This morning bright and early I had the chance to sit with a sweet friend, a young momma who shared an amazing miracle that she and her family experienced this past weekend. True to the nature of a miracle, something horrific presents itself and, despite everything saying there should be a tragic ending, the story turns out to be completely different. Their four-year-old son is perfectly fine, and everything points toward there being no concerns regarding his physical condition from head to toe. I left our short visit in awe of how God shows Himself faithful.
The same day, twelve hours later (almost to the minute), there was another situation with a friend who is my age. My phone rang with an unfamiliar number, so I ignored it. A text immediately followed with the caller sharing her name and that she was a good friend of my friend. The woman’s name clicked. I snatched up the phone and dialed the number. I knew in my spirit I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. As the woman spoke on behalf of my precious friend, my heart shattered into a million pieces. It would appear that God did not show Himself faithful with her adult son.
These women wear many hats to fulfill all the roles they are responsible for and they both value the titles of wife and mother above all others. Passionate about God, they each serve Him with their whole heart. Two moms serving the same God whom they profess to be good, kind, loving, and protective. One with a beautiful story of restoration and protection, and the other would lay her only son to rest in a few short days.
Neither mom did anything wrong. Neither mom was more perfect than the other, more godly or more favored and loved by God.
My young momma has a whole process in place to keep all of her children accounted for and safe, not to mention there were numerous children and adults who were also present. Yet somehow the little guy slipped away and headed down to the water. No one is exactly sure how long he was separated from everyone nor do they know how much of that time was spent in the water. But everything pointed to an incredibly tragic ending … but God … a testimony of miraculous restoration fills their hearts and will overflow out of their mouths to everyone who will listen.
One of the things I love most about my friend with the adult son is that she knows how to walk in her authority in Christ. She speaks things as if they were and commands things in the spirit by the power and name of Jesus and she does not hesitate in doing so. It’s her immediate go-to response to life. No one speaks the type of beautiful things over their adult son like my precious friend did.
Yet somehow the big guy slipped away, and his family would not experience the rescue their hearts so desperately want.
How do we make sense of a good God who seems cruel and, at the very least, seems not to treat us fairly? One minute He’s saving the day, and the next He appears disinterested, nowhere to be found.
I won’t pretend I have the answers to what is clearly beyond my ability to grasp, understand, or process. A deep wisdom beyond our limited understanding holds the answers to the deepest cry of the shattered heart.
Now that I’m two years out from the sudden shock of losing my husband whom I’d shared life with for over 33 years, I have gained some insight. I emphasize two years out because these mommas have some healing to do.
Both of these momma’s have images, sounds, regrets and confusion to process. They have heavy questions, deep emotions and an honest struggle with feeling vulnerable to the good God they serve. They’ll need time to genuinely and authentically struggle with the One who has the power and authority over life and death.
It can’t be avoided because He’s the God of relationship so we have a lot of questions when relationship is disrupted, divorced, broken, shattered.
I’ve found that God gives us His presence in every up and down, good and bad, high and low of life. He is actively present, entwined in our lives, bridging heaven and earth into who we are, and handling heavenly things according to His Kingdom calendar.
God is kind even in death and He’s good despite what we sometimes view as contradictions.
Our pain is safe with Him because He won’t use it against us. Our anger and emotions may cause us to keep Him at arm’s length but in doing so we cut ourselves off from Him (our choice, not His) when we need Him most. That isolation is exactly what Satan wants and he’ll get to work trying to use our anger to question God’s goodness and love for us. He doesn’t want us to know who God is in our pain.
I still feel the raw pain of losing my husband. Early on in my grieving process, my pain felt like it consumed me. Even now, at times, the pain can still be overwhelming. As I talked to God, He gave me this bit of insight and understanding.
Before to the introduction of sin and death, God’s plan was for us to live with Him eternally. As the image bearers of Christ, death was not part of God’s intention or creation. Death brings separation, and that’s why we have such bone-saturating pain when we experience the loss of someone we love.
For example, I know where my husband is, and I’ll agree with anyone who tells me, “He’s in a better place” or “He didn’t suffer” because it does add a layer of comfort to my heart. But those things don’t cause me the raw pain that threatens to swallow me whole. The pain I have is because I miss my husband. I miss his laugh, his jokes, his touch, and his smile. I. Miss. Him.
And it was the pain of being eternally separated from us that caused God to require His Son’s death and why Christ was obedient to being falsely accused, tortured, murdered and buried in a borrowed grave … because His sacrifice resulted in His being raised to life again and it made a liar out of death and crushed that which eternally separated us from Him.
In times of loss, we offer each other kind gestures, beautiful flowers, and respectful condolences, but those things have no ability to change anything. They’re merely protocol when paying our respects. Our pain is and always will be rooted in the unnatural experience and knowledge of what separation feels like.
The bone saturating pain that we experience with separation from the loss of a loved one is a mere shadow of what it will feel like to be eternally separated from the extravagant love of Christ, unless we receive His sacrifice and embrace Him as Lord and Savior.
NOW LIVE LOVED and THRIVE!
Self-Reflection
These questions are in no way a substitute for healthcare professionals or any level of professional counseling. I’m an advocate for taking care of oneself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. These questions reflect my heart, NOT my profession.
This questionnaire is an opportunity to journal your thoughts and feelings. It can serve as a launching pad on which to evaluate your heart condition as you understand it. My hope is that you will take the truths you discover about yourself and hold them up to the Light to evaluate them against who God says you are.
- Have you ever grieved the loss of a relationship, dream, marriage, a life?
- What do you grieve most about it?
- Can the pain be traced back to a form of separation?
- Share something you were separated from that was extremely painful.
- Are you able to make a connection with the pain of separation and what it will feel like to be separated from God?
Talk to God about your answers. Give Him praise, ask Him questions and then listen for His gentle response.
Take Action
Use God’s word to take control over the traumas in your life. Whenever you feel terrorized by your thoughts take them captive by replacing them with the truth of God’s promises in His word.
Here is a scripture for you to print, cut and carry with you and/or post in places where you will see it often. Ground yourself in God’s truths not Satan’s attacks. Encourage your heart and mind every time you are reminded of His great love for YOU!
Here is what God’s Word says about His unfailing, relentless, unending love for you:
“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:11-13
Translation: If I believe that Jesus Christ (the Son of God) died on the cross for my sins, that He was buried and resurrected on the third day, I have eternal life in the Son. He alone gives me salvation and eternal life in heaven with God Himself and with my loved ones who have chosen the Son.
