“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 NIV
I have discovered since working with people who have been disempowered because of a dysfunctional childhood, poverty, drugs, domestic violence and mental illness to name a few of the main root causes, that there is a fine line between guilt and innocence and how easy it is for the truth to be lost in all of that.
In many of the Women Rising sessions at the county jail, we talk a lot about life, even when things aren’t fair. We talk about being innocent in jail in many instances with questionable representation by an overworked, underpaid public defender that arrives for court just minutes before their case comes up for review and how helpless they feel with being able to get the actual truth before the judge. In many of these cases, the truth has been lost years earlier and that they have lost any dreams they may have had to do something with their lives. Some in the group knew that they weren’t innocent and why they were there and were okay with that but didn’t want to be judged as people who didn’t deserve another chance. I take newspaper clippings of the Sweetwater Journey column to show them that their stories are being told. It may not be their specific story but similar in nature enough to warrant a sense of justice for them. I try to reassure them that they are not alone. The perfect example is that of Jesus Christ who was victimized by innuendo, bias and lies unto death. For the inmates for whom the truth has been lost long ago, it helps them feel vindicated knowing about Christ and how He is their Great Advocate. I have found that in many cases, praying for their children gives them comfort, more than for themselves. In this one particular session, a mother had just been given the news that her daughter had been picked up on drug charges. She reacted as if she had been told that her daughter was dead. This was the news she dreaded most as it would add to her already insurmountable level of guilt. She felt she would never be able to undo the damage she felt a personal responsibility for and now an inability to protect her child from the system.
In the lives of everyone, there is a degree of truth that gets lost and unfairness ensues over which we feel we have no control.
In Isaiah, God tries to prepare us for certain outcomes that negatively impact us: Isaiah 55:8,9(NIV) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
And at the same time, this same God tells us:”For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NIV It is then as parents that we realize that we don’t understand God’s ways, as we could never sacrifice one of our children, let alone our only child, for a fallen world. An untimely death of one of those closest to us is the hardest to understand and in our grief we imagine that God who is all powerful could have changed the outcome but didn’t. Because God allows his creation the right of choice, we are always subject to the poor choices of others and the random ways in which our lives can drastically change in just a heartbeat. Eventually, because of faith, we accept what we cannot change and know that this tragedy was not meant to crush or destroy us and that God will make a way through. We can only grow in understanding and eventual acceptance when we continue trusting God’s love for us and the sudden change of path our life has taken. Grief can only be assuaged supernaturally through God’s Comforter the Holy Spirit. The deeper our understanding of that love, the easier it will be for us to accept and let go. Just as the child in an African village who dies of starvation before help arrives, so do our loved ones and friends for what appears to us in our limited understanding, to be for no real purpose. In Psalms 146, we are counseled not to trust in any human as they are powerless and cannot save us. When they die their spirit departs, they return to the ground and on that very day their plans come to nothing. Then the psalmist goes on to say: “Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
Read “Even When” in its entirety on the Houston Herald website
Many times as a result of our limited understanding, we take Scriptures out of context and then our personal world collapses when the outcome we want doesn’t happen.
If we are going to blame God for an outcome that in our thinking has devastated us, then we must search and understand how God works. We need to read the contexts in which the Scriptures are written so that we know that not everyone was promised what they believed to be the perfect outcome. God’s outcome may not be what we wanted at the time or imagined.
“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you . . .’” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV) This reference is a perfect example of us taking scripture out of context in order to apply it to our understanding of the perfect outcome. Ben Irwin, makes his point as to why we should always be aware of the context:
“Jeremiah 29:11 reads like a Christian motivational poster. (Wait. It IS a Christian motivational poster.) No wonder it was Bible Gateway’s second-most shared verse of 2013. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed? Don’t worry. God has a plan for your day. Facing a rough patch at work? Take a breath. Your future is bright. Money’s a bit tight? Relax. God’s going to prosper you. Except the words in Jeremiah 29:11 have nothing to do with bad hair days, corporate ladders, or financial success.
