A Grace Disguised
#OvercomingLoss
OKAY – lean in church and listen both alive and actively to Words that were literally breathed by the one who says of Himself in Isaiah 62…
My hands have made both heaven and earth; they and everything in them are mine. I, the LORD, have spoken “I will bless those who have humble and contrite hearts, who tremble at my word. – Isaiah 66:2
SO – who here is ready to tremble?
WHO – has a heart that is contrite (humble and repentant)?
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, - Romans 8:28,29
AND JAMES – the half brother of Jesus wrote these challenging, powerful, familiar and insightful words as he opens up his letter.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of various kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. - James 1:2-4
AND PETER – writing to Jesus-followers who had suffered much loss, at the hands of the Roman Empire.
UNDERSTAND – these people had been forced to flee from their homes and many had been beaten, had their property confiscated and loved ones killed…
REMINDED THEM – of God’s mercy, of their living hope and of the inheritance that would never perish, spoil or fade… which was waiting for them in heaven (and was being shielded, protected by God’s power until that day)…
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—
of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. – 1 Peter 1:6-9
Prayer
GOOD MORNING MGCC
AND WELCOME – to week 5 of our 4 week series ‘Overcome, The Challenges We Face,’ (that has been extended to an 8 week series. NOW – in this series we have talked about some very powerful, practical, and needed stuff, LIKE…
• Reversing Anxiety (C.A.L.M.S.)
• Moving Beyond Insecurity (R.U.N.)
• Getting Over Our Hurt (B.R.AV.E.)
• Making Fear A Friend (F.R.I.E.N.D.)
• Overcoming Discouragement
(Look - Up, Back, Out, Beyond, Around, Ahead, In)
AND THIS MORNING – we are going to be talking about another significant and often devastating challenge that we all will face as we run the race to the life we were created…
Overcoming loss…. in a conversation I am calling, “A Disguised Grace.” OKAY – and here is how I want to attack this conversation by unpacking 3 statements
Loss, Here’s The Deal
Loss, A Story
Loss, Some Lessons
AND – let me say this before we begin…
I recognize as with (anxiety, insecurity, fear, hurt and discouragement) that loss is a very huge topic and that there are limits to what we can accomplish in just one conversation on a Sunday morning.
BUT – with that being said…
I am still convinced of the power of both the living and active word of God and the Holy Spirit…
AND THEREFORE – I believe that something meaningful and significant can happen in our time together today, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see.
I. Loss, Here’s The Deal
A) It’s Inevitable
UNDERSTAND BROTHERS AND SISTERS - LOSS is inevitable.
I MEAN - we all WILL experience it.
OKAY - raise your hands if you have never experienced LOSS in your life.
LOOK – 3 people in the eyes (“you’re not alone”)…
LISTEN - the Bible says that rain falls on the just and the unjust. AND - Jesus said, “In this world you are going to have trouble.”
SO LOSS is part of life.
You’ve either had it, you’re having it or you’re going to have it. MGCC – like it or not… That’s just the way it works.
It’s just part of our story in this fallen world.
YES – sooner or later all people suffer LOSS, in little doses or big ones, suddenly or over time, privately or in public settings.
YOU SEE - LOSS is as much a part of life as birth, for surely as we all are born into the world, we will suffer LOSS, before we leave it.
THIS WEEK – I spent some time thinking about people in the bible and reflecting on what ways in which they suffered LOSS… AND – as I did I realized that pretty much from Genesis to Revelation we see people suffering LOSS.
• Adam and Eve LOST their son Able, life in a garden paradise and intimacy with God
• Noah – LOST the world he grew up in
• Abraham – LOST his son Ishmael
• Lot – LOST his wife when she turned back
• Esau – LOST his birthright
• Jacob – LOST his son Joseph
• Joseph – LOST his colorful coat, his family, his freedom and for many years his dreams
• Israel – LOST their freedom as they became slaves in Egypt
• Moses – LOST growing up in his birth family, his royal position and he even LOST himself in the desert for 40 years
• Naomi – LOST her husband and her 2 sons
• Daniel – LOST his homeland becoming an exile in Babylon
• Esther – LOST her mom and dad and became an orphan
• John the Baptist – LOST his freedom and eventually his head when he was executed
NOW – I could keep going but I think you get my point…
LOSS – is inevitable. IT – is no respecter of persons.
