Grief is messy

In my growing up years, especially early on my family moved many times.  Sometimes moves were states away and sometimes only hours or minutes but it was my life and I knew no different.  My family was intact and we all moved together so I was fine and ready for adventure (until I was 17 but that is a different story).  A constant in my life was family.  I had love and stability.  Extended family gathered for special occasions and holidays.  some family relationships were cherished and dear to me and others were relationships of proximity.  But what amazes me as I write this is what God can do through all types of relationships...what beauty He can bring from ashes.  For I know that what the enemy meant as harm, my God meant for good and for His glory.  Let me tell you about Grandma.  She was my grandmother, named Bonnie and we called her Grandma Bonnie or just 'Grandma'.

Grandma grew up in southern California.  We would visit her there when I was young and she would come visit my family when she and Chuck could.  I fondly remember airport adventures and, thanks to photographs, can visualize the memories my mind is too young to recall.  While I knew Grandma could be fun to be around and I could always count on a birthday card and a bag full of wrapped presents each Christmas, I would not have considered us to be close.  As a child I did not understand and could not have explained to you the dynamic in place.  As a young adult, I began to unmuddy the waters but, unfortunately, not through the lens of my forgiving Savior.  I picked up the lens of hurt and anger and, even worse, self-righteousness to view Grandma.  You see, Grandma didn't know Jesus for her first 85 years.  She knew a life of seeking...and she sought the things or people she believed would fulfill her needs.  Married 4 times and mother to Debbie, she pursued only what she wanted.  She didn't know what it was to cherish motherhood.  Not knowing how to truly love, she never gave my mother a sense of belonging or security.  Leaving her daughter, my mother, to herself and in broken places with broken people, my grandmother left unspeakable scars on my mother's soul.

Grandma eventually sent my mother to live with a previous step-dad in Washington state.  I knew this man as Grandpa Chuck (yes, there are two Chucks in this story...believe me, I am keeping the complications to a minimum).  With a whole-hearted spirit of adoption he and his family took my mother in and cared for her, giving her a glimpse of the redemption to come.  And even while broken and hurting my mother never completely cut Grandma out of her life and my mother never spoke ill of Grandma to me as I was growing up.  As I gradually learned of the past, my relationship dynamic with Grandma didn't change much because we were not close.  I held up my lens and looked upon my mother's scars and wanted to protect both my mother and myself.  Oh, but God

When God needs to change a heart, he goes to great lengths to do it.  And, so, he brought me Grandma.  Literally.  One summer Grandma, who had lived a little of here and there after leaving California, decided she wanted to live close to me.  I still wonder why but, with God, it all makes sense.  She moved 10 minutes away from us and it became clear rather quickly that she and Chuck (Chuck #2) needed a lot of help.  Physical help, financial help and, goodness gracious, serious medical and medicine help.  After a year had passed, things were declining and it became apparent that Grandma and Chuck couldn't live on their own and we moved them in with us temporarily.  That was a difficult and dark time in our home.  I don't know if you have spent a lot of time around people who are satisfied with the world and want nothing to do with God but it is emotionally and spiritually draining.  It was also a sweet time when the presence of Jesus was palpable and oh so dear to me.  My family, especially my children, poured God into Grandma and Chuck not understanding why someone would reject such a message of hope.  All the while, I wanted God to soften hearts and bring them into a relationship with Him but I still had the lens I created as I looked upon them.  God's timing is perfect and absolutely beautiful and so, being the patient Lover of my soul, He chiseled and refined and waited. Waited on salvation for Chuck as he was dying of cancer and salvation for Grandma as her body was failing and dying, yes, but He also waited on me to surrender the lens I had and begin to look through His, glory hallelujah!

As we knew the end of this life was near for Grandma, I experienced the full gamut of emotions.  Knowing God had given her clarity of mind and an opportunity to be born again, which she accepted weeks before her 86th and final birthday, I rejoiced and rested in peace.  In her last weeks my mother, father, sister and my family sat with her, trying to bring something of comfort...something of worth.  And so I poured out Scriptures and promises and sang of amazing grace and of the streets of gold.  I held her hand and she would squeeze back.  Sometimes the squeezes seemed to say thank you and others they seemed desperate and lonely.   But, then there's the reality of the end.  There's the reality of the mess of my heart.  The birth of a new heart is painful.  While I know that the loneliness of Grandma's heart was mostly the result of her past choices, I began to have true compassion for her. Of course, Jesus had been filling me with Himself during the 7 years of being her main caregiver, but He was ready to do something permanent in my heart and my heart was finally tender enough to change.

