talk with someone regularly who will ask questions to make our minds wake up and sweep out the places we don’t want to go inside, finding fears and core beliefs that drive our thoughts, then feelings, then words and actions.

Healing, letting go, and moving on is an actual journey…a process…and like any good journey or process, there is an end. We are created to be resilient and heal! Skin, neural pathways, feelings- they don’t stay the same. When damaged, they can be renewed. Our hearts, our hurts, our disappointments, our memories can also be renewed and restored through the power and healing of Jesus. He can do it anyway He chooses- in an instant, or through a long journey. But just like Joseph, we can know that the timing has purpose. It is making us, molding us, and we can willingly go with that current or never see that God is there driving a current at all.

So the key is surrender. The key is surrender to an awareness of a bigger picture, of a great big God, of others in need, and of the short time we have here to run in the path He has for us. The key is surrendering not only to God’s work in our story, but surrendering to being a part of His story.

When we left Selah at college, knowing I was entrusting her to God like never before, there was this moment in worship where the lyrics were:

“Oh Christ be magnified~on the altar of my life~oh Christ be magnified in me.”

And I realized, my life being laid down—my surrender—day by day as a parent, and in the other ways I try to trust and obey Him, is for no other reason than to be a willing part of His story.

So, now it’s time to say hello not to the next chapter in my life or my family’s life, but to the page of the seemingly unseen story my life is a part of. Do I have choices, do I have feelings? Yes and yes! But I choose to get excited about His story over mine. The memory of Lyndsay Taylor on the earth will at some point be long gone; but what Jesus did through my simple, transparent, messy life surrendered to Him will actually remain!

I’m going to close with this thought. When we pray for God’s will to be done in our lives, what is our motivation? Is it to see a life that at the end we can say we “did right”; are we praying this in hopes of it all going fairly well?

Or do we pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” to surrender to our smallness, praying that the reality of our lives – whatever He allows – will make a clear way for others to see Him?

God ~ You areJehovah Rapha, Healer ~ You are Jehovah Jireh, Provider ~ please bring joy into our processes and pain, as we surrender them to Your purposes, for Your glory and Kingdom plans in the world!
Amen.

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ethiopia, here i come…

In less than a week, I get to go to Ethiopia and be with Jesus and precious people He loves.

I feel so excited, and also a little sad because I will miss my family. As friends prayed over me today and mentioned my husband and children’s names individually before the Lord, I was struck, again, by the beauty of my LIFE that I get to live here with them.

As I have said in recent posts, family life is hard. Sometimes I’m grieving, sometimes I’m confused. I am not saying it is smooth or easy. But it is beautiful.

About four years ago, I got my first tattoo and it was a step of faith – not the tattoo, but what it said and meant. It says “life is beautiful”. It was a time in my life where my daily existence didn’t feel beautiful, but I was proclaiming what GOD said about it! A year later, I went back and added three more lines to the tattoo, each saying “life is beautiful” in the three other languages that have greatly blessed and affected my life: Bambara (Mali), Amharic (Ethiopia-adopting Yemi), & Haitian Kreyol (Haiti-adopting Eva & Zoe).

Although I will keep it covered in Ethiopia most likely, the Amharic line goes with me next week as I live and abide in this truth: Ethiopian lives are beautiful. Each are created in the image of God. The ones living in the garbage dump in Kore, the ones working at the daycare, preschool, and kindergarten, the ones begging on a street corner. I am already overwhelmed (with heavy gratitude and awe) to foresee how many eyes and faces and hands and souls I will come in contact with, and I have ONE prayer…

That through the power of the Holy Spirit, my eyes and smile will convey that I value them, that Jesus loves them, that Creator God is for them not against them, that they are seen and known by Him, and that this Holy Spirit interaction will indeed enact desire for GRACE BY FAITH in Jesus.

Other than my last time in Ethiopia, I can’t think of a place I have gone that I could not speak at least a preschool version of the language. In Amharic, I’ve got nothing! How awesome to know that my lack and inability will be so deep and wide, making lots of room for Him to speak in the spirit realm.