I MEAN – even in this room…
LIKE – take a moment to look around.
IN – this room are people who have LOST, They’ve…
• A loved one (a mom, a dad, a wife, a husband, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a grandparent, a dear friend)
• A marriage, a relationship, a friendship
• A job, a promotion
• Part of their physical health
• Their innocence because someone stole it from them
• Their childhood because they grew up in an abusive home
• A hope, a dream, the belief that things could get better – that they could become better
LOSS, here’s the deal…
It’s inevitable because we live in a broken and fallen world full of broken and fallen people.
LIKE – Paul says in Romans 8 this world is broken and therefore all of creation groans for the day when all is as it should be.
NEXT…
LOSS – is varied.
B) It’s Varied
NOW – James puts it this way…
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of various kinds… - James 1:2
LOSS – is varied.
In his book ‘A Disguised Grace’ Jerry Sittser writes,
Loss is loss, whatever he circumstances. All loses are bad only in different ways. No two loses are ever the same. Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain. What makes each loss so catastrophic is its devastating, cumulative, and irreversible nature.
YES MGCC – loss is loss, and therefore we must fight the temptation to compare our loss to others, as if to see whose loss is worse.
YOU KNOW – when I think about our tendency at times to compare LOSS. I always think of a scene from the classic movie Jaws that came out in 1975…
In this scene the 3 main characters are on a boat hunting that deadly and elusive great white.
AND AS - Quint and Hooper sit at the table, they begin to compare all the scars they have received over the years, from both sharks and other underwater creatures…
“Hey, you just LOST (a marriage/job/promotion)
my spouse died.”
MGCC – what I am trying to say is that…
ALL LOSS - is bad… ALL LOSS - is painful (whether it is the loss of a job, a loved one or a relationship. They are all just bad and painful and devastating in different ways…
Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain. What makes each loss so catastrophic is its devastating, cumulative, and irreversible nature.
I was reading this week about a bet that Ernest Hemingway made with a group of other authors, as he sat around a table having lunch. And they bet him ten dollars that he couldn’t come up with a short story that was only six words long. He accepted the bet; he pulled out a napkin, and here’s the short story that he wrote:
“For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”
Wow, there certainly is a story in those six words…
And perhaps you too could write six words that tell your story of loss.
• The cancer isn’t responding to treatment
• I’m going through with the divorce
• Your position is no longer needed
• There has been a terrible accident
• I do not love you anymore
• Your mom fell down the stairs
• You will never have any children
• I can’t be around you anymore
• Mom, dad, I was sexually abused – It’s the bank they are foreclosing
Sad stories, difficult stories, sorrowful stories
LOSS, here’s the deal… it’s inevitable, it’s varied…and
C) It Should Be Mourned
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
– Matthew 5:4
YOU KNOW - I think mourning is something that we tend to struggle with as Jesus followers.
I MEAN – we are not quite sure what to do with it.
LIKE - we would much rather avoid it, deny it, numb it, cover it up…
AND SO - if we must go through it, let’s get in and get out fast.
In his book ‘Beauty Will Save The World, Rediscovering The Allure and Mystery Of Christianity’ Brain Zahnd writes about our struggle to embrace mourning, he says…
We have an immature obsession with being happy all of the time. It’s in our culture. It seeps into our churches. And it’s not healthy. I think sometimes we are trying to replace the symbol of the cross with a smiley face.
Serious Christianity has given way to “inspirational” Christianity, which is turning into insipid Christianity. Have we replaced a serious theology of the cross with a pop psychology of happiness?
Have we traded something sublime and serious, majestic and mysterious, for something silly, prosaic, and shallow—a juvenile obsession with cheap happiness? I don’t think I’m overstating the problem.
Because we are uncomfortable with sorrow, we passively enforce a kind of mandated happiness in our churches.
Instead of weeping with those who weep, we want everybody to just cheer up. And we want them to cheer up for our sake. . . because we are so terribly uncomfortable with their sorrow.
