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Trusting His Timing

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.

(Photo Credit)

 

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!

 

 

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He is Hope

He is Hope.

I came across this picture recently, and it took my breath away. I had forgotten that this was the backdrop to the funeral service for our daughter Zoe. As I gazed at the screen, it seemed only fitting, now knowing what He had planned for our family, and the ministry- Hope Family Care, that He would birth out of this event.

As we sat there that day very much engulfed in our own grief, I had no idea that God would use our precious Zoe to bring Hope to others in the midst of their own grief and loss.

When I see this picture, I am reminded that God knew, even before she was born, that He wanted to use our daughter’s life and death to bring hope to others. I am reminded that the God who understood the loss of a child; was comforting me, and I am reminded that God willingly gave up His Son so that one day I (and others) could have Hope.

From the point of view of a father who has lost a child, Easter reminds me that God (the Father), isn’t asking me to walk through anything He himself wasn’t willing to walk through. He accepted the pain, the devastation, and the heartbreak, all because He could see the whole picture and had the end in mind. He didn’t allow Himself to get stuck on the here and now, but loved our sinful world so much that He was willing to sacrifice now for an ultimate goal of resurrection power.

Even in the midst of our darkest tragedy, God is still good. He is still good not because of what He does, but because of who He is. Good is his nature, his character, everything about Him is good.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Not just that, but look at the verses after, and see what else He promises…

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

So this Easter, remember that even though you may be walking through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’,   and it doesn’t feel good that He who is good is walking right beside you.

HE is HOPE

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I Will Answer

“Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” Isaiah 65:24

I have shared bits and pieces of God’s goodness and how God answered before we called. One day, I’d love to write our story- day by day- to show the physicality of God when many would find it hard to see him. But sometimes, when we don’t think we see him, that’s where He shines the brightest.

Click HERE to continue reading…

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New Years After Experiencing Loss

Before loss, a new year meant starting over; a clean slate. We would often make a list (at least in our heads) of things we wanted to improve on or begin, in the new year. It was seen as a fresh start.

Now, after experiencing loss, our tendency is to look back rather than forward. Fear creeps in and we begin thinking, that a new year means moving on, forgetting, leaving their memory behind, and or letting go. We live in this paradigm of wanting to feel better, but not being sure we are willing to turn our gaze forward rather than behind.

So many times in our grief, we have to choose a perspective shift- New Years is one of them. While it may be easy to reflect on how long we have been without our loved one, we can choose to see that with our Hope in Christ and his eternal promise, we can have an eternal perspective. This new year, we are now, one year closer. One year closer to holding them again.

So today, let’s stop and remind ourselves, as much as the media and companies tell us differently, January 1st is… Just. Another. Day. Nothing definitive. There are no lines you need to draw in the sand, and nothing you have to leave behind. If you choose to make a goal this year, a grief goal is a great place to start- push myself to get out more, go to a counselor, connect with a grief community for support, share my grief thoughts/needs with my spouse/family more, create a family night where we all feel safe sharing playing and sharing whats going on in our hearts and lives.

This new year, let’s walk forward with an eternal perspective and focus on the MORE this change of the calendar can bring- MORE laughter, MORE gratitude, MORE friends, MORE memories, MORE love, MORE chances to make a difference in the lives around you.

 

 

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Thankful Under All Circumstances

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

One misconception we have at Thanksgiving, is that all of our songs (Psalms) of Thanksgiving will sound the same, with the same tune. I am reminded that all of our Psalms of Thanksgiving will in fact not sound the same this year or any year for that matter, but we ALL still have a song to sing! Whether our song of Thanksgiving has a sorrowful or cheerful tune, God still asks us to sing to Him. He doesn’t ask us to forget or ignore our pain to give Thanksgiving, but rather embrace and use it. God can use our sorrowful song of Thanksgiving to praise Him in a way we’ve never been able to before. It may just be the sweetest tune you’ve ever sung and the world has ever heard- God’s glory!

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll catch your breath. Psalm 34:18 (The Message)

As we choose to be thankful this Thanksgiving, we are truely humbled by all that we do have to be thankful for this year! So today, we are not praising and celebrating our loss of a loved one but rather the hope of glory that fills our hearts. We give thanks to God because he tells us that our sorrow and pain ‘will be worth it’!

We are also thankful for the reminder that we serve a God who knows our pain. God knows the deep grief of loosing a child, but he did not allow it to define his life. His life on earth was defined by love so that we could have hope.

So today may a deep love of God overwhelm all of our pain this season in a way that we might ALL experience great hope!