As was confirmed with my sweet friends this morning, it is my lack and inability that truly is the “new wineskins” that Jesus needed me to prepare for Him to fill with new wine. Maybe the old wineskins were my laws and my self-righteousness, my abilities and commitment level and strengths. Now, both in this Ethiopian trip and in my new desire for the counseling and prayer ministry, I only have this to offer: Me (weaknesses & all) plus the grace and presence of Jesus. And how clear it is in this moment that my beautiful life was not meant to be anything but that.

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I Get to Serve the Lord!

I am so thankful! I am so thankful that God hears our prayers and wants to walk this life with us. I’m so thankful His Word is true and His heart is love.

Last Thursday, I finished my courses in order to be a Certified Mental Health Coach with the American Association of Christian Counseling. It was a wonderful program and I am continuing, working to add on a specialization in Biblical Counseling now. So far, every hour has been incredible, both for my growth and edification and for being equipped to help others.

Later that day, my daughter and I were scheduled to visit Asbury University, so we went and ended up spending a lot of time in worship and prayer as REVIVAL had broken out on campus! While there, I was wrestling with the Lord about several things regarding this “new calling” of counseling ministry. Here are some of the particular wrestles:

-I am just a coach, not a licensed professional counselor. Will anyone take me seriously? Is this just embarrassing? Is this humbling on purpose? (If so, I’m glad!)

-When I pass around a business card or meet with someone for coaching and prayer, am I trying to make myself sound “all that”? Am I prideful? Or am I actually just being obedient and faithful?

-Is it wrong for me to be SO EXCITED about using my gifts in this way? Is that annoying? Is that going to feed any part of me that is self-centered?

-What will this look like? I know the Lord told me to prepare new wineskins for Him to fill and I feel like He is telling me what those are, but how much time and availability do I actually really have? I don’t want to sign up for more than I can do while remained super-centered in abiding in Christ, my own health, and my home/family.

I could go on, but you get the gist of the anxiety.

As I wrestled with God and all my questions, the speaker at the front of the room said if you would like prayer for being salt and light in the ministry God has set before you back home (as many of us had traveled to be there), come up. So I did.

All my circular, messy thinking converged in that moment of just walking up for simple prayer.

It was a simple prayer. But I agreed and believed along with every word, and sometime in that day or the next, a joy bubbled up inside of me that said: “You get to serve the LORD!!!!”

I felt the Spirit saying: Stop apologizing. Stop talking about it. Stop making less of it or light of it. Stop making more of it, too. Every believer is called and commissioned to do this! Millions of us are to be filled with the Word, the Spirit, His body and blood, and with our spiritual gifts, edify the body and bless the world!

No, it isn’t about us. But knowing our gifts, knowing ourselves, knowing our God, knowing where and to whom He is sending us, is not self-centered or bragging. “It is not by might not power, but by My Spirit”, says the Lord. This has been covered. This is old ground.

Here are the precursors to serving. Do this and then GO in Jesus’ Name!

-Abide in Christ and His Word.

-Trust in the Holy Spirit and lean not on your own understanding, reputation, or self-image.

-Be still and know that He is God.

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What Grief Feels Like To Me

I was driving last weekend and the Lord led me to this thought:

Grief is not a problem to be fixed, it is a process to be fostered.

I am in that process.

For me, it is a different type of grief than the death of a loved one, it is the grief of change in relationships. While there are details that make it harder than I expected, I was aware I was going to be grieving at this time of my life. My oldest is about to graduate, and I have home schooled her almost all of her life. There are specific things I am really concerned about for her, things that are for the most part out of my hands and in her’s and God’s. We are very close and she is going away to college in the fall. She won’t even be that far, but I know that I am going to lose a piece of myself not only as she goes, but as she grows. She is becoming whoever she is going to be. I am going to eventually have to get to know her again and what I have with her, and who she is, and who we are together, very well might be very different. The precious thing about this is knowing our attachment is so real…otherwise, my heart wouldn’t feel so happy and sad, excited and terrified, at the same time.

