I’ve been keeping a journal for years and, through a series of affirmations, feel like now is the time to begin sharing it more broadly. This first entry includes my Christmas letter. While many of you have seen it, I wanted to include it because it was what prompted the affirmations. The letter was motivated by the admonition in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 . . . to comfort others with the comfort that God has comforted us with.
For the last several years, as I watched my mom and my husband decline, God has been comforting me. One of the main insights was from Romans 8:26. I frequently feel like I don’t know how to pray, what to pray. That verse asserts that it’s a fact, part of our condition. God is not surprised or offended. Then it goes on to say the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Somehow, I had always read that thinking He put words to what I had no words for. But He doesn’t. He doesn’t have words either. He groans with us. I find that very encouraging and liberating!
2021 was a year where I really needed to receive comfort, strength and joy from God. A year I needed to learn how to cry and rejoice at the same time. A year to understand what lament was and what joy was. I think Kay Warren said it well when she said, life isn’t so much hills and valleys, but more like a set of parallel train tracks, with joy and sorrow running inseparably throughout our days. I decided the best way to share this year with you was to share parts of my journal, to share the comfort and the joy God has given in the midst of sorrow.
Laments are cries for help from deep within, uncensored prayer, straight from the heart, and they are throughout scripture. Even when we have no words to express our anguish, we can lay our requests before God. Jeremiah was the weeping prophet. Jesus cried. Knowing the goodness of the Father and the scope of the plan, knowing the glories of Heaven and the certainty of the promise, He still wept with people who were weeping. What He knew did not make life here painless. Paul cried night and day for three years. Acts 20:28 So, it’s ok to cry. It’s appropriate. It’s healing. But God doesn’t want us to cry because we’ve lost sight of Him and His great love for us. And that takes intentional effort and focus.
January 9, 2021
God continues to address the sadness I feel these days, for the world and for myself. I know my life will change drastically. I just don’t know when. “Blessed are those who mourn.” It’s important to know this or Satan will accuse and taunt us for our despair, and that will keep us from the God who blesses those who mourn and recognize their dependence.
When I read the story of Hannah and Samuel, I realize that in the course of our lives, we relinquish and/or lose many of God’s gifts. It’s not easy, but Hannah did it by rejoicing in the Lord and His salvation, by recognizing there is no one like Him. (I Sam. 2:1-2)
Mom died suddenly June 24. She was 98-1/2. We spent the vast majority of those days together!! Even though you begin grieving when you’re facing loss, it always seems to be a shock! The VA gave us the opportunity to put an inscription on her tombstone. This is what I chose based on the fact that the sermon that led her to salvation was the Ninety and Nine about being pursued by God, and the verse from Psalms 23 that “goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of the Lord forever, and Eph. 2:7 that tells us throughout eternity God will be lavishing loving kindness on us. Pursued by love all the days of this life and all of forever.
July 17, 2021
Ps. 84:5-6 NLT – What joy for those whose strength comes from the LORD. . . When they walk through the Valley of Weeping. It will become a place of refreshing springs. . . They go from strength to strength. There are blessings in the valley of weeping. We can’t avoid the valley of weeping. We will walk through it many times in this fallen world. But if we are willing to receive the blessings available there, we go from strength to strength.
July 21,2021
Today’s strength verse was: My flesh and my heart fail (sorrowful), but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (rejoicing). Ps. 73:26
And The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Mat. 26:41 Satan often attacks my heart questioning my love for God and my willingness to submit to Him as Lord. But God’s word says that I have a new heart and that my spirit is indwelt by His Spirit. He knows my spirit is willing. The psalmist knew he couldn’t depend on his flesh or his emotions. But God was his strength and His portion forever. HE IS SUFFICIENT!
I find it so encouraging to know that when we keep loving God, trusting God, serving God, even when we cry, even when we question, we are defeating Satan and bringing honor to God.
