Miraculous, Sustaining Grace

The last week or so has been very difficult for me.  The longer I go on without Layne the more I miss him.  People commonly make the mistake of believing that grief is the hardest initially.  This is far from the truth.  As the days, weeks and months pass and the depth of my loss slowly reveals itself, I miss him more and more.  Every task I must do alone that used to be done by his side compounds my grief.  The author of one book I read said that grief is not a wound that heals with time.  Grief is an amputation.  You learn to live with the loss, but you are never the same.  I think that is an accurate analogy.  I am so thankful that I have the Lord to bear me up and help me stand.

It is only in His strength that I can go on.  I told my brothers that the thing that is hard for people to understand is the relentlessness of the struggle.  By God’s grace I go to teach every day and Jason and Krista go to school.  We are able to smile and get through the day, but people don’t see the struggle.  Those smiles are often only possible after hours of struggle with agonizing grief.  This grief often robs us of sleep and the only answer is hours of weeping and praying for God to comfort our hearts.  I am so thankful for my loving Savior, Who carries me through this valley and gives me strength for each day.

I want to share another excert from the book A Tearful Celebration. This is from the chapter “Why Must I Hurt?”

“No matter what I think at the time, the trials I face are due directly to His love for me.  I appreciate what Charles Spurgeon said: ‘Into the central heat of the fire doth the Lord cast His saints, and mark you this, He casts them there because they are His own beloved and dearly loved people.’  If I cannot accept this profound truth, I can never stand unvanquished in grief or sing like Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison.  If I cannot submit to the superior wisdom of God’s ordination, then I can never grasp the purposes of pain, even the privileges of it.  God is concerned with making me strong; He’s not concerned with making me comfortable…

One of the distinguishing marks of my humanity is that I want God’s power more than His purpose.  I covet demonstrations of His power in my life, especially in the time of crisis.  I beg God for miraculous deliverance.  I cry for Him to spare me agony and grief.  When His wisdom reveals a purpose that threatens or destroys my comfort, then I struggle in anguish against His design.  In my prosperity it is easy to revel in the will of God, but in my adversity I chafe under His divine plan…

I must desire His purpose to be effected in my experience, regardless of the grief.  There is no victory in crisis until I learn to pray: ‘Yet not my will, but your be done.’

So I hurt.  God wants to work His purposes in my life.  If I need to be humbled, I may fall.  If He wants me to be more caring, I may hurt.  If I am in danger of pride, I may be given a thorn in the flesh.  If He marks me for true godliness, I may lift to my mouth a full, cup, bitter to the taste, but healthful to the soul.  Each crisis presents me with the opportunity for a stretching, growing, God-honoring act of resolute trust.

I have observed that God sometimes deems it necessary to remove from me the external signs of His blessing in order that the pressure of darkness might prompt me to a new level of trust in Him.  In God’s reckoning, to descend is the path to ascent, to suffer is to find freedom from suffering, to taste darkness is to approach eternal light, to become weak is to become strong.  Each agonizing moment is essential or God would not allow it.  To be counted worthy of suffering is to enter into an entirely new realm of spiritual experience.  My suffering is seen as instrumental, not accidental, to the purposes of a loving God…

The grave that buries my desires deepens my devotion.”

As I continue on through this valley of grief, I am driven by necessity to my knees every day.  The way is too dark to take one step without the light of His presence.  The weight is impossible to bear alone.  So He daily meets me beneath its heavy load and carries me.  This is His purpose in my pain.  I hurt so I can learn to depend on Him, and Him alone.

While Layne was sick I prayed every day for a miracle.  I wanted God to make him well; to amaze the doctors and the world around us with His miraculous healing power.  I did not get that miracle.  But every day that He carries me through I understand more and more that I am seeing a miracle after all, the miracle of His sustaining, amazing grace.

