Newness

It is a new year. You might be saying – oh, good, a new year. Do you hear the difference between that and Oh, Good! A New Year! There is a “yippee” after this second quote but not after the first. The first is said with a flat tone of voice. As a grieving parent, you might be speaking like the first quote. It is a new year. For many, there is pain just turning over the calendar to a new number for the year. It means this is a year in which your child has not lived. I’m sorry for that extra dose of pain for you. You have probably heard it said that you have to seek and establish a “new normal” for your life now that he or she has died.

I want to share a couple verses from Ezekiel about newness that I have been pondering: I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:24-28)

Our God wants to bless you and me with a new heart! He wants to cleanse us. Since none of us is perfect yet, I am not shy about saying you, and I for sure, need to be cleansed from all our sin and idols. I/we need a softer heart, not a stony one.

Now, I want to be clear about this: I DO NOT believe that your stony heart is what motivated God to take your child! NO. But since we’re not perfect yet, there is bound to be some hardness of heart that needs to be softened and can be softened here in the grief that you’re experiencing. It’s not BECAUSE of hardness of heart that you’re here, but SINCE you’re here, God has intentions to cleanse and give you a new heart.

God’s work in your life is much bigger than the calendar. He wants to transform you into someone who is more and more like Jesus. The reason for His work in your life is for His reputation.

It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name. (Ezekiel 36:22 partial)

I know, it’s not about us. It’s about Him. But I take that to be a greater guarantee that this thing He has planned will, in fact, be done. Since it’s about Him and He will do it.

So, my greeting to you at the beginning of a new year is: Happy New Heart in the new year. Blessings to you, in His grace.

Joseph's Point of View

Joseph was betrothed to a lovely godly young girl. Then he received some earthshaking news: she was found to be pregnant! Since Joseph “was faithful to the law,” he dutifully planned to “divorce” her – i.e. end the commitment to live the rest of their lives together. Thoughtfully, he “did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” But an angel came to him and told him what was happening, that it was all part of God’s plan. He was convinced to stay in the relationship with Mary. “Convinced” is a strong word, yet it does describe Joseph’s change of heart toward this whole situation. The baby was born, as the angel had told Joseph. They called his name Jesus, as the angel told them to do. “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.” (from Matthew 1:18-25)

This is Joseph’s side of the Christmas story. He was in love, stunned, disappointed and ashamed, decisive, committed to God’s rule of law but still careful to not cause undue pain for anyone else. Then he was met by God’s appointed messenger, the angel. After that, he obeyed what he knew even if he didn’t know everything he wanted to know. He obeyed what he did know – he kept Mary as his wife and he named the baby boy Jesus. “He did what the angel… had commanded.”

Dads, there are several parallels with your experience here. You loved your child and your wife too. You were stunned by some news about your child’s diagnosis or about an accident or about his unexpected death. You’ve probably been disappointed in … maybe many things or people, maybe God too. You may have tried to be a godly man, never wanting to cause undue pain, to be faithful to the people God has called you to, such as your wife and kids. For Joseph, there were things he didn’t really understand – the pregnancy? God’s purpose? Why him and Mary? Maybe for you too, there are things you don’t quite understand.

Joseph had a visit from an angel and trusted God. Then He did what he knew to do, obey what he’d been told. What about you? Most of you haven’t had an actual visit from an angel, but you do have something very important: the Word of God. Like the angel, it carries a message to you. It says God loves you, is present with you, helps you, has a plan for good for you in His kingdom. Can you trust God? He is worthy of trust, so trust Him. Do what you know now to do, whatever that is. Follow Him. You may not know the whole story, but you know enough to do what you’ve been instructed. Just a few of the general commands: trust, obey, be faithful to one wife, rejoice in all circumstances, consider trials gifts from God, pray without ceasing.

You don’t know the whole story or how all the pieces fit together, but you do know God loves you and loves your child. You do know God has a plan in motion to redeem His people and His purpose and that you fit into all that. You do know God promises to be present with you through the toughest places in life, like this one. Be encouraged to do what you know and have been commanded to do. It worked for Joseph. The same God is at work in your life too.

God Sent His Son

 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Galatians 4:4-5 The Message

When we think of Christmas, we generally focus on the fact that God came. Jesus, the Son of God, was born. However the other side of this event is this: God Sent. Think about those words. They tell us there was a plan in God’s mind. They tell us God took initiative to activate the plan. They tell us that this sending created a distance between Father and Son. The Two, who had been eternally in each other’s presence, would be separated.