 For this next part I so wish I could sit next to you and look into your face as I share, and even then I cannot do describing God's power justice.  On Grandma's last good day, she was able to speak some and was very responsive to me being there.  She even asked me if I could pray for God to take her to hew new home right then.  I did but God had another 14 days left for her here.  I felt as if I had told her goodbye each time I saw her because that is essentially what we were doing.  That was incredibly intense.  I felt too drained to continue and as if there were no more words to be said.  But as I prayed and listened to the Spirit, I knew there was more.  I looked into her eyes and told her that I had been taking care of her for a long time (and that it hadn't always been easy, to which she nodded in agreement) but that God had taught me SO much through taking care of her and that I was thankful for that.  And then, out of my heart overflowed a truth I didn't expect to ever feel, know or say.  "I'm glad you're my Grandma".  Let me tell you that the weight behind that statement is unbearable.  I meant that I was glad she was my Grandma and everything that came with that.  Everything.  All the junk.  All the baggage.  All the pain.  Oh, friends, that is only from God!

I have known that we were doing the "right" thing by taking care of Grandma and Chuck all this time, and my heart was to serve Jesus.  My motivation was to do what was right and also to protect my mother and myself from the wounds and scars being ripped open as we took care of one who failed to care for her.   I just don't think my motivation was to be changed by Jesus.  As I glanced at something of Grandma's that years ago made me angry because it reminded me of all the hurt she had left in her wake, I was startled.  Stunned, I laughed and realized that the changes in my heart Jesus was making had shattered the lens through which I saw Grandma.  I now saw her through His lens, His eyes.  I saw a lonely and broken woman who had been searching.  A woman whose stubborn heart had kept her from God until recently.  And I had compassion on that woman.

"The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and, if necessary, 

at the greatest cost, to the least deserving.  That's what God did."

John Piper

I surely must not forget that my stubborn heart has led me astray, wandering in the wilderness of my own pursuits and bowing to whatever I felt could get me what I wanted.  I am the worst of sinners.  I do not deserve the love, mercy, grace and faithfulness of my Savior.  There is no one righteous.  Why a holy and just God would pursue me is beyond my comprehension.  Therefore, without judgement, I am compelled to show the love of Christ to the least deserving because He has done that for me, the least deserving.

With Grandma's dramatic physical decline, we knew the end of her life here on earth was nearing.  As I prayed for her earthy suffering to end, knowing she would be with Jesus when it did, I also felt a pang...something unexplainable.  While we grieve with hope, we still grieve.  Death is something to be angry at.  It is something to hate.  When Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus (John 11), the typical translation of the Greek word used in verse 38 is too weak; the word means to "bellow with anger".  Theologian B.B. Warfield describes Jesus as having "irrepressible anger".  As painless and as "natural" as some deaths occur, death is NOT natural.  It is the enemy of life and the Creator of life.  Death represents not only loss and separation, which is significant enough, but also opposition to God's original design.    OH, but we are not alone in our grief.  We are not alone in our suffering.  God is both a sovereign and suffering God.  Timothy Keller says, "The sovereignty of God is mysterious but not contradictory."  This is crucial to trusting Him when we do not understand.  I do not understand the recent and sudden death of a friend.  I do not understand the injustices of this world.  All I can lean on is Jesus and the Word of God and the peace He can and will bring when my tears are my food, when my heart is shattered.  I can remember that not only does He hate death, but He conquered it!  Hallelujah!!  

As I embraced my Grandma during her last breaths, I had peace and blessed assurance but also something that rose up within me, hating death.   Striving to trust the Master Weaver, I am comforted knowing everything we go through can and does have a greater purpose but I also know God hurts alongside us and as it seems we are still here waiting on the final victory over death, He reminds me that the ultimate victory over death is already written within His tapestry...we are just on this side of eternity, bound by time.

