Good Friday Tears

Easter! I love Christmas, but Easter creates a tangible joy in my spirit. But there’s no Easter without Good Friday. There’s no resurrection without death and a funeral. And not only did Jesus have to die, but He also had to die the MOST torturous, gruesome, humiliating death any human has ever faced.

Remember Good Friday. Take time to read the account of the cross. Visualize the rods with which Jesus was beaten. Visualize the faces of the people doing the beating. Try to imagine what a crown of three-inch thorns feels like being pressed into your skull. The weight of a rugged cross on the exposed skin of a whipped, flesh-stripped back. Read the story but visualize every detail. (Matthew 27:26-66, Mark 15:15-47, Luke 23:24-56, John 19:16-42)

Let yourself cry. Mourn. Today represents the day your Jesus died. For you. He did it all for you.

The wrath of God can be defined as complete separation from the attributes and presence of God. Separation from His Goodness, Mercy, Sovereignty, Love, Beauty, Peace—the list goes on and on. These attributes are on limited display at all times even in our sinful world because we are and live in God’s creation. His presence still dwells with His people. His attributes still reflected in His creation. So, we have never experienced God’s full wrath, yet. We have no inkling to encapsulate the horror and torture of that reality. Maybe the depravity of a concentration camp or the bloody hell of a Roman colosseum, but even there God made Himself known among His people.

One of the greatest mysteries our minds cannot fathom is Christ fully knowing and experiencing the separation that is the full wrath of God. When the sky darkened and the earth shook that first Good Friday, Jesus fully knew the total wrath of God. In fully taking our destined and deserved punishment, He gave us a way to choose a different destiny even though He never committed one sin to deserve ours. He is the penultimate, spotless Lamb of God.

Christ’s quest was to save us from God’s wrath, but He had to defeat Death to do it. He couldn’t just taste it and survive. He couldn’t come within an inch of His life and live to tell the story. To defeat Death, He had to surrender completely to its power then rise victorious after what looked like utter defeat.

Oh, the battle that must have raged in the belly of eternity during those days between Good Friday and Easter! Sometimes I envision heaven as an opportunity to sit and hear the best stories the universe has ever known finally retold in the light of complete truth. Better than any theatre experience we can imagine. I want to hear this story of the middle one day—the story of how death was defeated.

Until that day, I can only imagine with my limited human mind the events between burial and resurrection, and it leaves me with more questions than answers. What I do know is there is no glorious victory of Easter resurrection without the gory suffering of a Good Friday death and burial. You can’t have one without the other.

You can’t have one without the other. Yet don’t we always try?

Jesus’ children will never know God’s wrath because He made another path for them if they choose to take it. But He did not remove all forms of death from this world. Though the Source of death has been defeated, the web of roots runs deep and far throughout the fabric of our world. We will not escape its presence this side of heaven.

So, we too must face death in our daily lives. Death of loved ones, dreams, hopes, ideas, jobs, homes—death permeates our world. We can mourn those things. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4). Good Friday is a day to mourn but mourn expectantly. Our mourning does have an end, a glorious, victorious, radiant, triumphant, resurrected end!

We serve a Living Victor! A Resurrected Savior! A Glorified King! A Triumphant Comforter who is able, willing, and more than qualified to wrap you in His arms and breath new life into whatever needs resurrection. So, if you still live inside a tomb, look to the Light of your Savior’s triumph, heed His voice, and walk out.

Yes, we all have the Good Fridays in our lives and in our circumstances. They are necessary. Because we cannot know the freedom of the resurrected life without them. Jesus suffered and died to give us a choice. Don’t choose to stay in your tomb. Mourn for a season. Traverse, grapple, wrestle the weird mystery of the middle between death and life. But in the end, choose Christ and live. Live abundantly and victoriously!

Today I’ll shed tears for my Jesus, His Good Friday. I’ll shed tears for my Good Fridays and those of others, but I will smile as I cry because Sunday is coming, and I’m living life on the winning team. Are you?

Who Are the Least?

Two weeks ago, I basked in the joy of newly born baby goats at my sister’s home. Six of them. Three mamas: Kari had one, Sassy two, and Ella three. They were warm and snuggly, perky, wobbly little babies. Full of life and innocence. Snuggling them in the pasture with the warm sun beating down on a cold Georgia January day was a moment of perfection.

Today we buried the triplets. Together. In a box. In the hard, cold Georgia clay.

Their necks were broken. Not a scratch on them. One by one, they were shaken to death by my sister’s two foster dogs. One left for dead only to pounce another.

The gate to the back field had been left unsecured at some point in time. No one really knows when or for how long, but the dogs definitely waited until both my sister and her husband were gone to make their move. A neighbor intervened, or I’m quite sure all six babies would be dead.