What we should do instead is join them in their sorrow and assist them in the work of grief. When human beings suffer tragedy and profound loss, there is a certain amount of grieving that is required…
The question is, can we create churches that understand that mourning is not a sign of weakness, but a spiritual work to be attended to—a spiritual work that Jesus says leads to the blessedness of comfort from outside ourselves?
MGCC – what I am trying to say is that…
• It is okay to mourn LOSS
• It is natural to morn LOSS
• In fact, it is even necessary to mourn and to grieve loss
THINK ABOUT IT – when Jesus wore flesh and walked among us he mourned over loss… He wept outside the tomb of His friend Lazarus. IN FACT – we are actually commanded to mourn.
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
– Romans 12:15
BOTTOM LINE - if you’re never sad about anything it means one of three things:
a, you’re out of touch with reality because there are a lot of things to be sad about in this world; or
b, you are out of touch with your own emotions and you’re living in denial; or
c, you don’t love.
Because when you love and you see sad things or experience LOSS, that makes you grieve.
D) It Changes Our Lives Forever
IN – his book, ‘A Grace Disguised’ Jerry Sittser writes…
Catastrophic loss wreaks destruction like a massive flood.
It is unrelenting, unforgiving, and uncontrollable, brutally erosive to body, mind, and spirit.
(Someone commented on my Facebook wall this week…
“Loss just cuts you all the way through”)
SOMETIMES LOSS - does its damage instantly, as if it were a flood resulting from a broken dam that releases a great torrent of water, sweeping away everything in its path.
SOMETIMES LOSS - does its damage gradually, as if it were a flood resulting from unceasing rain that causes rivers and lakes to swell until they spill over their banks, engulfing, saturating, and destroying whatever the water touches.
IN EITHER CASE - catastrophic loss leaves the landscape of one’s life forever changed… nothing is ever the same again.
IT – can’t be. Something is missing, LOST no longer there.
UNDERSTAND – Adams loss, Jacob’s loss, Jospeh’s loss, Naomi’s loss, David’s loss…
Changed their lives forever…
BECAUSE – loss by it’s very nature and definition always leaves our lives changed… forever…
LOSS… here’s the deal…
• It’s inevitable
• It’s varied
• It should be mourned
• It changes our lives forever
II. Loss, A Story
NOW LIKE – everyone in this room… I have experienced loss many… many times over the years…
AND – my loses have inever been easy or a lot of fun.
I MEAN – there was never a loss that I would have chosen, but yet still they came.
AGAIN – many times like you, I have had unwanted and sometimes unexpected loss sweep over my life…
BUT - of all the experience of loss I have had in my life there is one that 22+ years later still stands as the Mount Everest…
WHEN - on July 28, 1996… my first wife Judy lost her 17 month fight with cancer…
NOW – I have never in a message shared much detail about this loss… just an occasional mention that it happened.
HOWEVER – I felt led to give a little bit more detail of my story of loss this morning…
IN HOPES – that God could use it to help somone, and to bring Him (not me) glory.
DEMONSTRATING – that He is good, all the time!
EVEN WHEN – things in our lives are not.
AND LISTEN – I do not merely want to share my story of LOSS, I also want to share with you some powerful lessons, turths, anchor points that I was given along the way…
BECAUSE – this loss was and still is one of the defining moment in my life… and ministry for that matter.
I MEAN – as a pastor you are often called to come alongside people who are suffering through loss.
NOW - I will never forget the first time I had to do this…
A lady from our church called and her husband was in ICU with a massive heart attack and was dying…
NEEDLESS TO SAY - I was really freaking out… I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to do this… I mean, this is the husband she had loved for 50+ years…
I remember going to a book shelf… and grabbing this book.
Crisis Counseling and quickly thimbing through it before I made the 15 minute drive over to the hospital – to dive into the unfamliar waters of coming alongside someone in their loss.
HOWEVER - after going through the loss of Judy, I no longer needed to grab a book to do that,
BECAUSE – once you have swam in those waters…
YOU JUST…
OKAY – my story…
I first meet Judy in the fall of 1979 (I was 19) and I was attending Nuclear Power School in Orlando, Florida and she was a senior at Central Florida Bible College.
NOW - I was not a believer at the time… but when we started dating I started going to church and for the first time in my life I began to seek after God.
