Grief Runs Deep: Where Is the Hope? Day 3

Grief Runs Deep: Where Is the Hope?
Day 3

Dr. Joseph Stowell says, "Even though your heart is breaking and tears are clouding your eyes and staining your cheeks, God does give us something worth trusting in tough times. And that's Him, and Him alone."

When your heart is breaking, you can place your hope and trust in the Lord.

"Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD" (Psalm 31:24).

Anne Graham Lotz defines hope: "Biblical hope is absolute confidence in something you haven't seen or received yet, but you're absolutely confident that whatever God has said is going to come to pass."

She also declares that "Jesus is your hope for the future. One day Jesus Christ will come back, and He will set all of the wrong right. Good will triumph over the bad. Love will triumph over hate. Righteousness will triumph over evil. He's going to make it all right, and you can have absolute confidence that that's going to take place. That's your hope."

Sovereign God, I choose hope. I choose faith. I choose life. Give me an unshakable faith in You. Amen.

~ I have struggled with this. I stopped talking to God. I didn't necessarily turn my back on him, my beliefs or my faith, but it was hard to hold a conversation with a God that took my sister and then my mother. It was hard for me to accept that this was the journey that I choose for myself and that I was supposed to go through all this pain and stress.
I kept asking why. Why did this happen? Why my sister? Why now? Why did my mom have to decline so fast and so soon after my sister? Why? Why? Why?
I started asking why this happened FOR me and not TO me. They tell you that what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. How much stronger was I going to need to be? I feared what more I was going to have to go through and what lessons I was supposed to be learning from this. Why did God take the two women that supported me the most? Why did he take the two people that loved my kid as much as I did? Why did they have to be gone and so close together? Why? Why? Why? What? What? What?

Through class I have learned that asking why is natural and normal. I also have learned that knowing why wouldn't ease the pain. Knowing why my sister had to die wouldn't change the fact that she died. Knowing the bigger picture isn't going to bring my sister or my mother back.  Perhaps my sister passing was in preparation for my mother, yet my sister was sudden and I wasn't able to tell her goodbye nor was it expected that she would leave us so soon. My mom was sick for years and I think part of me was always a little prepared for her to go. She had been through a few trials where I thought I was going to lose her and so part of me was prepared for her departure and it was a relief that she wasn't in pain anymore. But, my sister was taken. I suppose my mother was taken too. I feel more responsible for my mother since I had to be one of the people to make the decision to take her off life support. I feel like I did what she would have wanted and honestly, what she had wanted for a while leading up to that point. She was tired of hurting. She was exhausted from always being sick to a certain degree all the time. It certainly doesn't make it any easier having said any of that.

I wish that I had maintained that open line of communication with God. I miss him in my life. I never really went to bible study nor did I pick up the bible and learn verses. I feel like a lot of my adult life I have just been going through the motions. Perhaps I have failed myself and God by not going to church faithfully. I pray to God. I teach my child to pray over his food, be thankful and grateful and to pray at night before he lays down for rest.  I feel like I could have and should have done more and learned more, but where I am now, I think that I am learning so much more now that I am open to learning and I feel like for the first time I am listening and actually paying attention.

So, yes, my grief runs deep. I often tend to beg for hope and faith to find me. I pray that I can be a person to find that trust in God and to have the faith and hope to know that everything happens for a reason and that this is truly only a season of grief.  This too shall pass. Or, at least, that is my hope and prayer.