i say it over and over
I was listening to Rick Warren's sermon this evening entitled "How We're Getting Through." It's the first sermon he preached after his son committed suicide. Like thousands of others, I was curious to hear it and since I don't have cable, didn't see his widely-watched CNN interview.
I was really moved by it, more than I thought I would be. I did expect to feel compassion, grief. To also be encouraged. To gain a deeper understanding of what they went through and are going through. It's a very inspired sermon that comes from not only Rick, but also his wife Kay.
She shared her immense struggles to find joy, to choose joy and to hold onto hope as her son spiraled down deeper into mental illness in the time before his death. Through meditating on scriptures of hope and worshipping God with songs of hope, she found herself in a place of great hope her son would be healed of mental illness. And then he committed suicide.
"What do you do when hope doesn't turn out the way you think it will?" Kay said. "You rebuild your hope."
As she spoke, I cried. The thing about your own grief is, when you think it's over, when you think 'now I'm finally done with that'...it's usually not. I still have waves of grief over loss in my life. Loss of friendships, loss of ministry, loss of church home, loss of identity. All things that were gifts from God. All things He could take away. And He did take them away.
I did feel hopeless. But I was not completely without hope. Under the frozen turf of my soul, what felt like a cold blur of death that went on day after day for many months, there was a small flame still going inside of me. I had hope that was rebuilding, rekindling. Like a small candle flame cradled in one's hand against the raging blowing cold, there was hope that couldn't be extinguished.
Satan does hate us. He does want us dead. He's tried to kill me more than once. But, God.
Jesus loves me. He is fierce. He fights for those he loves, for those whose hope is in Him. That would be me.
I don't really know what the future holds for me beyond living day to day and living for Him in whatever that day holds. I have some ideas. I have some dreams. But if none of them came true, He would be enough. Living for him is enough.
And the small flame of hope has been fed, with His promises in His word, and by His faithful people. A day doesn't go by that I don't listen to a sermon or read a devotional written by a man of God who has overcome something huge in his life. I really don't have time for anyone else. I listen to anointed worship. We like to say things are anointed in the Christian world. I mean worship that is really anointed by God. The people who write it would be the first to admit they are broken, but the songs are God's, not theirs.
The once weak flame is now a steady fire. A fire that laughs at the devil. A Holy Spirit fire that refines and purifies and consumes what comes into it's path. A fear of the Living God is pretty alive in me. I have seen what He can do.
Rebuilding hope. It has to be intentional. There will be tears, maybe lots of them. Let them go as long as they want to. But there won't ever be a place that you can go - physically, spiritually, emotionally - that God is not with you, fighting for you, pulling you up and pushing you out.
God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with GOD
(I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.
Lamentations 3: 22-24 The Message
I was really moved by it, more than I thought I would be. I did expect to feel compassion, grief. To also be encouraged. To gain a deeper understanding of what they went through and are going through. It's a very inspired sermon that comes from not only Rick, but also his wife Kay.
She shared her immense struggles to find joy, to choose joy and to hold onto hope as her son spiraled down deeper into mental illness in the time before his death. Through meditating on scriptures of hope and worshipping God with songs of hope, she found herself in a place of great hope her son would be healed of mental illness. And then he committed suicide.
"What do you do when hope doesn't turn out the way you think it will?" Kay said. "You rebuild your hope."
As she spoke, I cried. The thing about your own grief is, when you think it's over, when you think 'now I'm finally done with that'...it's usually not. I still have waves of grief over loss in my life. Loss of friendships, loss of ministry, loss of church home, loss of identity. All things that were gifts from God. All things He could take away. And He did take them away.
I did feel hopeless. But I was not completely without hope. Under the frozen turf of my soul, what felt like a cold blur of death that went on day after day for many months, there was a small flame still going inside of me. I had hope that was rebuilding, rekindling. Like a small candle flame cradled in one's hand against the raging blowing cold, there was hope that couldn't be extinguished.
Satan does hate us. He does want us dead. He's tried to kill me more than once. But, God.
Jesus loves me. He is fierce. He fights for those he loves, for those whose hope is in Him. That would be me.
I don't really know what the future holds for me beyond living day to day and living for Him in whatever that day holds. I have some ideas. I have some dreams. But if none of them came true, He would be enough. Living for him is enough.
And the small flame of hope has been fed, with His promises in His word, and by His faithful people. A day doesn't go by that I don't listen to a sermon or read a devotional written by a man of God who has overcome something huge in his life. I really don't have time for anyone else. I listen to anointed worship. We like to say things are anointed in the Christian world. I mean worship that is really anointed by God. The people who write it would be the first to admit they are broken, but the songs are God's, not theirs.
The once weak flame is now a steady fire. A fire that laughs at the devil. A Holy Spirit fire that refines and purifies and consumes what comes into it's path. A fear of the Living God is pretty alive in me. I have seen what He can do.
Rebuilding hope. It has to be intentional. There will be tears, maybe lots of them. Let them go as long as they want to. But there won't ever be a place that you can go - physically, spiritually, emotionally - that God is not with you, fighting for you, pulling you up and pushing you out.
God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with GOD
(I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.
Lamentations 3: 22-24 The Message