Special Prayer Needed

Dear Friends,

Please be much in prayer for Kent and Bridgett Eloe.  Kent has the same kind of brain tumor Layne had.  He was recently placed in hospice care and Bridgett’s last web entry confirms that Kent is very close to going Home to be with our Lord.  They have 3 precious little boys.  Please pray faithfully for this sweet family as they face the days ahead.  The Lord greatly used you all to comfort and encourage my heart.  He answered your prayers and continues to answer them with miraculous, sustaining grace.  Bridgett and her family need this same grace right now.  Please faithfully pray for them the same way you have faithfully prayed for me.  To learn more about this family so you can better pray, please visit their web site at www.eloefamily.com.   Thank you all!

(By the way, isn’t it amazing to belong to the family of God?  I am still humbled and awed that the Lord can knit our hearts so closely together, even if we have never met face to face.  There are no strangers in God’s family.  We all belong to Him!  What a blessing it will be to someday all be in heaven together! What a family reunion that will be!)

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”  II Cor. 1:4-5

Sharon

Grace that Never Fails

It has been a while since I have written because, quite frankly, the struggle has been intense lately.  It is very difficult sometimes to put such a personal journey through grief into words.  In the next few entries I would like to share some exerts from the book A Tearful Celebration by James Means.  (James Means is a pastor who lost his wife to cancer.)  This book was sent to me by a pastor friend of my brother Mike and has been a source of great encouragement to me.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with grief and loss.

Tonight I want to share a portion from the chapter titled “Has God Failed Me?”

“Has there ever been a true saint who has not struggled with the feeling that God was not treating him fairly? Surely such inner wrestling is one of life’s most inescapable trials.

Nowhere in the Bible could I find an absolute guarantee of pleasant circumstances.  Christian, like others, are subject to sickness, accident, and incalculable loss.  If I think God will always keep me comfortable, I am going to feel let down.  God will not always do it.  Christians are not exempt from trouble and bitter distress.

The true Christian teaching is: “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). Peter wrote: “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though some strange thing were happening to you” (I Peter 4:12). I must refuse to be deluded into thinking that life here and now is the wonderful life.  The wonderful life is the one to come after this one is over…

I hurt, I sorrow, I agonize over the loss that has come into my life.  A precious life has been taken away.  I feel great grief and pain.  It sears my every waking hour and casts a puzzling, dreary shadow across my life’s journey.

As I come to grips with my grief, I reject the sentimentalized, sickly religion so popular today.  God’s comfort is not insulation from difficulty; it is spiritual fortification sufficient to enable me to stand firm, undefeated in the fiery trials of life.  God’s provision is not always green pastures and still waters.  Sometimes God leads into the valley of the shadow, but I may walk there with confidence, assured of the love and presence of God…

In my time of trouble, my understanding is not crucial.  It is my confidence in the person, the goodness, and the sovereignty of God that is the great, indispensable necessity.

God did not coddle the biblical saints with an unbroken stream of blessing.  Their lives, like ours today, were lived in the shadows and valleys of life’s tough journey of faith… They trusted God despite harsh circumstances.  They were steadfast in the face of crushing reality.  They hoped in God when all reason for hope was taken away.  Such tireless faith is to be our chief goal in life, for by it we glorify God, purchase a place of honor in His kingdom, and love as Christ loved.  We must cultivate this faith…

God has failed to do what I thought He should do, but I must not allow this event to result in any bitterness in me.  Instead, I must recognize that this major disappointment should drive me to stronger trust in God.  Life looks very different without the false security of an indulgent, over-protective God, but it is more real, honest, and challenging to my faith.  It offers greater opportunity to bear witness to a God of wisdom and superior grace.”

(pp. 23-27)

What a blessing to know that and experience the all sufficient grace of God!  I am blessed to have copies of many of Layne’s outlines and sermons.  I am reading and studying them as part of my devotional time.  I will close with a quote from him from a message he preached about grace

“Many things in life will fail us.  Friendships will blossom and then die.  Health can be an elusive thing.  Riches and wealth will often remain just beyond the reach of your finger tips.  Those we love will pass from the scene leaving a void in our hearts hard to be filled.  However, there is one thing that every child of God possesses that can never fail, never end, never run out, never run dry and that will never be found to be insufficient, and that is the grace of God!  Yes, the road may be long and dreary, the days may be filled with difficulties and struggles, but rest assured that there will be grace sufficient for every need and every trial.  That is the promise of God and that is the hope of the saints!” Layne Daniel