We talk a lot after loss about giving ourselves permission to grieve. And that’s important! But we don’t talk as much about giving ourselves permission to laugh. To sing. To feel joy, even here. So consider this permission. I’m sharing three practices I’m adopting to welcome joy into my life.
We’ve gotten accustomed to “no contact” delivery - drop it off on the porch and avoid contact, connection, and contamination. But, while that might be a good option for our dinner, groceries, and mail, it’s a poor system for our relationship with God.
It feels powerfully defiant to look suffering in the face, to stare it down, and say, “You can’t have my voice. You can’t have my praise, my affection, my song. No matter how shaky my voice gets, it won’t ever change its tune." Worship isn't always the easy choice when we're facing suffering, grief, and pain but it is a powerful weapon in this battle we're fighting - and we're never fighting alone!
When we've tried everything - kicking, screaming, resisting, begging, pleading - and the pain still doesn't go away, we're tempted to believe that God is inactive, distant, and aloof. But what if God is more present than ever, waiting out our pain with us, and delivering us through the very trial we're in.
It feels powerfully defiant to look suffering in the face, to stare it down, and say, “You can’t have my voice. You can’t have my praise, my affection, my song. No matter how shaky my voice gets, it won’t ever change its tune." Worship isn't always the easy choice when we're facing suffering, grief, and pain but it is a powerful weapon in this battle we're fighting - and we're never fighting alone!
When we've tried everything - kicking, screaming, resisting, begging, pleading - and the pain still doesn't go away, we're tempted to believe that God is inactive, distant, and aloof. But what if God is more present than ever, waiting out our pain with us, and delivering us through the very trial we're in.
One of the most confusing questions I get asked after our daughter died at birth is, "How can you still believe in God? How can you still believe He's good?" And I always think, "How could I not?" I'm not sure what it gains me to give up on God, but I am sure that He has the words of eternal life. We're committed, we've made up our minds, we're confident in who He is. In this episode, we explore how God's character and track record are more than enough to convince me of his goodness.
When your prayers for healing haven’t been answered, when you’ve waited longer than you should have for a husband or a child, when your marriage ends in divorce or when God simply says no, your prayer life becomes a battleground where it’s hard to continue to fight. How do we continue to offer God our prayers when the answer is never yes? Or when it wasn’t yes when it mattered the most?
When I think back on the hours leading up to Imogen’s birth and the few days afterward, I have no idea how we made it through. It is only the Lord’s grace that allowed us to keep breathing and moving forward through those horrible days. But we survived. And now that we’re a few months out, I have such a deeper understanding of grief and how to support those in the middle of the fog.
What feels like a set back to us, might just be the set up we've been longing for. This shift could be setting the stage for a movement of God in our own lives that defies all human understanding. And that fact alone inspires hope and peace and belief that even in our waiting, God is moving on our behalf.
