Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (?Psalm? ?103?:?2, 4-5? ESV)
Here in India, every day is a new day. Our time as a team here in Bangalore is filled with a different ministry every day of the week. New faces, new places, and definitely new adventures! Majority of our days though, we get to work with children teaching them bible stories and helping teach them English. Every time I was told we were doing a ministry with children I light up with excitement! I would light up because this is familiar. I have almost a decade of experience of children’s ministry alone, and at the mention of teaching children my brain tries to sort out what high energy-fast paced-lesson plan we should use that I have stored up over the years.
But these stories and experiences are for a different blog.
Today’s ministry was to work with Heart Ministry which is an organization that sponsors people who have heart conditions to undergo heart surgery. Not only do they help financially, but they continue their ministry by making hospital visits and home visits post surgery! I have to say, this is the ministry that I was most hesitant of.
I had no experience in visiting other people in the hospital other than when family friends were having children. The thought of going into something without any prior experience made me nervous!
Our role in partnering with this ministry was to do a hospital visit and prayer walk around the hospital. The doctor was on leave and there were no patients to visit, so we went to the chapel within the hospital to begin our prayer.
As I prayed, I continued to remember the last time I was in the hospital.
Three years ago I was in a waiting room praying desperately.
I selfishly prayed that God would breathe the breath of life back into my grandmother so that I could keep her here with me. She was like a second mother to me and a rock to fall back on when I needed more faith or was just going through a rough time. She spoke wisdom over me from her years of experience and always allowed me to go into full detail everything I wanted to say.
I remember the darkness that started to overwhelm me as I began to realize that my desperate prayers were not within Gods will and that I would have to go back home with one less family member that day.
I remember the pain I felt as the family that was there said their goodbyes and we gathered around to pray.
There is absolutely no heart break quite like the agony of losing someone you love so deeply.
This loss only added to the wound of losing my father just 6 years prior in a fatal car accident.
I was younger then, when I lost my father. Young enough to fall back on the only foundation I had, which was to press deeper into my faith.
Losing Nana was different.
Like ripping the stitches of a deep gash and pulling it apart further with your fingers, her death reopened the wound of losing my dad.
There were dark nights that followed where I could do nothing but cry as my spirit pleaded with God to help me understand. I begged Him to give me some sort of understanding of why I had to witness the trauma of another fatal accident and just how my heart was supposed to keep beating when it felt broken and shattered.
God didn’t answer me.
I didn’t ‘hear from the Lord’.
I never felt that God was there with me.
I had been abandoned.
The more I wept the deeper I fell into a pit of despair.
So I stopped crying.
I stopped talking about her.
I stopped doing anything that would remind me of her.
I stopped allowing myself to grieve.
I slapped my happy Christian band aid back on and ‘moved on’ because that’s the only thing I knew how to do. When people asked I proclaimed both of their deaths as part of my testimony of how God is faithful to heal wounds and I wouldn’t be where I am today without these events in my life. I would speak these words to people believing that I had grown from it, but not believing God was there with me. My little Christian band aid wouldn’t be able to contain the pain much longer.
You see, the thing about infected wounds that are just covered and never properly cleaned is, it never heals. It only results in deeper infections.
Sitting in a chapel within a hospital in India, God reminded me who He was and is.
He is Emmanuel – God with us.
He showed me that as I was in the hospital praying desperately for my Grandmother, he was there beside me, listening.
He gave me a vision of Jesus in the room joined in the circle holding our hands and weeping with us as we prayed and said Goodbye to Nana.
And every night that I wept and mourned I saw Him there with me, kneeling beside my bed and holding me. Whispering how much He loves me, how He knows the depth of the pain I was in, and promising He would never forsake me.
In that moment I not only felt God with me, but it was as if he had brought my dad and Nana with Him too to.
I was not alone.
Never once did I ever walk alone because they were there with me.
Psalm 23
Verse 4 says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
I have a very dear friend/spiritual leader who sent me an email recently about what God is teaching Him and something that they have been studying in church. He said-
“Something that was pointed out was that in the first three verses God is talked about in the third person.
“He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.”
But when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it changes to second person –
“Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me; You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil.”
What this tells me is that God is close when we are in the valley.”
I am so thankful for that email. God knows what we need right when we need it because it came in the day before we went to the hospital. It prepared my heart so that God could move in His mighty and healing ways!
So take the time to get alone with God today. Go back to those deepest darkest times and ask Jesus where He was when you needed him the most. Then allow Him to show you, allow him to heal your heart; and also allow yourself to grieve. Time cannot heal the wounds that still carry pain. Give yourself grace to open up and be vulnerable to how God wants to work in your heart.
He wants you. Every messy, hurt, disorganized, imperfect part of you.
Mountains high and valley’s low, He is there with you.
Because He loves you.
Because He loves you.
Because He loves you.
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I would love to hear your stories too! My email is [email protected]
And I’ll do my best to reply back!
Thank you for following along on this journey with me, I appreciate all of your love, prayers, and support!
