A Strand of Three Cords...

My heart is so burdened as I weigh the Scripture for today's post. I want to go back and pull up the questions that I posted on Monday:

As you consider this verse of Scripture and how it reflects the season of grief you are in, please also consider the following questions:

1.) Do you feel entangled by your grief? If yes, please explain.

2.) Do you have nightmares surrounding your loss that haunt your sleep? If yes, please explain.

3.) Do you feel that grief has laid hold of you and you are consumed by thoughts of death?

4.) Does anything compare to the suffering you are experiencing in the aftermath of your child's death?

I asked do you feel entangled by your grief, and I want to say that at first I felt so alone and uncertain in my grief that I could barely think. I busied myself, frittered away my days.

I remember moments when driving where death so consumed me that I thought, "If I just hit that tree really fast and really hard I would die, too." Almost as quickly, I would see my beautiful daughters and my husband and know that this irrational thought would not be a solution - only create more problems and more pains for those I loved the most. But, that irrational thought came from a place deep inside of me that was hurting so badly I could not seem to find resolution even in my most ardent prayers. It was a desparate thought in desparate times. A place where I just needed to stop the hurting going on in my heart, my head and my life.

This Scripture helps me to know that God understands that I hurt this way, that sorrow often leads to thoughts of death. Not that it is okay to entertain those thoughts, but that we can take those thoughts as ugly and devestating as they are to our Lord God and entrust Him with the pain that brings us to them.

This is how sorrow and grief entangle us - becoming a snare rather than a journey. Being stuck in our grief is one of the worst places I have found myself. Unable to really function, unwilling to ask for help... Afraid that one more thing, one more loss, one more painful moment would send me teetering over the edge. But, God doesn't want us to go through grief alone. He wants us to find Him in our grief and find encouragement and support from others as we go along the way.

The enemy will tell us anything we are willing to believe: "It will never get better." "God doesn't care, He let your child die." "Even if God does care, how do you know He's there?" "You'd be better off dead, at least it wouldn't hurt so much." He will even tell you, "There is no God."

But we have to shake off the lies of the enemy and stop buying what he's been selling us. That's why even one Scripture can be such a benefit to the grieving because God can take that one Scripture and open your heart toward Him with it.

The lies of the enemy are like heavy ropes. The more he wraps you up in them, the harder it is for us to break free. Pretty soon, we cannot even see the light. We are so weary from carrying around the weight of our entanglements that we just want it to end. That is when a wave of grief will wash over us - and in our bound state we won't even be able to resist the way it washes deeper and deeper into the despair and agony of death. We are soon over our head in deep waters of grief, entangled with the lies and doubts planted in our hearts and we begin to sink. Call on Him. Cry out to Jesus, get involved in a group where the goal is seeking God in your grief, and remember that any entanglement that you are facing can be easily broken by the truth of God's Word.

Begin to replace the lies of the enemy with the truth of God's Word. When the enemy calls out "He doesn't care about your pain." Call that lie, what it is - A LIE. Rebuke it with the truth, "You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?" Psalm 56:8 (NKJV). God records the things that cause us pain in a remebrance book and stores our tears in a bottle, your suffering is important to God and He has a plan for it.

When the enemy tells you the Lord has abandoned you in your suffering, remind yourself of these beautiful words from in Deuteronomy "6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." - Deuteronomy 31:6 (NIV)

And if you are inclined to claim a New Testament promise, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." - Hebrews 13:5 (NIV).

I found that God repeated this promise in this wording 8 times as translated in the NIV.

If you are lacking hope, look up Scriptures with the word hope. If you lack joy, look up and focus on Scriptures that talk about joy. Find a way to knit God's Word into your heart. There is more to this life than what we live. Ecclesiastes tells us God has created an intuitive nature in us that seeks out eternity (Ecclesiastes 3). Our lives are made up of seasons where emotions and circumstances play their part in pointing us straight to God. We were created for eternity and all of this life is but a breath compared to life in eternity. Do no grow weary in doing good, for you will reap a harvest in God's appointed time. (Galatians 6).