I MEAN – I spent hours in the dorms/apartments with guys from the college studying the bible with them.
IT WAS - during that time I came to the realization that I was lost and needed a Savior.
AND SINCE - I was new to ‘church’ I simply responded to the Gospel in the way I saw everyone respond in the book of Acts.
On Sunday night December 30, 1979… at First Christian Church in Orlando Florida…
I repented of my sins, asking Jesus to be the Lord of my life and was baptized for the forgiveness of my sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Judy and I were married on August 9, 1980 after I finished my training in upstate New York learning how to operate a nuclear reactor
After we were married we moved to Charleston SC and I join the Navy Fleet onboard the USS Woodrow Wilson SSBN 624.
We spent the next 7+ years in the Navy in Charleston and in Newport News and Norfolk Virginia.
We had 2 kids during that time Chelsea on March 20, 1984 and John on August 22, 1986.
We left the Navy in the fall 1987 because God called me to go to Bible College… at Florida Christian College in Kissimmee.
In the fall of 1989 Judy was having back pain and she thought it was a kidney infection.
She went to our doctor to have it checked out and I was in our college apartment studying when she called me on the phone telling me she needed me, NOW…
As an Xray revealed that she had a large mass by her right kidney…
I freaked out, like, I was terrified…
I MEAN – I knew that I needed to get going and support her, to be strong for her, but I felt anything but strong.
SO - before I drove over to the doctor’s office.
I went over to one of my professors (Glen Bourne) office.
I still can see the scene so vividly in my mind.
I knocked, he invited me in and I fell to my knees by his chair weeping uncontrollably.
NOW - he had no idea why… NEVERTHELESS - he put his hand on me and keep saying it would be okay.
Eventually I regained my composure enough to tell him what was going and asking to him pray that I would be able to be stong for Judy… He did. God anwered. God is good!
SO – we met with a kidney surgeon, and were told she had 3 years to live… and needed surgery.
She had the surgery just 1 week later and after the surgery our heads still spinning from the whirlwind of the last 2 weeks…
WE - were told… good news it is benign and you are good to go… AND SO – go we did back to our lives with me finishing up college.
I graduated in June of 1992 and we moved to Tampa, Florida to our first ministry.
AND - Judy continued to teach pre-school at a Christian school in Kissimmee (80 miles away) so that our kids could go there for free and so that we would have health insurance.
HERE – is a picture of Judy with one of her classes… 20 4 years old all day in a room by yourself… insane.
AND – things were going pretty good…
IN FACT – we really never gave much if nay thought to the scare that we had in 1989…
THEN – around the middle of 1994 Judy started having some back pain… she figured it was because of the long commute to work each day
AND SO… - she went to a Chiropractor and the pain pretty much went away….
Until it didn’t.
AFTER TIME - it just got worse and worse so we schedule an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, figuring she had some issue with a disc or something.
Such was not the case…
The cancer was back and a large tumor had made it’s home where her kidney used be.
NEXT – we meet with a surgeon Dr Norman, who was pretty confident that he would be able to take care of this…
SO – still uneasy we felt that things would work out.
NOW – Judy had a very rare adrenal cancer called a
Pheochromocytoma (spell check did not recognize it)
And one of the side effects is to put out hormones that cause blood pressure to increase.
WELL – after our appointment with Dr Norman… as we waited for the test results of various scan and MRI’s to come back in…
I had to rush Judy to the ER because her blood pressure had spike to 190/110.
We were met there by a couple of Dr Norman’s interns…
And Judy was immediately taken straight to a room and put on a morphine drip.
NOW - this kind of special (no wait in the ER treatment, 2 intern personal escort) though appreciated, made it clear to me that something not so good was up.
Around midnight… Dr Norman finally made it to our room.
He was the lead trauma surgeon at Tampa General and it had been a busy day.
I can still see him looking worn out, a troubled look on his face, sitting on the couch in Judy’s room… but unable to say anything.
FINALLY we said, “what’s up Dr Norman.”
He told us with his head lowered, that the tests came back in and he would not be able to operate, because the cancer had spread everywhere and if he tried to operate she would bleed to death on the table.
HOWEVER - she did need to have surgery to remove some of the tumor that had grown up into her spinal canal.