It’s important, in grief work, to understand that there is no going back to normal. I know that sounds really sad, and that sadness, that gravity of reality, is hard. But even that is important in the process. Thinking we can go back to normal should never be our goal; in fact, that would be quite insane, right? We would never actually get there, yet keep wondering why. It’s impossible and we have to eventually accept that. Time, hurt, bringing things to the surface, prayer, understanding people’s real feelings and choices (whether we like them or not), and the process of grief transform us, for the good or the bad, but we never actually get to go back. Instead, here’s the hope-filled part: As we allow grief its rightful time in our life, we catch glimpses and ideas and even dreams of what the next phase, the next “normal”, can look like. There is a life beyond this one, even here on earth. Phases and seasons…we can learn to love them.

God made us resilient. He really did. That is in each of us, by the grace of God. There are gifts I have found in grief…Here are a few:

-The gift of allowing myself to feel everything, without guilt or cheering myself up

-The gift of tears

-The gift of sleep (especially important in the early hours of traumatic events)

-The gift of unexpected silliness or laughter, which is never anything to feel guilty about

-The gift of time, how remembering events, words, and sensations becomes gradually less shocking, jarring, and stabbing (Depending on the severity of the trauma or loss, the longer this takes, but it does happen, by God’s grace.)

-The gift of truth to hold onto

-The gift of the closeness and comfort of God, and the knowledge that we don’t have to do anything but let Him be there with us

-The gift of friends, family, and community

-The gift of counseling

-The gift of acceptance

-The gift of faith

-The gift of slowing down

-The gift of just sitting and looking out the window and letting it all pass, as uncomfortable as the stillness might be

-The gift of knowing such a love in the first place

-The gift of knowing perfection was never needed, regrets can dissolve, there is grace

We don’t have to know it all. We don’t have to contain in ten steps how to grieve properly and get back on our feet again. We just don’t get control like we want. But there is good, there is God, in it all.

“Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21

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Happy New Year!

“A man can plan his steps

but the Lord will lead him right or left

Sometimes it seems so clear

but sometimes it seems like years since we heard Him speak

and that’s when faith runs deep.”

I wish you a wonderful new year, dear readers.

I wish you time in God’s Word, precious moments of worship and prayer, and a daily filling of His presence and peace.

I wish you priorities, vision, and strength that will bless and enrich your life like never before.

I wish you “new wine skins” for a “new wine”; new spaces that become clear and clean for God to fill as you wait on Him, and new spaces that become lush and vibrant through remaining in Him.

I wish you hope and also acceptance and surrender if things go completely upside down this year.

I wish you the ability to receive grace, because it is the most real gift- whether we actually accept it or not. I say it is real because so much of our judgment, criticism, efforts at self-improvement, and perceptions of how others or God view us are just making those wheels spin but getting nowhere and it’s not real. These attempts at being better are not the way, and they are surely not the truth and the life. Jesus is the Way. He is the Truth. He is the Life. We can get off the treadmill, and actually take His yoke upon us and move forward with Him, doing some real work, covering some real ground, instead. Amen, dear ones?

I wish us to go at His pace.

I wish us trust, obedience, and peace.

In Jesus’ name.

“And like a stream that may freeze

in the spring it comes back with the leaves

begins to flow and bring life

a stream will not remain still for too long

before it must go on.”

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November

I haven’t done my usual Wednesday blogging in almost a month.

It has been a hard month…for so many people. The last blog I wrote was about believing, choosing to believe, that God is enough for those who are grieving or doubting. And that is what I have been doing as I wait and pray.

I’m thankful that God brings new opportunities every day – every hour really – to be filled by Him, to be renewed, to remember. Otherwise, how could we do this? How could we keep going? His Spirit and His Word really are our water and food. Our inner man can live abundantly, even in all this.

There were losses and funerals…there were painful conversations…there is chronic illness and questions and pain…there are severe issues in young lives that I care about…several in my immediate family were sick…and God keeps saying “hold on to Me.”

As a “helper”, as a listener, prayer-warrior, mom, wife, and friend, it can sometimes be hard to keep holding on to Him if I am holding on tight to others “in need.” When my focus gets on myself (and how I feel), or others (and how they feel), I begin to sink.