We cannot give up on one another either. This is why we must find a support environment that will help us work through our grief. Hebrews 10:25-26 tells us that we are not to give up in meeting together, but instead to meet together to encourage one another and all the more as we see the day of Christ approaching. Stand with one another - it is Life Support. When we find a common thread with which to allow God to weave our lives together - we will find hope in the hearts of those around us. We will pray together, unearth truth together, cry together and yes, we will even laugh together as we journey toward meaning and healing in grief.

Salve for our wounded soul:

"Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NKJV)

When we stand with another person in our grief we are a two strand cord, but when we add God to our relationship, we become a cord of three strands that cannot easily be broken. If you are entangled and snared in the depths of your grief - cry out to Jesus and let Him take you by the hand. Then, grab the hand of a grieving friend and you will find your way out of the valley of the shadow of death!

Listen to the following song and think of the power that raised Jesus from the dead, that power is available to you right now. We need Him, we need him to come to our rescue and to hold us when we cry. We need you Jesus!

Memorial Stones

"Then Samuel took a stone and set it up

between Mizpah and Shen,

and called its name Ebenezer, saying,

"Thus far the LORD has helped us."

~ 1 Samuel 7:12

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From the very first moment I could imagine hosting or facilitating a group for bereaved families I've pictured a place for healing, for remembering and for giving honor and glory to God.

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I began women's ministry in Fall 2003. Our second study that season was Beth Moore's "A Heart Like His" which is a study of the life of David. In that study, she taught on the passage that includes 1 Samuel 7:12 and I handed out small, smooth black stones as reminders of the lesson. While I was cleaning up, God brought to mind my son and his continual struggles. I wanted so desparately to help him and had not the first clue how. When I arrived home, I pulled out one of the heavy, black stones and handed it to him. It was just large enough to be noticable and just small enough to fit in his pocket.

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He kind of stared at the stone for a minute and I told him the story of the Israelites and the Philistines at Mizpah. Then I read 1 Samuel 7:12 to him.

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"Justin, this stone is to serve as a reminder to you of how the Lord helps you. It is because of the Lord that you are still here, that you are okay and that you have hope. So, the next times someone asks you to do something foolish, the next time that you are tempted to do the wrong thing... Reach down in your pocket, hold onto this stone and tell them that Ebenezer says no."

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He laughed when I shared this with him, but I could tell it really made him stop and think. Sometime later I had occasion to ask him about the stone. He informed me he didn't know what he had done with it. I quickly provided him another. After he died, I was going through his things and found those smooth, black stones in a drawer near his bed. They now rest in my jewelry box as a reminder of how far the Lord has brought us.

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Throughout the Bible, stones are prevalent in the history of Israel and the founding of the church. Rocks have both a physical and a spiritual meaning to us as Christians. Stones were used to build altars before the desert tabernacle was built by the Israelites. Stones marked the places where God showed up big time in the lives of the Israelites, all the way back to Abraham.

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Stones were used to build walls, strongholds and stones were used in battle to slay giants. God has seemingly had a purpose and a plan that included stones throughout the story of mankind. Stones are solid, often times heavy and they are not easily moved. These days we use stones to build walls and line our gardens. We displace stones in favor of lush green lawns and trees, and we use stones to mark the graves of those we love. Stones are still serving a purpose in this day and age. And so, I wanted to write about a special vision God has given me about stones in the ministry of Heart to Heart.

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As I said, stones have been used to mark out places where God has shown up big time in the lives of His people. In Joshua 4:1-10, we read the account of the Israelites finally crossing the Jordan into the promised land. God had finally delivered them from the desert under Joshua's leadership and now they were preparing to do battle with the inhabitants of the land.

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Still, God wanted the Israelites to make a special memorial to this occasion when He delivered on His promise to bring them into a land of their own. Let's read what God instructed them to do:

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""Take for yourselves twelve men from

the people, one man from every tribe,

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3 and command them, saying, 'Take for

yourselves twelve stones from here, out

of the midst of the Jordan, from the place

where the priests' feet stood firm.