Ruthless. A cruel, carnal visual of our fallen world. They weren’t killed for food, but for sport. I suppose one could argue the dogs were trying to play with the babies, but you’d think after they killed one, they’d realize their mistake. They targeted the weakest, most innocent, and least protected of the bunch—a mother with three littles and no horns. Kari had dog hair in her horns proving she defended her only. Sassy’s twins were the oldest, strongest, and fastest of the six. The dogs targeted the weakest and least defended.

It's a grim, picture-perfect analogy of Satan and how he works in this fallen world. Targeting the weak, the innocent, and the least protected. Ravaging their lives for pure sport. Breaking their necks just to stop their hearts from beating, only to move on to the next. He doesn’t feel remorse, only conquest (John 10:10, 1 Peter 5:8).

It begs the question, who are the weak, innocent, and least defended among us?

That person who just recently committed their life to Christ (Hebrews 5:11-14). The person who is grieving a major loss of a loved one (Psalm 147:3). The person searching for answers to life’s hardest questions (Luke 19:10). The spiritually, physically, and/or emotionally unhealthy people in your life (Mark 7:20-23). Every child breathing on this planet (Matthew 18:6). Anyone facing grief of any kind (Psalm 34:18). All of these and many more are weak, possibly very innocent in their understanding, and in need of protection (Romans 15:1)

How do you help protect them? By surrounding them, which means you can’t do it alone (Hebrews 12:1). Surround with words of encouragement, acts of care, and loving presence. You show up (Proverbs 17:17). You pray without ceasing. You ask others to pray with you (1 Thessalonians 5:17). You acknowledge the God who created them has them completely covered (Psalm 139:5), yet He invites you to show up and join with Him in being His hands and feet to the least of us (Matthew 25:31-40).

But don’t just surround others, surround yourself. Guard your heart, friends (Proverbs 4:23). The gate to the innocent babies wasn’t a wide, open invitation. It was simply a matter of the chain keeping it securely shut being left unsecured. And this happens to the best of us! All. The. Time. We rarely leave wide open doors for the devil to walk through. We look at that website just a minute or two longer than we should. We smile at the handsome man or beautiful woman with slightly impure heart motives. We choose to skip our time with the Lord for some extra sleep, a TV show, a chore, or even ministry work. We leave the chain securing our hearts in place. We are a child of God, after all. The chain appears to be doing its job, but it’s just a show because it’s not. It’s loose, and it leaves your heart and mind in danger of attack.

Jesus provided 24hr access to Himself and His power through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). As a child of God, you are surrounded by chains of protection, hedges, fences, guardrails keeping the enemy out while providing you an abundant life within. When the Holy Spirit urges you to reinforce some loose areas in your life, do you listen? Do you actually take the necessary steps to secure your heart and mind, or do you simply leave your protection sitting there for show, useless to actually protect you? Like God’s Word collecting dust on a shelf. Like the good intentions of prayer that never become reality. Like promising yourself once again, this is the week I’ll go to church or attend that Bible study. Too often, in too many small ways, we leave our hearts and minds unsecured and open to attack.

Picking up those innocent, slightly warm babies and placing them together in a box was a stark reminder of the ultimate plan of the enemy—death. Soul death. Eternal death. And if he can’t have you for all eternity, he wants to fill this one life with as much death as possible. Death of dreams, death of plans, death of loved ones, death of ideals, death of community, death of unity. Death, death, and more death. He wants to break our necks and stop our hearts beating for Christ.

I’m grateful I serve a resurrected God. A God who makes all things new in His time (Isaiah 43:18-19). A God who restores, renews, refreshes, and revives (2 Corinthians 4:16-17). He raises dead things to life (John 11:25-26). Death here on earth can be a deeply stirring and motivating experience toward a life of redemptive power on display. The choice remains with each of us—does death paralyze and freeze us in time, or does it spur us on with a more single-minded focus toward what matters most? The choice is ours.

If nothing else, the baby goats’ morbid reality is a stark reminder of how real Satan actually is and the threat he poses. We are not to fear him, but we should not forget how real he is—how powerful he is, and if fearing what he can do to our hearts and to those we love spurs us forward to protect, to surround ourselves, with Jesus, then to God be the glory.

He Uses It All

It's been eight years today since the Lord took her home. This year the sadness didn't build and crash like a tidal wave.  It is present and under the surface, but my walk with the Lord over the last eight years has grown an acceptance of her loss like moss on a stone. The acceptance helps take the edge off the sharp edges of grief. Instead of a tidal wave, this week is a strong surf week--manageable. 