This isn’t about detaching from others, but it is about embracing the reality that my role is actually to keep my eyes on Jesus while asking others to join me.

Again, again, again, again – The exhale comes when we put our eyes on Him. When He is in His rightful place, we can be in our’s. That’s where rest is. That’s where strength is. That’s where joy is.

What I learned in November, again: It is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Hang in there – by holding on to Him.

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Believing God for the Grievers

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

There is so much grief surrounding us right now.

I have been thinking about how in many parts of the world, that grief never lifts.

I would assume many people become numb to it, becoming accustomed to constant loss.

But most of us here in America aren’t accustomed to constant loss, death, disease, epidemics, or the absolute worst: having a child die before their parent.

But in our community, over the past few weeks and thinking back to a few years ago, we have lost so so so many young people. Each of their families will never be the same, and there is a somberness we all feel in knowing that. I think that’s appropriate. I think we are learning sorrow and joy can co-exist and they must. I think we are learning life is short and we have to stay focused on what truly matters.

Lately, I’ve been telling my kids in light of college applications, test scores, making teams, having a boyfriend or not, all they could worry about, etc. : All that really matters is your peace with God.

Emphasis on God.

How do we carry the pain of grief when something so final and so terrifying happens to someone we know?

We humbly and confidently expect God to show up in the fullest extent of His power and love for them.

We boil it all down to Him and what His Word says He is and what His Word says He can do.

We place our TRUST that HIS power, HIS healing, HIS closeness, and HIS sufficiency is going to rush in, comfort, hold, mend, strengthen, uphold, counsel, and bring life to the grievers – to those left behind to learn how to live again.

We join in their grief by joining in their faith, upholding their faith even if they can’t feel or say or believe anything right now.

I don’t know the right words to say, and this message isn’t for the grievers. It’s for those who love those grievers. As we give money, support in any way we can, help with kids, clean or cook, show up to memorial services, cry and sit and visit and send cards, or pray from afar, this is what we hold onto…for them, for ourselves, because reconciling loss affects us all.

Every one of us will go through loss and sorrow personally. When we do, what do we want people to do for us? What do we want them to hold onto alongside us?

For me, I know the answer.

I want people to trust the Lord with me.

I want people to trust that God is going to reveal a part of Himself to me in my raw heart break that I have never seen before.

I want people to trust that because He lives, I can and will face tomorrow.

As we mourn, as we question, as we despair, as we numb out, as we lay there, as we cry, as we try to function again, we can also believe that God’s power can and will do the impossible.

If He can make a crumpled hand stretch out…

if He can make lung tissue begin to swell with breath again after days in the tomb…

if He can forgive a murderer, if He can welcome all of us into perfect eternity after all our failures…

if He can promise resurrection life of our actual bodies and our actual souls so that anyone who comes to Him will never die and never be lost for good…

He can make a way for grievers and sufferers to thrive again – attached to the Vine, bearing fruit, living, loving, giving, breathing, glowing, reflecting His light in a dark world – consoling others in their afflictions in the same way they received consolation from God. And until that day, He can live in their heart and mind and body through the power of the Holy Spirit and give them each breath that they need, each thought that they need to make it another day.

I choose to believe this. I choose to believe He will be who every mourner will find with them at the very rock bottom of their pit. I choose to believe we daily need to feed our faith so that when it is our time, while we still face all the horrors of physical, mental, and emotional trauma, we know there is only One whose fellowship, whose closeness, can really heal.

For anyone reading this now, the Word of God is alive. When we eat of it, we become more alive. If death is surrounding your heart and mind, He is calling your name out of death and into life–calling your attention to Him and a life in the Spirit, an inner life that will never die. As we sow seed to this inner life, this life in Christ, the things of the world become less important and the mind set on the Him is life and peace. (Romans 8, Colossians 3, Isaiah 26:3) This life is passing. It is shakeable. But we are called into a life hidden with Him, and His refuge, His arms, are there for us every time we cannot handle our earthly senses another moment. He longs to hold us, renew us, and then send us back with new strength. (Isaiah 40:31) Let us grow and deepen that part of us that cannot be shaken.