I wrote this Sunday, August 8, 2014, a little less than 4 months after we lost Zoe. I believe the sermon that day was titled Trust His Timing. I was going to post it to our family blog, but never did. As I reflect back on it, I feel even more confident now about how I felt then.
This Sunday, while going through the gospel of Luke, our pastor was teaching from chapter 8. The passage was a familiar one, the healing of Jairus’s daughter.
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After reading the passage be began with an illustration about a pastor who was in Turkey for a conference. He received a call about his teenage daughter being in a terrible accident and was left on life support. After changing his flight, he was left in the airport for 5 hours awaiting his flight home. While reading his Bible, he came across the story of Jairus’s daughter, but from the Gospel of Mark (chapter 5). Upon reaching verse 23, he struggled to make it through the verse.
He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”
He could empathize with the earnestness with which Jairus pleaded. For him, there was comfort in knowing that he could relate to Jairus’s desperate heart.
Our pastor left the illustration without sharing with us whether or not his daughter lived; I was left the impression that she did survive.
The story of this pastor visiting Turkey and Jairus’s story immediately affected Mackenzie and I in perhaps a different way than other people in the congregation.
We too have felt the desperation that Jairus felt. Similar to our story, his daughter died as well. However, for us, Zoe was not raised to life. The healing Zoe received was different than what we would have asked for. I can see Jesus picking Zoe up in his arms during that nap, and gently whispering, “My precious child, wake up.”
For both Jairus and for our family, healing occurred; however it looked very different. Both required faith and trust in Jesus’s. One ended with the results as prayed for, ours did not. I can’t tell you why God chose us to receive the gift of Zoe’s life and death, but I can tell you that He is using it for his glory as we trust His timing.
God has not asked me to understand why He has chosen to show His power and glory through Zoe’s death. I can, however choose to either receive it or reject it.
We have chosen to receive it. We hurt. The pain is real, but we now know what it means to have God come and enter into our pain with us. He is there in those days when we feel like we don’t know how to do anything without losing it. He is there when we have fun and laugh with the boys. He is there when we are supported by family, friends, and strangers. He is there when we feel like we have not rely on each other. He is there.
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We trust in God’s timing, not because we understand it, but because He is there with us. Looking back at those words and the journey we have been on since Zoe’s death, I see that God has used her death to grow our trust in him, to show us love and support of people who were there for us in our grief and continue to be, and to draw others closer to Him. He has also shown us how He is using Zoe’s death to walk with other through their grief and loss. I still can’t tell you why God chose us for this terrible gift, but I can tell you what He is doing through it.
Trust His timing and keep moving forward. He will, in time, show you what He is doing. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it!