"ultimately, even a peaceful death at the age of ninety is not the way things were meant to be.  Those of us who sense the 'wrongness' of death - in any form - are correct.  The 

"rage at the dying of the light" is our intuition that we were not meant for mortality, 

for the loss of love, or for the triumph of darkness."

Timothy Keller

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Grief.  Grieving Grandma has felt so messy for me.  The relationship we had was complicated and grief adds to that.  It feels odd to have finality of my caregiving time...as if there is a hole...  I simultaneously hate death and rejoice that Grandma is with Jesus.  I absolutely hate that my friend's family has been given such loss and brokenness to walk through and yet rejoice that Carole is with Jesus.

Grief has power.  Grief has a place.  Its stages and complications are messy.  But I know an almighty God who can and will bring beauty from ashes and comfort those that mourn, bringing joy in the morning.  My soul yearns for all to know Him.  Let us not harden our hearts.  May we not pick up a lens or keep a plank in our eye that keeps us from loving on the body of Christ or seeing the lost and dying as underserving of our love and sacrifice.  

"Because suffering is both just and unjust, we can cry out and pour out our grief, yet without the toxic additive of bitterness.  Because God is both sovereign and suffering, we know our suffering always has meaning even though we cannot see it."

Timothy Keller

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

The grave could not hold Him!!  And if you know Jesus...really know Him...and are born again, the grave will not hold you.  Until then, grieve but grieve with hope.  Walk through the messiness.  Cry out to God in the dead of night.  Know that He cares.  He cares enough that He suffered for us.  He faced death and all of its power bowed under His authority and the stone rolled away.  When time is no more, our temporary sufferings will be nothing compared to the glory revealed in us (Romans 8:18).

"For God has purposed to defeat evil so exhaustively on the cross that all the ravages of 

evil will someday be undone and we, despite participating in it so deeply, will be saved...suffering

 is at the very heart of the Christian faith.  It is not only the way Christ became like and redeemed us, but it is one of the main ways we become like him and experience his redemption."

Timothy Keller

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

We will be presented faultless before the Throne.  

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore.  Amen

Jude 24-25

Living, He loved me

Dying, He saved me

Buried, He carried my sins far away

Rising, He justified freely forever

One day He's coming

Oh glorious day, oh glorious day
Michael Bleecker/Mark Hall

Contemporary vs Traditional

Let me start by sharing that my heart is to place the mirror in front of myself, ponder all these things alongside you, and hopefully come away looking a little more like my Creator...for His glory...not mine.

I wish that there weren't problems within the body of Christ.  I wish that we all understood not only our purpose but also the best ways to fulfill that purpose.  I wish the Bride of Christ was unified but sadly, as long as we are bound by time, awaiting our permanent home, we hobble along hoping to show the lost world that there is a God who can bring healing and hope and, One Day, ultimate unity.

While there is nothing new under the sun, each generation and culture puts its unique stamp on the human race through music, art, poetry, and the like.  Much is gained through looking into the past, and much is changed through braving the future that awaits.  How sad when a line that divides Christians is one that could, instead, be a learning curve, spurring us on to spread the Gospel.

Worship.   "Worship" can be used to describe the time when the body of believers come together to grow and edify and bring the message of hope to the perishing.  Tragically, the methods, styles, and preferences of sinners often bring disharmony among Christ followers.  We get lost in things like traditional vs. contemporary.  God alone is worthy of worship...the specific style of a church service does not fall into a category worthy of worship and, yet, many will fight tooth and nail to have the service they believe is: best, right, perfect, more likely to reach the lost, etc.

Jesus is Jesus and He can and will draw the lost unto Himself with or without instruments, lights, "new" music, all 6 verses of a hymn, suits & ties or flip-flops & shorts.  Amen?  Amen!  But how amazing and humbling it is that our Creator as Savior and Spirit wants to use us sinners to share His message of redemption with all people.  We just get a little caught up in how that message should be shared.

The body of Christ has many different parts, each with gifts and roles and it can be tricky to fit into our role and also value a role that looks different than ours.    While God's word tells us that believers dwelling in unity is a beautiful thing, we aren't given specifics for how a church bulletin should look (how could we survive without an order of service though, right?).  Really, though, how is it even possible that in the richest nation in the world we have Christians fussing and fuming over styles of worship services?