He said he and neurosurgeon had no idea how she was able to even be walking right, (we did, God)…
NOW - he really felt terrible, because he had been so confident he could fix this. Judy told him to not feel bad and that it would be okay.
Chelsea and John can over to see her that night… and a lady from church Lisette spent the night with her.
She told me later that a nurse asked her in the hallway about Judy and if she knew how sick she was… and Lisette said she did. And the nurse ask then how can she be so happy, content and cheerful. Lisette because she is a Christian.
And the nurse (obviously not a Christian) said, “does that really make that kind of a difference.”
NOW – as I drove home that night with Chelsea and John (9 and 7 at the time) on the Crosstown expressway… I told them that mom had cancer and would have to have chemo…
John asked but what if that does not work… I said, that then mom would go home to be with Jesus. And then the 3 of us cried together.
NOW – as we entered this unwanted journey of LOSS Judy and I decided that how we responded to this situation would either make or break Chelsea and John’s faith.
SO WE - made a conscious decision that this unwanted journey, regardless of what happened and what the final outcome would be – was going to make their faith stronger.
YOU SEE - we wanted to know without nay doubt whatsoever that God is good and God can be trusted no matter what.
AND SO… - that journey began, and for the next 17 months
• There were rounds of chemo and radiation
• Dr appointments and countless tests and scans
• Hair loss, weight loss, sickness
• Blood transfusions, a few hospital stays
• Good days and tough days
• Times of laughing and times of weeping
• A month spent crossing the border each day into Tijuana and another month in North Carolina trying alternative treatments
THEN – in late June of 1996… during VBS at church we got our latest test results… and as we read them in my office at church we both wept because we knew – what was coming and that time was short.
SO – we took a mini vacation to Lido Beach near Sarasota.
We had such a great time…. laying on the beach, swimming in the pool, floating on the ocean waves.
Enjoying each other and God’s creation.
One night we went out to a seafood restaurant (The Sandbar) and we just had the best of times… we had shrimp and I love shrimp, so much that I always make sure to dig every last piece even from the tails. Well John says, “Hey dad, do you want to dig the stuff out of my tail?” We laughed so hard we cried.
After dinner we walked outside by the water…
And there was a lady walking out and we asked her to take our picture… it would be the last one we would ever take together.
YOU SEE – about 4 weeks later on July 17…
Judy had to be rushed to the Hospital…
The cancer had apparently ate away at her stomach and it ruptured, causing about 5 liters of bile to flood into her body.
She had emergency surgery with a only 10% chance of making through… I was not ready for her to leave right then… and God answered my prayers and she survived the surgery.
NOW – were still unsure if she would ever wake up…
But she was still alive.
TO THIS DAY - I still remember sitting on the tile floor in the hallway outside of the ICU will John and Chelsea waiting to see their mom…
I told them… that mom would have a lot of tubes and wires coming out of her and that I was not sure if she would ever wake up.
But that even if her body did not wake up her spirit was still inside her and could still hear us.
And I said to them that their mom and I were always upfront with them and did not hold things back, and that some people thought we were wrong to do this.
John said… I am glad you guys did because, if you didn’t -
1. I would not have known how sick mom was and that I need to pray for her.
2. I would have gotten mad those times when mom was unable to do stuff with us
3. I would not have been ready if Jesus wanted to take her home
SO – we went into that ICU room… the three of us and joined hands with her mom… and I heard my 12 and 9 year old pray. About how much they love their mom but that they wanted her to know if she needed to go home to be with Jesus that they would be okay, dad was with them – and Jesus would help them.
WELL – Judy did wake up and we had a few more good days
together… we visited, we laughed…
It was good. We both seized and celebrated the opportunity we were given.
HOWEVER – on Thursday July 25th it became apparent to me that Judy was not getting better, things were looking bad…
If you’ve been there, you know what I mean.
SO – I wrote out a prayer to God on a piece of loose leaf paper…
ASKING HIM - to heal completely and immediately
SO THAT - she would walk out the door of the hospital in a few days, and people would marvel at His power, goodness and glory.
BIT I ALSO - prayed that if she was going to continue to suffer and not get well I asked Him take her home on Sunday.