Wonder: an awe-filled response to God that leads to praise and worship. Wonder: a sense of surprise or state of amazed admiration. Wonder: experiencing something far beyond anything we’ve previously known. “For who in all of heaven can compare with the LORD.” Joy is to behold God in everything. Julian Norwich
Joy is a settled conviction about God, a quiet confidence in God, a determined choice to praise God. Kay Warren
November 3, 2021
Nathan and Noah (twin great-grandsons, 3-1/2) have shown me what it looks like to pray – ask – with a childlike faith. They ask without ceasing – they ask for what they need, want, like. They ask with great confidence in my love and willingness and ability to give. And when I say no or not right now, they accept that with the confidence that I will when I can – maybe next time, or in a little bit. Delay does not dim their faith. And now that they realize my supply is greater than their knowledge, they ask for “something else.”
I think God might be thrilled if I asked for “something else” based on my awareness that He has riches I don’t know about, He loves me more and wants to give me more than I know to ask for. He gives according to His riches, according to His mercy and grace, according to His goodness and power, according to His love. He gives more than we can ask, think, or imagine. So, Father, in all these things that burden and break my heart, these things that are so big for me that I don’t even know what to ask, work with all Your might, according to all Your goodness and love, and do something else – something I can’t even think or imagine.
November 27, 2021
Joe died on the 19th. He went to ER on Sunday. They thought they could regulate his heartbeat and get rid of excess fluid in his body, but everything made him worse. Tuesday morning, they told me there was nothing they could do. He came home Wednesday night and died Friday night. But we had two precious and glorious evenings with him first. Wednesday evening, he got to see the newest great granddaughter, Jadzia. He had been looking forward to meeting her from the first moment he knew she was coming. She’s five weeks old and was so content to sleep on him or with him – and they did that for hours. Her granna (Jamie) thought it would be okay to hold her while Joe was napping, but as soon as he woke up, he said, where’s my baby, I want my baby. We were all so thrilled with him.
Thursday evening, he was definitely seeing where he was going. He kept telling us it was wonderful and he didn’t have words for how wonderful. He was ecstatic, animated, eyes shining, smiling from ear to ear. He knew everyone. He was hugging everyone over and over. Jennifer sang his favorite song, His Eye is on the Sparrow, and he raised his hands and sang along. He was radiant. He was filled with wonder, and this went on for several hours. He was so ready to go to the place he was seeing, he kept saying I wonder when it will be my turn.
It was such a gift. It was such a perfect picture of what it looks like to rejoice in suffering, that we do them both at the same time. I understood The Joy of the Lord is our strength in a deeper way than ever before. Joe was experiencing the joy of the Lord – and it was more than enough for dying. We will need to rely on that same joy for our strength for living.
And I’ve often thought that “Well done thou good and faithful servant” applied to Joe, but now the last part of that verse took on new meaning – enter into the joy of your Lord. We got to see the beginning of that. What an awesome gift!
I was praying for a good and godly man when I met Joe, and God exceeded all my expectations. We were married for 28 years this past September. I was so blessed. And I know that now Joe is experiencing more than he knew to imagine or ask for. It’s something else!!
Praying for all of us this year that we become more aware of His presence and His blessings and that our days will be filled with praise and thanksgiving, that we will live out what it means to be sorrowful yet rejoicing. I finally see how we’re able to do that. The train tracks are two different realities – one is the temporal realities – based on what we’re experiencing here and now; and the other is based on the eternal realities God’s character and His Word, His great gift to us of His Son and eternal salvation which will result in our being transformed into the image of His Son. Staggering, Amazing Grace!!!
In The Book of Comforts: Genuine Encouragement for Hard Times by Wernet. She said she hoped heaven would be one joyful realization after another. (I am so thrilled with the things God shows me now, can’t imagine how thrilled I’ll be with the things He’ll be able to show me there.) She said, I can’t wait for the “So that’s how that works! and Oh, I see why You did that! moments in eternity, but what I’m most looking forward to is find the same refrain in every answer: He loves us, He loves us, He loves us.