"When darkness veils it's lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace." ~Edward Mote

Carry one anothers burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  Galatians 6:2

To walk beside those who grieve you need to be committed to the journey.  The journey is long and arduous.  The end is not in sight.  Over time the pain eases, but it is forever present.  Until the reunion in heaven, grief and sorrow is a part of our life on this earth.

As the friends to those who are grieving and working through the loss of a child, be in prayer for them.  The best things that friends can do is pray for their hurting friends.  Pray with a vengence.  Pray that their faith will remain steadfast in Jesus-in God’s sovereign grace and mercy.  Pray that their hope will be in the One who created them and who has ordained our steps.   Pray that the Holy Spirit will hold them up.  Hold them up when their legs and feet are too weak to stand.  Pray that if they have other children, that Jesus will protect their hearts.  That their little minds will ask questions, but that they will also receive an amazing understand and trust in our God. 

It’s easy to be there for friends in the beginning.  Smother them with meals, flowers, words and love.  These things are wonderful and helpful, but the coming weeks are still hard.  The pain doesn’t ease quickly.  It takes time.  Reach out, but respect their wishes if they want to be alone and stay as a close family unit for awhile.  

It’s ok to not say anything.  One thing that people often think is that words will help the pain go away.  If we can say something to “help” then we’ll feel like we’ve been wise and helpful, when really they are empty words.  It’s ok to say that you don’t know what to say.  The Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t have words.  Hugs and tears from a friend are at most times very comforting.

Listen.  Listen to friends who are grieving.  Be patient and listen to their hurting heart.  Pray as you listen.  Let the Holy Spirit guide your words and love your friends where they are at. 

Grief and loss is the hardest thing in the world.  The best thing we can do as friends is pray and be available when they’re ready to talk and listen with attentive ears and loving hearts. 

  And the LORD will guide you continually
   and satisfy your desire in scorched places
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters do not fail.   Isaiah 58:11

Though we go through suffering and grief, our Lord is with us.  He is guiding us and our friends who are suffering.  He strengthens us and makes us whole.  His Spirit intercedes for us when we have no words.   He prunes us.  He waters us.  He makes us into His beautiful garden.  That is hopeful, but at the same time painful. 

Pray my dear friends.  Pray without ceasing.

When I was in college, a boy and I broke up.  Looking back on it, it seems so trite and I wonder why it consumed a couple of years of my life, but there is one significant thing that I was taught. 

One day I was in my room, crying my eyes out, all sad and filled with self pity, when I felt like Jesus spoke to me.  He said, “This will not be the hardest thing that you ever endure.  You will feel much more pain then this in your life.  I’m using this to begin teaching you about pain.”  At first, I thought it was me just trying to rationalize how I was feeling, but over time I kept those words in my heart and I didn’t share them with anyone.  I didn’t share them with Mike until after Tullie was born and Eli passed away.  I didn’t always think about them, but I remembered the small conversation I had with Jesus that day over the last several years.   In all honesty, I never thought that those words would hold any type of comfort to me in the future. 

After Tullie was born, I had a friend who was asking about her.  Her diagnosis, what her life would be like and other questions that were similar.  When we were nearing the end of the conversation, she said, “I couldn’t do that.  I couldn’t be a mother to a special needs child.”  I thought, “And you think I can?!?!  I have sooo much experience in this area, right?!?!”  I nodded graciously to her, but I left that conversation thinking, that I couldn’t do it either.  Jesus didn’t ask me if I wanted Tullie, He gave her to me.  He just said that that was what we were going to do.  Mike and I were parents to a child with Down Syndrome.  He didn’t ask us, He just entrusted her to us, knowing that we would take care of her.  It was just the way it was.  We didn’t have a choice. 

The same thing happened 10 months later.  Jesus didn’t ask me to give Eli back to Him.  He took him back.  I’ve been angry about that.  I’ve been sad about that (especially today), but Jesus has taught me much through that.  He has broken  us in a way that we would’ve never been broken before Him, if Eli were with us today running and playing with Josiah in the dirt. 

When people look at my life, and they tell me they can’t do it, I tell them that they could.  They could because Jesus told them to.  They’d do it because they didn’t have any other choice.   They’d do it, because, His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9)

With any trial and pain that our Lord asks us to go through, or sometimes tells us to go through, because it’s simply landed in our lap, He grace is sufficient.  It’s all we need.  Our Lord is enough and He will walk with us through the valley, because He brought us there.  He’s not going to leave us there.   We will mature and we will blossom if we keep our eyes and focus on Him.  He is the God of comfort and love.  He is gracious and merciful.

 I think about that girl in college who was crying over a boy, thinking that her life was coming to an end and I shake my head at that.  I think about how immature she was and trite, but how much that girl learned before she graduated from college.  I think about how God blessed her with an amazing husband, who loves her, cares for her and thinks more of the family then he does of himself.  This girl has been through much, but Jesus is the one who has brought her through.  It’s all Him.  Nothing about what she did or how she did it.  It’s all Jesus.  The pain of loss is there, but the comfort, hope and peace that wraps that pain like a blanket is from Jesus.  All glory goes to Him.

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Lay down this principle as a law-God does nothing arbitrary.  If He takes away your health, for instance, it is because He has some reason for doing so; and this is true of everything you value; and if you have real faith in Him, you will not insist on knowing the reason.  If you find, in the course of daily events, that your self-consecration was not perfect-that is, that your will revolts at His will-do not be discouraged, but fly to your Savior and stay in His presence, till you obtain the spirit in which He cried in His hour of anguish, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42).  Everytime you do this it will be easier to do it; every such consent to suffer will bring you nearer and nearer to Him; and in this nearness to Him you will find such peace such blessed, sweet peace as will make your life infinitely happy, no matter what may be its mere outside conditions.  Just think, my dear Katy, of the honor and the joy of having your will one with the Divine will and so becoming changed inot Christ’s image from glory to glory!  ~Dr. Cabot to Katy  (Stepping Heavenward, Mrs. E. Prentiss, p. 88).