In 597 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah. He rounded up 10,000 leading citizens of Jerusalem and dumped them in Babylon, 500 miles from home. They lost everything. They didn’t know what to do next. From Jerusalem, Jeremiah wrote to the exiles — and told them to get on with their lives: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters’. In other words: you’re going to be there a while. Yet God promised this wasn’t the end for them. In 70 years, the exiles would return home. This was the “hope and . . . future” mentioned in Jeremiah 29:11. Incidentally, that hope and future was something most of the original exiles wouldn’t live to see for themselves. (Seventy years was a long time then, too.) The future described in this passage would be for their children and grandchildren. In other words, Jeremiah 29:11 doesn’t guarantee your personal fulfillment.” Ben Irwin – Five Bible Verses You Must Stop Misusing
What Ben Irwin has written, is not easy to take but in light of deciding what is fair and isn’t fair and weighing it on the scales of life, it is true. The Israelites who were captive in Babylon had been duly warned about what would happen if they didn’t shape up and come back to the Living God instead of worshiping idols. Even when life isn’t fair, we are supposed to live in the moment with trust that God will reward change and devotion in his own time and his own way that is beyond our understanding. He told his special family the Israelites that they should bloom where they were planted; build houses, plant gardens and eat your own produce.
Psalm 137 describes the condition of the Israelite’s hearts at this difficult time: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’ How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? “ Psalm 137:1-3KJV
They didn’t feel like building houses and planting gardens. Especially they didn’t feel like blooming where they were planted. Even when life isn’t fair, we are called to live with faith and integrity, even when we can’t see the big picture. God says “Just trust me, my plan is to bless you in this life and the next, beyond anything you can imagine.”
In Job 23:10 we find this insight about God and his bigger plan for us: “He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Job 23:10 NIV
Many people have walked away from the church and God because they decided that the Scriptures were not true and not for them. The outcomes they experienced weren’t on their terms and they didn’t have the depth of faith to settle for anything different. Accepting our outcomes by surrendering to God, in our minds might be like capitulating to an opponent, conceding, giving up and giving in. God is not an opponent. He is the one who created us and wants to be in our life. Do we capitulate through resignation as if we have no other choice or do we gladly surrender our prideful self in order to become a co-creator with God for our best life beyond anything we can possibly imagine?
Believing and living that belief every day, means that we trust God for the direction our lives are taking. I have had outcomes that are beyond anything I could have imagined. As I look back at where I was when I didn’t know anything about the direction my life was about to take, this is absolutely not the outcome I could foresee. As believers, we sign on basically for an unselfish life that is directed by the spiritual gifts we have been given – gifts we are not aware we have. We sign on for an outcome that is far beyond what we can imagine and that it will be for a higher purpose -for God’s purpose – in this life and in the next.
In 1993, I went to work at a political action committee call center for an environmental lobby in Lincoln, NE. I did not want to work in a call center but it was the only job I could find in order to move to Lincoln and work on my degree. One of my heart’s desires at that time was to have a partner who was a man of God. I didn’t have a clue as to how that was going to play out. I met my husband, John on the phone one month after beginning work at a job I didn’t want. I was calling members in Virginia for “Virginia Clean Water Action”. Five minutes before my shift was to end, his name came flying across the screen of my tele-dialer. He was a call back. The agent couldn’t close him the night before for a donation so his name was left in the system. Something connected between us in the five minute conversation and because I trust the leadings of the spirit, I took a chance and called him after I got home. Ten days later, I quit my job and flew to Virginia to be married. We have been happily married for 22 years. Five years after we got married, we were preparing to retire to acreage in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville, VA where we were going to build a house and just live out our days in solitude like many retirees do. Again, God had another plan for our lives.
When I was on my way back from visiting my family in Nebraska, I was writing in a notebook some reflections about the trip. I looked closer at what I had written and there were the words: “We will relocate to the Midwest”. John and I didn’t question whether it was the right thing to do or not, we knew that it was what God wanted us to do. We began to get everything in order to leave the east coast. Due to the internet at that time, we were able to search out listings of acreages below I-44 because they were less expensive. We chose two realtors – one in this area for Saturday on the weekend we were going to be there, and one in the Pomme de Terre area for Sunday. At the end of the first day, after traveling 200 miles looking at properties, we arrived at the last appointment. Our realtors were allowed one day by the owners to show this property. We saw it last and knew this was the place we wanted. Now, sixteen years later at the time of this writing, we now realize we didn’t buy it for the reason for which God brought us here. For the first five years, we enjoyed just being a part of this rural area. Then one day, I walked into Christos House’ outreach thrift store in West Plains and without thinking, I asked the store manager if she had an application and if they were hiring. That’s not why I went into the store. They weren’t hiring at the time but I was hired. At any point, we could have said “No” and done something different but we trust God in all things and know that he has a bigger and better plan for our lives than we can possibly imagine. We were right. I also had a heart’s desire to have a column in a rural newspaper and write about community life. Again, God had a higher purpose in mind for what that writing would be, something I could not have imagined. And just for an extra “God-wink”, the name of the road our acreage is on is the same name as a mountain/folk music group with guitar and dulcimers, a friend and I formed with my daughters years earlier in Nebraska.