Part of me doesn't appreciate this new found softness. It still feels wrong, like a betrayal, to not ache and hurt today the same as I did eight years ago. It feels like I love her less or have forgotten her more if the pain isn't as acute, but that's not true. If anything, I may love her more today than I did eight years ago.

Because the other thing I have a hard time admitting--I wouldn't be the person I am today had her death not turned my world upside down and inside out. 

I like the person I am today. Her death was the catalyst for a deeper relationship with the Lord I'm not sure I would have sought. The struggle through the darkness of the grief and the reality of depression's hold in my life have made me stronger and wiser. Carrying, feeling, and living through the pain, despite the pain, has taught me lessons about compassion and hope no other circumstances could have taught.

I HATE that eight years later her death has been the life event I attribute to molding me into a better human being. I would gladly give up all the growth I've experienced in the last eight years just to hug her neck again. 

But then, it's not about what I want. It never has been. It never will be. It's about the person God wants me to be. It's about the masterpiece my Jesus is creating with my life for His purposes, and only He knows the tools and life lessons and ways and methods needed to accomplish His end result. Only He can take the horrible and make it beautiful in time, in ways no one thought to look. Whether He caused her death or allowed her death really makes no difference. The truth is He has continued to make beauty from ashes, to work life for good for those of us who have called on His name in our hours of need.

And I'm only one witness to her life. One story. There are more. So many more.

Though our loved ones leave us, God still uses them to further His purposes through us, through our stories. We honor them with lives well-lived. We honor their lives by battling our grief instead of hiding from it. No, we live to tell the story of another day, to tell their story another day. Whether our story is one of personal defeat or victory, the power and redemption comes from having a story to tell, to share, to live. So both our deepest lows and highest highs have the same redemptive value when you own your story and share it.

Their deaths only lose meaning when the ones they leave behind stay stuck in the past and don't press forward into the future. Too many bitter, pitiful souls have gotten lost in the quagmire of unprocessed grief. When you're stuck in the muck, you lose sight of your purpose all together, and it takes work and support to escape.

"Thank you Jesus for orchestrating circumstances that made me work hard to move through the grief. Thank you for the support You Yourself provided in Yourself and through Your people who prayed, hugged me through tears, and just walked with me. Thank you that my life can be a testimony to the fact that her death wasn't a waste. Help me to continue to honor her story with my story by submitting to Your story for us both. In the same way Father, may my life be a testimony to the fact that Your death wasn't a waste either. May the good in my life always reflect Your glory and my sin testify to Your grace and forgiveness. Continue to use it all, Lord--the ugly deaths and beautiful births and everything in between. Use it all and use me too, Father."

Still Rippling

I've lost track of the years now.  It hasn't even been that long. Two? three? years today, I think? that she silently slipped away out of our lives.

I've lost track of the years, but I've kept track of every moment. Every moment when I thought, "She'd love this. She'd enjoy that. She'd be laughing her head off right now at this. She would have come and stayed for the summer.  She would have gone and done this with me, with us, with my kids. She's laughing right now at that. I would have invited her to come out for this. I would have bought her that." Those thoughts, those moments, never stop. They continue to catch me off guard.

I spent a whole day bawling my eyes out last month for what seemed like absolutely no reason at all. No reason other than I was just overcome with the thought of missing her. The day passed, the tears stopped, life moved on, but on this day, every year, the world slows down just a bit. The sun passes slower through the sky, and it only seems right to honor someone who changed your life.

She really did. She changed the way I viewed people. She changed the way I viewed how to love and interact with people different from me. She changed the way I viewed suffering and how to respond and live life in the midst of it. Her death left me marked for life. For the better.

Not sure I've ever mentioned this, but I've been reliving our last conversation together in my mind for some time now, maybe half a year. I remember her calling me Saturday afternoon before she had her asthma attack on the following Sunday. I remember hearing how tired she was in her voice. I always asked how she was. She always said fine. She asked me some details about the next week because she was going to start babysitting for us for the summer after her finals were over. I remember being distracted, needing to get off the phone for some reason, so the conversation was rushed. I remember wanting to tell her I loved her, but that was weird because I'd never said that to her before (we weren't technically family after all.) But I remember having the overwhelming urge to say it, and then not saying it. Simply saying goodbye, see you next week, and hanging up, worrying about her because she sounded so exhausted.  

And then she was gone. It was Tuesday before I held her hand in that hospital room, hooked up to all those machines, looking like she had long left this earth. And I must have stood by her bedside whispering over and over again how much I loved her, how much I appreciated her. How I knew she knew, but how I wished I had said it out loud more.