SO – on Sunday I preached my message at church and then went over to be with Judy… and around 11:30 pm she went into cardiac arrest… and code blue could be heard on the intercom.
A bunch of doctors and nurses rushed in… and when they realized I was still in the room they told me I had to leave.
AND – as I was leaving I said… I did not want an extra-ordinary measures to be taken….
They said are you sure
I said give me a minute.
A doctor came out to me and I told I knew how bad things were. And then I told him that I am a Christian and if God wants my wife to breathe she will breathe.
I told him that I had prayed just 3 days ago that if she was going to continue to suffer that I wanted God to take her home on Sunday. I said there is only about 15 minutes left of Sunday and how can I then dishonor my wife and my God by hooking her up to a machine.
SO – they all left… and I held Judy’s hand, and stroked her singing God is so good… and at 11:59 pm (God is soo good… I mean, He gave me the entire day with her)… the monitor flat lined and Judy was home…
The weeks the followed were full of many things…
• Planning her celebration of life service
• Going on a 5000 mile road trip with John and Chelsea
• And trying to figure out what was next for me, for us
On September 1, 1996 I wrote the following in my journal.
It’s about 9 pm. I feel so sad, I miss Judy.
I feel so desperate trying to find a piece of her, something she wrote down… anything.
I’ve been looking in the closet anywhere. But no matter what I find it’s not enough. It will never be enough.
At times I feel strong and other times I feel like I am about to fall a part. Lately the waves of loss have come more frequently – and have been much stronger. It seems like a black hole that is trying to suck me in.
This loss I have determined will transform me…
I still find it hard to believe this is real. 5 weeks ago Judy died. It already seems like a lifetime.
Not only have I lost Judy but I lost a piece of myself, a large piece of what defined who I am.
I don’t know what to write – it helps to write but right now I’m just – I don’t know…
Judy is gone – and I will have to live the rest of my life without her – and that’s the cold hard reality of things…
She is gone and I am alone and it really hurts!!!
It’s almost 9:50 pm and I am desperately trying to find something that has Judy’s touch on it. I’ve looked through boxes and under the bed. I’m going nuts about it and I can’t find anything.
All I have is pieces and snapshots of the old life and it’s not enough – and now I can’t even find them. It is so hard to accept that my old life is gone…
Yes, my old life is gone. I cannot bring it back no matter how hard I try…
AND LISTEN - shortly after I wrote those words…
GOD - gave me an incredible gift, HE - taught me an amazing lesson… HE - engraved on my soul 3 poweful lessons or truths that (helped, saved, rescued and delivered me) 22+ years ago AND THAT - still do, to this very day whenever I am faced with loss, and I remember to anchor myself to them.
LOSS – it’s inevitable, it’s varied, it should be mourned and it changes our lives forever…
Which brings us to the final point in our notes…
III. Loss, Three Lessons
BROTHERS AND SISTERS – here are the the within three words that become both the anchor in and the way out of the pain of my LOSS.
UNDERSTAND – the experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment of our lives…
INSTEAD – the defining moment of our lives can be our response to LOSS.
YOU SEE - it is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us.
A) Accept – (embrace the darkness)
NOW – there was a book that really helped me to navigate my loss in a positive and God-honoring way.
It was written by a guy named Jerry Sittser (published in 1996)
In 1991 Jerry was driving in his minivan with some of his family, and the minivan was hit by a drunk driver; in that accident his mom died, his wife died and his 4 year old daughter young daughter died…
And he just writes about this loss. The name of the book is called A Grace Disguised.
By the way there are 3 free copies for anyone who needs this book right now or knows someone who does.
WELL – in a chapter called, ‘Darkness Closes In’ he talks about this dream he had shortly after the accident.
I dreamed of a setting sun. I was frantically running west, trying desperately to catch it and remain in its fiery warmth and light. But I was losing the race.
The sun was beating me to the horizon and was soon gone. I suddenly found myself in the twilight. Exhausted, I stopped running and glanced with foreboding over my shoulder to the east.
I saw a vast darkness closing in on me. I was terrified by that darkness. I wanted to keep running after the sun, though I knew that it was futile, for it had already proven itself faster than I was. So I lost all hope, collapsed to the ground, and fell into despair. I thought at that moment that I would live in darkness forever. I felt absolute terror in my soul.