The reality is that we all have preferences.  We find things that "fit".  We find churches and worship services with various times and styles that fit us.  Is there anything wrong with this?  No, not in and of itself, but the depravity of our hearts show when our fallen natures control our motives.  

I have some amazing friends and they are my friends for many reasons but a huge one is that they fit me.  I experience rest and comfort sitting on the couch of a friend, catching up on the phone, or sitting opposite them in prayer and fellowship.  Comfort, however, is not my main motivation for friendship.  I like comfort but I need the encouragement, the hard life lessons, the pain, the correction, the love and support that are part of friendships.  

My husband is my favorite person in the world.  My hair is down and there is comfort there but only because of how deep our relationship goes...only because we are real with one another and love each other through challenges and differences.  

I appreciate the fit I have with my spouse, with friends, and with other believers but the feeling of a comfortable fit is not the end goal of any godly relationship. And may I be so bold as to say that the feeling of a comfortable fit is not the end goal of any worship service.  

To choose a place and style of worship based solely on comfort or feeling that your comfortable service should fit everyone else is completely self-centered and not at all unifying to the brothers and sisters in Christ being alienated.

If you struggle with how a stuffy, traditional service could possibly make a difference in "today's" world, I challenge you to find someone generations ahead of you that shines for Jesus and ask them their story...find out how they are ministering and serving.  Value and respect tradition.  One day the music and styles of this day might bring comfort to you when you are no longer contemporary.  Investigate the history and stories behind many hymns and you will find men and women who faced great hardship to bring beautiful music from the ashes of their lives, once contemporary themselves, and all for the glory of God.

If you struggle with how the stage lights, guitars, and deafening concert-like service could possibly have depth and stir hearts towards God, I would challenge you to ask the Spirit to the open your eyes to the absolute hunger for God in the hearts of the leaders.  There is a godly jealousy there...a desire to catch the ear and possibly the hearts of this generation.  Be inspired by the fire that burns within!  Support the ministries that reach out to the current culture.

If you don't struggle but feel stuck in the middle...if you don't understand how obsessed people can be over this, I challenge you to be sensitive and take the opportunities the Lord may put before you to bridge gaps and mend hearts, bringing unity to His body.  

To think that a specific location, time, or style is the best way to reach people for Jesus is putting a lot more merit in our ability to share the Gospel than warranted.  We are not needed for the whole world to hear.  God does not need a podcast in order for every ear to hear.  He has angelic messengers that can get the job done but, in His perfect wisdom, God chooses us.  US!  He chooses us to share...to look at not only the lost world through His eyes but also the family of God.  There is enough evil in this world to fight against and we should not be fighting one another.  

Let none of us assume that how we do things or even how things have "always" been done is the right way.  Our purpose is to glorify God and He is so awesome that we even get to enjoy doing so.  Do not limit the Creator to a musical style, dress code, or location.  Come with me to the hospice bed of my grandmother who wouldn't know the different worship style options if they hit her in the head because she has never cared much for church or for God until the Spirit drew her unto Himself, gave her a moment of total clarity, and she surrendered to Him.  She said she had been putting this off for too long.  A life of following in Jesus' footsteps is one of surrender. Waving a banner for why your preferences are right or best is not surrender.  Showing up at meetings to make waves is not surrender.  Feeling defeated when you have to make changes is not surrender.  Following a vision of unity while respectfully allowing for preferences is surrender.  Remembering where the air in our lungs comes from and staying humble and merciful through differences is surrender.   Jesus is always near.  He will meet you where you are.  And while He does and always will love us as we are, His perfect love for us never wants us to stay the way we are.  There is always something to be learned, always something to be surrendered, always room for growth, and always need for grace.

If you give up a little comfort for the glory of God, isn't that worth it?   It's okay to find shoes that fit.  I cannot function well in shoes that are made for a toddler.  But, honestly, if my heart is totally surrendered to God, I can function beyond myself whether I am in a contemporary service, traditional service, or in a homeless shelter listening to the story of a man who wishes he had not lost sight of God's purpose for his life.  We are all one step away from being in desperation.  We are all in need of the same mercy and grace.  

At the end of the day, it's all about Jesus.   At the end of this life, it's all about Jesus.