Every Tuesday night, my friend Erin and I go to a worship service here in the cities called Deeper, it is hosted by Substance Church. But the whole purpose of the service is to take some time out of our busy weeks to go Deeper with God. It has been an amazingly refreshing time to go to this service each week, but let me take a step back and explain WHY it has been so refreshing.
November 8, 2012 is a day that changed my life forever. My mom died. Now, I know that I have a great hope to hold on to, my mom was an amazing Christian, she lived out her faith as much as possible and I have no doubt in my mind that she is with Jesus right now. But that hope, that joy, didnt take away the pain of loosing her. It didnt take away that temporary anger that I felt toward God. and it certainly did not take away the doubts about him that I was experiencing after loosing her. I had an aching lonliness. I missed my mom, and I still do every day. I had to face the fact that someday, when God brings my future husband into my life, my mom wont get to meet him. My mom wont get to help me plan my wedding, she wont be there when I begin having kids and have questions that you can only ask your mom about. She wont be there for the fun moments on holidays or just the everyday moments, the ones where I have had a bad day and I just want to pick up the phone and cry. The moments where big things happen and I can call and rejoice with her. Or, even though SHE hated it, the moments where we would go shopping together. I never get to see her play with my adorable niece. And those moments, they are hard. No matter how much faith you have, no matter how much joy I have in knowing she is in a better place now, those moments still, well, she would be okay with me saying this, so I will :) Those moments just suck!
I say all of this to say that there was a period of time after her death that I didnt experience God the way that I once did. I tried hard to use this experience to draw me closer to him, and big picture, looking back now, it totally has. But the past 2 years, going through all the crap, well, I missed God for a while. I quit worshiping the way I once had. I quit expecting God to do big things. I gave up on God. Im not proud of it, but I did. I still went to church, heck I work in one :) I still went to Bible Study, but I was missing God.
You see, from the time I was 5 years old, God has been a big deal to me. I loved being in church. I loved that my parents took me there and showed me how important it was. I loved being in childrens choir, Bible Quizzing, I just loved it all. And I always came to church expecting God to do big things. It was my prayer everytime I went into church or a camp or any type of ministry and until 2 years ago, it still was. I would pray that I and the others coming into the place of ministry would not leave the same way that we came, that we would expect God to do something. That when reading scripture, when singing worship songs, when meeting with God, that I would expect to be different after meeting with him.
Somehow, in the midst of the pain of loosing my mom, I quit expecting God to do anything. I had resigned myself to say that he didnt heal my mom, so why should I expect him to do anything? Now i know, my mom received the ultimate healing, and to be honest, seeing her not have to suffer anymore, while it meant a goodbye here on Earth, was a great relief for me, because seeing her in that pain, seeing her not able to talk or communicate, it was its own personal hell. So, yes, I am thankful she was healed. But I still had to come to some new places with God.
I still remember sitting in my room some nights and screaming into a pillow because I was so mad. Or punching that same pillow because of the anger I was feeling in missing her. I remember tears, tears that still come from time to time as she left such a huge void.
This past year has been one of the toughest, not just because I miss my mom. Because many other pains have come into my life as well. Lost relationships, hurtful words, the scare that I myself may have cancer and then the overwhelming relief when the answer was "no", living in a state where none of my family actually live, missing my brother and his wife and my beautiful niece daily. Missing my father and my honoary sister and her boys, my "nephews". There are days that the pain is just so real.
But I have also come to a place of complete surrender and reliance on God, because I got to a point that I knew I couldnt do it anymore. Like it says in Psalms 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd...." I have had to get to a point of honestly allowing God to be my shepherd and trusting him to lead me, trusting him to take control and take care of me. I have had to let go, let go of hurt, of pain, of control, of ALL of it.
So last night, at our worship service, I realized that i had been holding on to so much of this stuff on my own. I realized that I was no longer expecting God to do things. and i realized that i had not been living to the potential that God was asking me to live to.
So here is the challenge, Do you expect God to do something? When was the last time you honestly experienced him? How desperate are you for him? Has the voice of cynicism in your life been speaking louder than the voice of desperation for Christ?
I am thankful to be where I am now. It is not the road I would have chosen to get here. It is certainly not the path I would have forseen, but I am thankful for it none the less, because it brought me to God. It has made me expect him to do big things again.
So to my friends who are struggling, who are hurting, who are unsure of their faith, to those of you who are ready to give up on ministry all together because its just too hard. To those of you who have lost loved ones. To those of you who have lost a job. To those of you who have made mistakes and you are questioning God. To those of you who are where I was. EXPECT God to do great things. I promise you, he will! He has never once left you alone. He is not the one that has walked away, he is there waiting for us. He is molding us, shaping us, and ready to use us for his glory. But sometimes that comes from a very cruddy, dirty, winding, seemingly never ending road. But the road is totally, 100% worth it!
God is ABLE!
Love
Becky
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