In the book of Micah, we find this important reference: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God;” Micah 6:8
“Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger. . . Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers – pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall not be a miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the riches of life which have come to you by the grace of God.” Phillips Brooks
A young woman I was working with was in the process of trying to get her daughter returned to her care. The courts had removed the child from her home. Not for anything the mother had done but because of accusations against a family member with whom she had contact. The accusations were not proven but the accused, afraid that the truth would not win out in court, accepted a lesser charge in a plea bargain. Unfortunately, in the court system, there is a delicate balance between innocence and guilt where we can be assumed guilty even when we are not. There is a great chasm of difference between the two. The stigma from the first charge that was never proven influenced the outcome and her child was removed and placed in the home of the child’s estranged father. As the mother waited month after month for this to be resolved – the truth to win out and her daughter returned home to start the new school year- gradually the original intent of a summer with her dad turned into a sole custody dispute and supervised visits once a month for her. The daughter who meant everything to this good mother began to accept her new life as children do when they have no control and told her mom that she didn’t want to come home. Crushed and defeated the mother cried herself to sleep. In the night, she had a dream that she was shaking her fist at God and asking him WHY? She retorted that she had served him faithfully; she had raised her daughter in a church community and had tried to do everything right. “Why can’t you fix this and bring her home to me?!!!” Then as clear as she could imagine in her dream she heard the words “What would change?”
The next day when she retold the dream to her spiritual advisor at church, she was counseled that only she and God could figure out what that meant. She went to the store to do some shopping and she said suddenly it hit her. She could see in her mind that God wanted her to build her life and her spiritual work he had called her to without any promises of the outcome she wanted or thought was fair. She was to continue to trust him. She had spent her entire summer feeling underlying contempt even rage at times for everyone involved and centered in her own grief even though she was praying not to feel that way. Just as the prophet Micah counsels us to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God, she began to feel clarity about what she was supposed to do. God was calling her to a higher purpose – to pray for everyone involved who she felt were treating her unfairly and influencing her young daughter against her that the outcome would be the right one for everyone. She could choose faith over fear. “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 NIV
She still felt anxiety for the results she dreaded that could come to pass, but she knew this was what God had called her to do as a believer and that over time she would see the bigger picture. Each day, she battled with herself over the rage that at times would continue to well up but knew that wasn’t part of the direction God had given her. Little by little, people who knew her and cared about her and her daughter suggested ideas that she could try to expedite justice giving her some sense of control. As long as she kept her eye on the higher purpose God had shown her, she could make it through each long day of waiting. God can only bless us with his higher blessing, when we begin to exercise the most supernatural power we have – faith. She would trust her God and be content as much as was humanly possible to wait in patience for his outcome. She would “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with her God” as we are told to do in Micah.
We can’t make bargains with God just by going through the motions of doing what we think will impress God and get us what we want. Remember, God is always about a higher purpose that we know nothing of at the time. “ …Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.…” Isaiah 55:7-9.
God could use this woman’s acts of faith to bless everyone involved, not only her and her child but also the father and the officers of the court.
In my work with people who are struggling financially just to make it from one day to the next, I see that there are two different groups: The ones who feel entitled and use and abuse others while living lives that operate just beneath the legal radar and then there are those who are selflessly helping others sharing what little they have. It is always a blessing to meet the ones in the second group. They teach me so much about being selfless and enjoying life in the moment because that’s all we really have. They teach me how to be happy with all the possibilities when nothing is for sure.
Nelson Henderson a writer said, “the true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” We only have this moment. And in this moment, again, “God requires us to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with him.”
At Christos House, our staff has just gone through the death of one of our own due to a tragic car crash, so we have personally experienced something that in our minds seems unfair. A coworker shared with me that Amber had called her inquiring about her submission for the newsletter. The coworker shared with her some frustrating things going on in her life to which Amber responded: “Just remember, God is bigger.” The next day, Friday, September 25, 2015, at the young age of 30, she was killed while on her way to work. We all recognized the passion she had for this work and how important it was to her to help others see how different their lives could be with the right tools. She was one of our prevention specialists who went to the schools, churches and businesses to share what she was so passionate about.