You shall carry them over with you and

leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight.' "

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4 Then Joshua called the twelve men whom

he had appointed from the children of Israel,

one man from every tribe;

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5 and Joshua said to them:

"Cross over before the ark of the Lord

your God into the midst of the Jordan,

and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder,

according to the number of the tribes of the children

of Israel,

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6 that this may be a sign among you when

your children ask in time to come, saying,

'What do these stones mean to you?'

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7 Then you shall answer them that the waters

of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the

covenant of the Lord; when it crossed over the Jordan,

the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones

shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever."
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Joshua 4:2-7 (NKJV)

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God instructed the Israelites to erect memorial stones so they would remember what God had done for them, just as Samuel did many years later after Israel battled with the Philistines.

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The question now becomes: How do we apply the spiritual journey markers in our grief journey? And I think for some the answer is, we already have. We place our child's body in the cemetery and mark that grave with a stone as a memorial to the gift God gave us in our child. And so begins the process of marking out grief with memorial stones.

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As I prayed and developed a vision for Heart to Heart, God gave me the picture of a key shaped garden. A garden where the borders are in place, the sidewalks paved, and the plots of ground left sodded, but not planted. In this garden there would be a fountain in the entrance, and trees - live oaks planted throughout, but no flowers, no ground plants of any kind. This garden would have benches and would become a memorial garden - "The Key to Healing" memorial garden. A place where families could come and plant flowers and small plants in memory of their loved ones, a garden the families themselves would tend. A garden to represent life and not death. A garden that would be an integral part of the healing process.
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This garden would not become a place to worship our children, but instead a place to remember them. A place where we can honor the gift of God that is our child. I used to sit upon Justin's grace in those early days of grief begging God not to allow me to make an idol of my child. I did not want to be in a position where my grief and love for my child would stand between God and I. So I ask Him to make this garden of sorts, a place of remembrance where He is the focus and not just what we have lost.

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And placed there among the trees and the flowers, the sidewalks and the benches I see large smooth stones engraved with the names of the children we have sent ahead to His safe keeping. Beneath those names on the individual stones I see dates, not the dates of birth and death so common on memorial stones. But, the dates of realized healing for the parents and family. A new date, a new beginning - a time when God is praised for the work He has done in restoring our lives in the aftermath of loss.
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While this garden does not yet exist, it will. God has a plan for it and I know it will be the blessing in full measure that God has allowed me to dream it would be. So, don't forget while we are marking out the memories of the lives lived before us in our children - let us also mark out a path of remembrance that leads others to hope and healing in God alone. After all, He is our refuge, our strong tower - our Rock who will not be shaken. "Jesus is the rock, and He rolled my blues away." ("Why Should the Devil," Larry Norman (???)

Painfully aware of how behind I am...

I will post you a devotion shortly! I am inside of 24 hours of leaving for San Antonio and I cannot wait. However, I also know that I have been thinking of my J-Bird.... He is celebrating his third anniversary in heaven this weekend and I just love him so so much.

God has been so faithful, so wonderful and this year I have experienced the Joy of the Lord returning in my life. It wasn't an easy thing to discover - it took two years of hard grief work and at times choosing joy even when I didn't really feel that joyful in my heart.

God is faithful, ladies and He is good - He will bless you beyond measure in every way if you trust in Him and surrender your wounded heart to His tender care.

Last Friday, on the anniversary of his accident, I was with my girlfriends from Life Group when I asked God to show me where He was that night three years ago.

He showed me three things:

1. Him holding my arms up as we praised Him for delivering Justin through his surgery that night.

2. Tenderly caring for my son while I went to get some sleep in preparation for the long hours of waiting that would come over eight days. He was indeed preparing him to go home.

3. In the hearts of all the people, the nurses and doctors as well as our family and friends who came out in droves to take care of us, pray for us and walk with us through that very difficult time.

Saturday, I will be getting ready for a P J Party at the hotel when the hour comes that my son finally made his journey home. God is good, is He not! Hold onto Him dear sisters, with everything you have got!