Did God the Father feel the separation and longing? I think so. Did God the Son feel it? I know so. You can see it whenever Jesus goes off to some lonely place to pray. He longs for the communion and intimacy He had with His Father in eternity before, and has again in eternity now. But during His time living on earth, the Son and the Father were living in totally different places. The Father was in heaven among angels, the Son was among men. They were separated by a very great distance.

Because of the death of your child, you know something about a separation of parent from child. You know there is great pain in this separation. Pain and longing and sadness. Would you choose this separation? I’ll venture to say your answer would be NO Thank You. But God the Father, voluntarily and for a purpose developed in His own mind, said YES. “Son,” He said, “Go,” because He wanted to accomplish what the rest of the verse says: to redeem those who were captured by sin and the law. That’s you and me, by the way.

God, the Father, sent His Son, away from their home and eternal fellowship, to go to earth, to be born as a baby. You know the earthly side of the story: Mary and Joseph in a barn, shepherds, angels, wise men, old people waiting in the temple. The heavenly side of this story is that God sent His Son away to a different place to live separately, to reveal God’s character and plan.

The Father was motivated to take this action so that right now, in your separation, you can believe there is hope. The hope is based on 2 things:

• the Father is familiar with the pain of separation
• the reunion we’ll experience in the redemption He accomplished. Because of the redemption in the verse, you as a sinner and your child as a sinner can be reunited in His presence.

Thanks be to God for the hope of the resurrection. That hope, which is yours now, was born on Christmas morning as the Father sent His Son for you.

Mary's Song

I reread most of the Christmas passages this week and was intrigued by some ideas in Mary’s magnificent song, her response when she saw Elizabeth for the first time after they both had seen angels and both were miraculously pregnant:

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.” Luke 1:46-55 NI

I see 3 thoughts that give comfort to us when we’re hurting.

1. God was “mindful” of Mary’s situation. I believe He is also mindful of yours. He is not up there somewhere looking off dreamily into the universe. He knows what is going on in your life and in your heart. He is mindful of the pain and sorrow of your grief. You are not alone wherever you are on your grief journey now. 2. He has scattered the proud (ie, those who thought they had their lives together, but now they have had to come to the end of themselves, like the rest of us); brought rulers down and lifted up the humble; filled the hungry and emptied the rich. In His coming kingdom, everything is upside down and inside out. So your pain, sorrow and grief will also be turned to joy and understanding and peace. I’m looking forward to those days when there is no more pain or grief! * 3. In the last line, these words appear: “as He promised.” Here is comfort too. He promised that He will be with us and not forsake us. So right now, you are not forsaken no matter how you might feel otherwise. He promised that He will make all things new. So your life will be remade by God’s grace into something full and rich and good.

God has promised that He is with us all the time everywhere. Not looking over our shoulders and judging, but being there so we have someone to lean on when things get tough. He says He will redeem our sorrows and make them into something good so we can rejoice. He keeps His promises. So we can rejoice through this season.

Read the Christmas Scriptures and look for little nuggets that give you hope in your present circumstances. They are there. Blessings in your reading. *Revelation 21:4

“Thy will be done”

What is His will? That we know Him. I know that knowing God better is not a good trade for the life of your child. Yet, it is the goal God has had from the beginning of time for you and for your child. It’s His agenda for us all.

“Thy will be done.” Jesus prayed it and so do we. In the Garden, before His crucifixion, Jesus begged God to revise His plan for history. Jesus urgently and passionately wrestled in prayer, sweating hard, that “this cup pass from me.” But the sweating and wrestling stopped and peace came over Him when He concluded He would yield to the Father’s will – “Thy will be done.” You can sense that peace in His determination and focus on the goal, in His humility throughout the pseudo-trial and mocking, because as far as He was concerned, the issue was settled. Thy will be done, period, end of story.

We pray it in the prayer Jesus taught us through His disciples. “Our Father… Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10). In heaven it is done always, immediately and completely. Thinking about myself, I fall far short of doing His will so thoroughly. (Thankfully, His grace covers my sin even more thoroughly!)

What is His will that we are praying for? His will is that we know Him. His will is that we walk with Him, experience His mercy, grow to be more like Him and reflect His character.