I actually sat down to write something else.  Something else from this book that I read and I’ve been mulling over, but then when I cracked open the book to re-read what I was going to write about, it fell open to this page and well, the conversations that I had with some lovely ladies came flooding back to me.  In some crazy way, this portion of Dr. Cabot’s letter to Katy was encouraging to me.  Have I told you that I love, love, love the book Stepping Heavenward?  It is seriously, one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Suffering brings us closer to Jesus.  I think that this happens over time.  A long time. I’ve been thinking about this, a lot.  I was talking to Mike the other day, just kind of verbalzing what had been going on in my head.  I was thinking about where I was nearly 5 years ago.  Full of hurt. Pain. Saddness.  Helplessness.  I really thought that it would never end, but now looking back on the last several years, I’m not entirely sure how I got from there to here.  It just sorta happened.  Healing happened.  Is happening.  I can pick out several “turning points”, but not really sure when it happened.  Does that make any sense?

Through our suffering we have been brought closer to Jesus.  Just as He intended.  I don’t think that I really recognized that happening.  A lot of misconceptions were torn down during those years about suffering as a Christian.  About suffering as Jesus suffered.  We learned how growing nearer to Him we found peace in the midst of the darkest time in our life.  We found joy.  Not emotional, fleeting joy, but JOY!  The only joy that Jesus can give.  The joy that remains even in the midst of the yuck. 

Suffering brings us nearer and nearer to Him.  Honestly, I’m grateful for that.  Really grateful for that.  That’s not something that I would’ve said a couple of years ago.  Heck, even a year ago.  But as I think about it, I’m grateful that Jesus has brought us through.  IS bringing us through.  That He’s changed us.  Hopefully He’s receiving the glory, because, well, Jesus has done it (is doing it) not us.   He’s bringing us nearer to Him.  He’s bringing us peace and joy.  The kind that’s unexplainable.  Because He’s doing it, then He gets the glory.  All of it.

Church today was sobering. Our pastor, Mark Driscoll, shared about his trip to Haiti and the purpose for going. Jesus opened doors in order for them all to go, and when they got there, they really had no idea what they were going to do. They wanted to find churches to help, but only knew of one. They had no idea where they were going, and “Grandma Angel” (an old lady who spoke no English, took his arm and lead him into the campus of a church. He turned around to look for her a couple of minutes later and she was gone.) ended up bringing them to the place they were looking for. From there they were able to see several (a dozen maybe) churches in the area that had been destroyed by the earthquake and meet pastors of the churches. These pastors are burying 100, if not more, attendees of their churches. (I think 100 may be a conservative number.)

There was no sugarcoating today. Pastor Mark told us the goary details and we saw the pictures and the video.  It was good.  It was real.  We all left the building the silence and it’s the second time we’ve left Mars Hill on a Sunday without singing to close our service.  It was sobering.  Really sobering.

Pastor Mark met many pastors who were hurting.  Their flock was hurt.  The flock was broken.  Members of their flock were missing or dead.  These pastors are hurting and the buildings are destroyed.  People are walking for miles to attend a church service?  Would we do that if a natural contrastrophe ruined our buildings?  Would we walk miles so that we could go to church?  Have fellowship?  Share our hurt.  Our pain.  Our anger.  Try to help one another heal? 

One pastor was teaching a class when he felt a slight tremor.  He was on the second floor.  He ran outside to see what was going on.  While he was outside the earthquake hit.  His students and his wife were in his class on the second floor.  They all died.  He has four boys.  He went and got his boys, and they are homeless now, motherless and spouseless.   The day Pastor Mark met him, he buried his wife.  While Pastor Mark was talking to him, he asked him, “Why are you smiling?”  His response, “The Lord.”  He is broken.  He is devestated.  He has Jesus, so he has joy.  He knows where his hope lay.  It doesn’t mean he’s not going to wrestle and struggle.  He knows where his hope lies.  He tells people about Jesus and that’s what he’s going to keep doing. 

We left church today heavy hearted.  Heavy for the destruction that people are living in right now.  Heavy for God’s people.  Heavy for His church. 

“It is better to go to the house of mourning than go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will aly it to heart.

Sorrow is better then laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

Ecclesiastes 7:2-4

Through saddness and pain we learn.  We grow.  We mature.  We become more like Jesus when our hope is in Him.  Without Him we’re nothing.  The concept of pain and suffering, make no sense.

Pastor Tim said something this morning, before we sang a couple of songs.  He said (and I paraphrase) that when we’re looking at the pictures and video of Haiti it’s easy to feel pity and sadness for them, because of the hell that they’re living in.  The conditions, everything.  But we need to remember, that Jesus saved us from that.  That is our life. Full of broken buildings.  Broken relationships.  Devestation.  Without Jesus, nothing could ever get fixed.  Without Jesus we would be living in devestation all the time.  With Jesus we have hope and we can rebuild. 

Pray for Haiti.  Pray for the churches in Haiti.  Pray for the pastors in Haiti and their flocks.  Pray for people to find hope.  Hope in Jesus. 

www.churcheshelpingchurches.com  if you can, help the Church. 

Our pastor went to Haiti last week to see first hand how the churches are doing in Haiti right now.  Tomorrow we’ll be seeing an hour plus of coverage from his trip at church, but here’s a taste for all of you.   Please be praying for the churches in Haiti.  The children of Haiti.  God’s mercy to be on Haiti and for the Church to come together to help the churches of Haiti rebuild and be stronger for Jesus.