The next morning, after Amber’s death, I woke up knowing that I was to offer to lead the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” from Ecclesiastes 3 at the funeral, so everyone could say the words and begin to understand that there is a season for everything, birth and even untimely death and most important of all, that he holds it all together. Her loss is causing all of us at Christos House to double down our efforts and re-ignite our own passion.
“3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” II Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV
When we submit to God’s will as believers, we are promised that we will be victorious in life but we will not be spared death. And we won’t know when that is going to happen or even if God has that all planned out ahead of time. No one knows that for sure.
I Peter 3:8-9
“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”
We are called to be a peculiar people like the woman, who responded to God’s “What will change?” with an acquired deeper understanding of incrementally doing what she could do in faith and leaving the rest to God.
The Road Ahead, by Thomas Merton
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. . . But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust You always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me. And You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Louie Giglio, is the pastor of Passion City Church, located in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a public speaker, author, and the founder of the Passion Movement. His presentations on DVDs such as “Indescribable” and “Symphony” are well known for the ways in which he demonstrates how big and how amazing our God is – a God so big that we must measure his vast universe with the light year, the distance light at 186,282 miles per second travels in a year. In the DVD “Symphony” he closes with his personal testimony of how to live in faith when the unexpected happens. He describes a period of time when he would wake up at 2am and feel a cloud of darkness and dread over him that would cause life-threatening symptoms such as profuse sweating and feeling like his heart was going to blow out of his chest. He felt like he was dying. He went to several doctors and through a battery of tests was told what he didn’t have but they couldn’t tell him for certain what he did have. For weeks this went on until one night when he woke up he decided that he couldn’t go through this any more and that he needed God to show him what he should do. He states, that many times we can tell others how to trust and serve God but we don’t apply it in our own lives to the extent that we should. That night he lay on his bed with these life-threatening symptoms and remembered a scripture in Job about God giving us a song in the night. (Job 35:10 & Psalm 77:6) These simple words came to his mind “Be still my soul for there is a Healer.” Louie said “Okay Lord, that’s my song of praise”. So he sang those words in praise to God and kept his focus on them as the crisis for that night passed. The next night was the same and he sang the words again, “Be still my soul for there is a Healer”. New phrases came to him “his love is deeper than the sea”, “his mercy is unfailing,” and “his arms are a fortress for the weak”. Each night, the cloud lessened as he praised God until finally, it went away. His song of praise opened the valley of death he was in and led him out of that darkness and back to a place of light. Psalm 63 is the reference he remembered when going through that experience:
A psalm of David when he was in the Desert of Judah.
1 You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.”
The following is a quote from a prayer in “Symphony” as Louie Giglio spoke to God for the congregation about the problems they may be facing: “Yes, I’m in a dry and weary land but I’ll praise you as long as I live. Yes, I’m in the valley of the shadow of death but I’ll praise you as long as I live. Yes, the prognosis has come back and its news we didn’t expect but I will praise you as long as I live. Yes, the wind is strong, blowing right in our faces but with the breath you put in my lungs, I will praise you as long as I live and in your name, I will lift up my hands. I remember you on my bed. I think about you through the watches of the night because you have been my help. I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you and your right hand upholds me.”
This chapter of Sweetwater Journey was one of the most challenging writings I’ve ever written but one of the most rewarding. When you are lost in grief and denial because the injury of loss is fresh, praise God in the simplest way you are able to. It doesn’t have to be in a song, just pray the words that give you comfort. Thank him for everything until the pain in that moment passes. Do something for others rather than retreating within yourself. Strength comes through sharing with others who can help us endure it until joy comes in the morning. It will come, it always does. God bless you with his sweetwater to both teach and heal you.
Scriptures and quotes to bring comfort:
“The strongest people aren’t always the people who win, but the people who don’t give up when they lose.” Ashley Hodgeson
In 1 Corinthians 10:13, we are told to “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation and to be constant in prayer”. In Romans 12:12, Apostle Paul tells us to “count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for testing your faith produces steadfastness so that we may be perfect, lacking in nothing.”
Deuteronomy 31:6 “ Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Psalms 37:23-24 NIV “The LORD makes firm the steps
of the one who delights in him;
24 though he may stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with his hand.”
Proverbs 3:6 “In all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.”
Ephesians 5:15-17
15 “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
“Hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all. . . As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” G. K. Chesterton
“Even When” is dedicated to the memory of Christos House Advocate Amber Brignole who was killed in a tragic car crash just south of Houston on September 25, 2015 on her way to work. She was only 30 years old with a brilliant future ahead of her passionately sharing her message of social change in our area.