Later my sister, Diane, told me that the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.
I discovered in that moment that I had the power to choose the direction my life would head, even if the only choice open to me, at least initially, was either to run from the loss or to face it as best I could.
Since I knew that darkness was inevitable and unavoidable, I decided from that point on to walk into the darkness rather than try to outrun it, to let my experience of loss take me on a journey wherever it would lead, and to allow myself to be transformed by my suffering rather than to think I could somehow avoid it.
I chose to turn toward the pain, however falteringly, and to yield to the loss, though I had no idea at the time what that would mean.
AND THAT – exactly what I did as well, I embraced the darkness… It was September 2nd (35 days after Judy went home) I was sitting in a McDonalds as some work was being done on my car… and I wrote in my journal that my old life is gone and that it is gone forever…
YOU SEE – the truth was I was never getting it back…
• We would never celebrate our 16th anniversary
• Judy would never see Chelsea and John graduate HS/College, get married, have children.
UNDERSTAND – one of the first steps in getting through LOSS is Accept. Is to Accept that…
• Your love one is gone
• The marriage is over
• The relationship has ended
• The dream you had will not happen
AND – believe me when I tell you this is not fun…
BUT SERIOUSLY – what other choice do we have?
AND YES – it is painful, dififcult…
To embrace the darkness… but understand the sunset on what was lost and you will never catch it.
BUT LISTEN, LISTEN –
IT’S - this next word that makes it possible…
B) Trust (in God)
TRUST – in His character, His strength, His purpose, His love, His Care, His wisdom, His Soveriegnty and His goodness…
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. – Romans 15:13
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. - Psalm 28:7
Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. – Psalm 62:8
Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. - Psalm 125:1
LISTEN – you may not understand the plans God has for you.
BUT – you can trust them…
THEY – are plans not to harm you but to prosper you, to give you hope and a future…
Accept and Trust…Trust
• that God is with you
• that He is good
• that He cares
• that He will work it out for good
• that He will use it (if you allow Him too) o make you mature and complete.
C) Wait – (for the sun to rise)
In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. – Psalm 5:3
We wait in hope for the LORD he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
- Psalm 33:20-22
Those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40:30,31
SO – you accept… you trust
AND – you wait for the good that God is working out to come
AND – and this is very important…. you don’t tell God what that good is supposed, you don’t tell Him what the outcome has to be… do not put Him in a box like that…
Instead you trust Him…
In 1996
I accepted (I didn’t say I liked it or wanted it) the fact that my life had been changed for ever.
And I trusted that He would be with me working things out for good. And I waited for the sun to rise…
AND YES – waiting is not easy…
UNDERSTAND – the sun will rise…
The LOSS you are experiencing and the pain you are feeling…
When you accept…
when you trust…
when you wait…
It is just the dark before the morning, before the sunrise…
AND LISTEN – a major part of that sunrise for me was a person you all know, my wife Laurie…
IN FACT – when we first got together that is what I called her…
She was my sunrise.
And what a sunrise, she was and had been.
Didn’t see it coming…
NEVERTHELESS – come, rise… it did.
And on January 10, 1997… we were married and the 2 become 1 and that 1 became 5… and a few later 7.
Accept – Trust – Wait…
A Grace Disguised…
YES – there is grace in loss.
• God will draw closer and be more real than you could ever imagine… LIKE – you will experience Psalm 34:18… “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit…”
• You will prove Him faithful
• He will do a work in you, making you more like Jesus, more complete and mature – lacking in nothing
• You will realize that your ultimate and unshakable identity is not your job title or even a relationship title (husband, wife, parent..etc) but that you are a child of God.
• You will see Him move and do things that you would never even expect, dream of or imagine…
About 3-4 years after Laurie and I were married we were in Georgia serving at an awesome Church.
And Laurie was working as the youth pastor.
One day John who was about 14 at the time said to Laurie as they were riding in the car together…
“I was really made at God when mom died. But now I understand why. If mom did not die and go home to Jesus, dad would not have married you and we would not be here in Georgia helping all these people find Jesus.”
Accept
Trust, and
Wait
God is good, all the time!