That last conversation has haunted me for too long. The truth is, she knew I loved her. I knew she loved me. We didn't have to say it, although it would have been nice. But that conversation was/ is a turning point, a milestone in my life. It's a reminder to me to never be too busy to listen and respond to the things the Holy Spirit speaks. His Voice is often so quiet, so gently prodding, that my busyness inside my own brain, my train of thought that is always pressing on to the next station instead of parking in the moment, often overwhelms and barrels over His always guiding Voice. 

His Voice that is always prompting me to say "I love you", to pour the glass of milk for my son that says "I love you", to lay for two minutes longer in bed at night with my daughter that relays the message "I love you", to scratch my husband's back for just a moment longer to say "I love you." 

Jesus just wants us to ooze "I love you" out of every pore in our body, every action, every thought, every word. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) He wants to be the love that others feel and see and know that is true because HE is the only true Love in the world. (1 John 4:8) 

And while I refuse to live in condemnation of a moment lost to say "I love you" to one of the dearest people I've known in this life, I will never forget the lesson learned. Friends, we are NOT promised tomorrow with anyone, for anyone, by anyone. (Proverbs 27:1) The Holy Spirit knows. (1 Corinthians 2:10) He knows the moments we will regret and relive and yearn for do-overs. So the challenge is to learn to listen AND obey in the moment, exactly when He speaks. No questions, no hesitations, no over-thinking. Not quenching the Spirit with our busyness or sin or excuses. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)

You never have to second-guess or over-think an act that says "I love you" in the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of way. Never. Just do it.

My dear Savannah Veale, I love you. Always did. Always will. You will always be a part of who I was and the catalyst God used for who I am today. You are still a source of great joy for me, even in memory. The ripple effects of your life are still rippling. 

Still rippling.

Now to Him who is able (My God is ABLE!) to do immeasurably MORE than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21 (emphasis mine)

For Those Who Suffer

One set of parents woke up one day to find their 5 year old has an inoperable brain tumor.

One family has lost one husband/father, and now their new husband/dad faces stage four lymphoma.

Another husband/father faces the hard truth of chemo treatments every week for the rest of his life just to keep the cancer at bay with no hope of a cure.

Still another friend just lost her third round battle with breast cancer after being in remission twice.

And these are just the people I know that come to mind in this moment. There are countless others.

It seems like cancer is everywhere.  It seems like it is encompassing the lives of so many.  It seems to surround and cloud and choke at the heart and lives of so many I love and care about.  It can appear hopeless at times.

And in the midst of that lie from the devil, I hear the small whisper of my Big God say, "But I have been there, I am there, I will be there.  I have already been there.  I go before you, before them, I AM before you, and I AM before them.  They will not take one step in a place in time where I have not already been, where I AM not already present."

And somehow in those words, there is great comfort and great hope.

I cannot tell any of my friends that their loved one will not die.  I cannot tell them definitively that God's will is healing in their lives.  I will not remind them that God works all things for their good because right now, reality is life may not be good for them, God may not feel good to them, and those words are of no comfort.  I will not preach that God knows best to them because even when I tell that to myself, it feels flat and lifeless and cold.

But my friends, fleshly feelings deceive. And truth is truth whether I feel it or not.

My God is not cold (Psalm 86:15).  He is not distant (Psalm 34:18).  He is not a puppet master pulling the strings of our lives for His own cosmic entertainment (Isaiah 55:9).  No.  No matter how it may feel, the Truth is my God is Love (1 John 4:8).  The truth is He embodies Hope (Romans 15:13).  The truth is He is Creator God that always has been and always will be (Revelation 22:13). So for all my friends who are struggling deeply with the paths He has asked them to walk, with the difficulties He has entrusted you to endure, I pray my words can point you to Who God is, not what He can do for you, but simply to Who He is.

Because in the moments when we don't understand His will, His purposes, His actions, His choices for our lives, in those moments we must lean hard into who He actually is.  And He said, "I AM."  He promises that you, my friends, will not walk anywhere He hasn't already actually been because His presence knows no boundary of time and is limitless and beyond comprehension.

So when life seems beyond hard, and God seems unfair, know that I will be lifting you in prayer, and I won't be praying that God's will will be done, and I won't pray that He works all things for your good; I will be praying that you never lose sight of who He is--your Refuge, your Strength, your Banner, your Protector, your Provider, your Hope, your Love, your Light, your Life, your Truth.  I will be praying that His ever-present Presence is tangible even in the moments when you might give up on Him, you will know He NEVER gives up on you.  He never lets you go.

There is comfort and hope in Him alone.  Just the knowledge that He IS and always will be is comfort and hope alone.  I pray you know and cling to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the God of the living, not the dead (Matthew 22:32).

He is present, and He is enough.