“…have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;” Philippians 2:5-6

“He… predestined [us] to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.” Romans 8:29 That’s the end result God has planned for us.

Job became more like Him when he saw and understood more deeply because of his losses and grief. Job questioned deeply God’s plans, and then yielded to His will.

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." Job 42:3-5

Your child died. It must have been God’s will since it happened. Your child has completed that goal already because she/he has seen Him and knows Him. But now, can you yield, and become more like Him through this valley of the shadow of death? This IS God’s will for you now. Allow Him to use this horrible event, your child’s death, to work in you so that you are more conformed to His likeness.

"Thy will be done."

Heard on the Golf Course

Heard on the golf course recently: “Believers have some questions and struggles that unbelievers don’t have.” Yes, that’s true. People who believe in Jesus think about questions such as, If God is good, how could this have happened? Where was Jesus the Healer, when my child was sick? People who don’t believe in God at all, don’t ask these questions. In fact, asking a question to God is a statement of faith. If you didn’t believe that He is you wouldn’t be thinking about Him or communicating with Him! I have to qualify my statement above. A friend recently said that before he came to Christ, he was shaking his fist at God, the God he didn’t believe in, because of a serious loss. I know grief is a cross roads for those who have never believed, as it is for people of faith too. I believe God was already at work in this man’s heart to make Himself known. So this man in his grief began to see a glimpse of God’s presence and character.

Grieving believers usually have questions. Other biblical heroes have asked questions too: • John the Baptist asked Jesus – Are You the One who was coming? (Luke 7:18ff) • Job asked - What did I ever do to deserve this (these losses)? (Job 7:17-21 is but one example) • Jesus asked – Please can I get out of this plan!? Can I do something else instead? (Luke 22:39-44) • David penned psalms with moans such as: (How long? Psalm 13; and Why have you forsaken [abandoned] me? Psalm 22) • Moses asked - Why did you make me lead these people!? They complain and make demands all the time! (After the scenes from Exodus 15:24 and 16:2-11, Moses reacts in 17:2b-4)

All these questions revolve around God’s character, power, intent and involvement in our lives. • His character is Love and Light. • His power is revealed in Creation. He made it all and sustains it even now. • His intent for us is that we become more like His Son. That starts with forgiveness and adoption, and He even paid the highest price for that adoption. • He is still every day and every moment involved with us because His Spirit is with us.

As I read the Scriptures, I conclude we are invited to ask all our questions. Nothing is off limits or too challenging or too dumb to ask. Nothing can offend Him. He will respond eventually, though He doesn’t promise to answer the question directly. But He often does come closer to the one asking, and reveals something deeper about Himself to us.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power… to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,.. Ephesians 3:16-18

Michael’s Guitar

At HVMI recently, we hosted a concert with Michael Card. What a wonderful, worshipful night of music and encouragement! I loved it. I had an opportunity to describe to him how much I love interacting with you. I am honored to hear your stories. I hope that something I have said sometime has been beneficial to you. I pray for you and have the names of your children on my list to greet when I get to heaven.

When I described BASIS to Michael Card, he told me a little story too. He has a nephew who died of cancer at the age of 18. Before that, the nephew told his uncle that he wanted to learn to play the guitar. So Michael Card, a world renowned musician, bought a guitar, not the best in the world, but adequate for a beginner. They did share some lessons together before the young man died.

It is that guitar the Michael Card travels with and uses in concert. Why does he travel with a guitar that’s not the best in the world? Because it is attached to his nephew, a precious person loved by his uncle. It is memorial to that life.

You might have something of your child’s that is often, or even always, with you. Do you wear his/her tee shirt to bed? Have you made a quilt or pillow of some of his/her clothing? Did you take a tee shirt or bathrobe and make a stuffed animal? Do you keep their trophies around the living room? Do you wear her jewelry? Have you continued collecting her favorite things? Planted her favorite flowers in the garden? I know a man who even changed his career to continue some of the work his son had started.

What sort of memorials or activities have you incorporated into your life for the love and memory of your child? Each tribute will be unique because you and your child are both unique and your relationship was unique. Each loss is unique. But your idea might help another parent imagine what they might want to do for the love and memories of their child. If some of you send your ideas, I’ll collect them and post them here in a few weeks.

The memories of your child are good things for which we should give thanks. Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow. Because there were blessings during your child’s life.