Practical Tools for Dark Times

I hope the last few posts have helped you understand why God allows tragedy and who He is through it.

In the dark days of grief your mind may run away from you and it is difficult to keep the right perspective as Christian. I want to give you some practical ways to stir your affections for the Lord so that your mind and heart may be refreshed.

1.                 Music—Few things can stir emotion in the human heart like music. It can help so much to put your mind in the right place. When I need reminded of some good theology this is my favorite album. 

2.                 Stay in the Word—Sitting down and cracking open the bible may seem like a daunting task in the midst of grief. In this day and age we have the worlds best preachers and teachers at our fingertips. I am not suggesting that you stop reading your bible, but sometimes listening to a great teacher unpack the Word can be inspiring and incredibly comforting. These are my two favorites: Matt Chandler and Art Azuduria. 

3.                  Do not forsake the fellowship of the saints--The physical trauma of a miscarriage or stillbirth, along with the emotional drain of loss can make us want to hide away from the world but one of the purposes of belonging to a church is for such a time as this. So that the saints can build one another up and encourage each other.   Although we were fairly new to our church when we lost our son, we were surrounded by so much love by our church family. Their love for Christ showed through to us so clearly and truly helped carry us through. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Hebrews 10:23-25) 

              If you are not currently attending a church we would be happy to help you find one in your area, please contact us.

         These are not meant to be band-aids, if you do these things you will not suddenly never be sad again. There are practical tangible things we can do that can help us want to love and trust Christ more, which can remind us of who he is when our circumstances are blinding us.

Growing in Grace and Knowledge Part 3: God's Grace in the Finality of Death

In our culture it seems trials are a badge of honor, something to overcome, to show our inner strength. We love to share what we have been through, what we have overcome. As Christians we speak of how the Lord brought us through tough circumstances and we have seen hope on the other side—the check was in the mail, the surgery went well, the cancer is gone. In these circumstances we rejoice we thank the Lord for his provision and we should—He is faithful.  When death comes along and takes away someone we love it becomes difficult to see the other side of our trial, we can’t see a way for God to provide. Death is so final—so permanent.  The ones we love are gone forever. Even if we do move on with our lives, there will always someone missing-- always.

            When in comes to miscarriage our culture seems to think that another baby will heal the pain, will solve the problem so to speak. Sure conceiving after loss is a blessing, a wonderful blessing but the truth is each baby is irreplaceable, a part of your family that will never be in any photograph. Even if you go on to conceive again, it will not change the fact that you miss whom you have lost. They had a life all their own, however short but complete.

            How then do we overcome these trials, how do we become stronger because we have lost someone we love so dearly? It does not seem like a good trade off to me. I do not want the ability to endure losing a child—I want my child.

            I will mourn my son until the day I die. My mother died over 20 years ago and I still feel the sting, still feel the loss. If I buy into the idea that through these losses I am simply a stronger better person, I have missed something. 

            The only lasting healing and strength from loss is from Jesus Christ.

             You may think now that I am beginning to repeat myself—and I am, but I am in good company I suppose because Paul in the epistles reminds us over and over again to look to Christ to remind us of His gracious gospel.

            If you have put your trust in the Lord, drawing near to him, he can give you the correct perspective of loss. He can grow you in grace and knowledge of Him. He can change your view of forever and always. Your soul can rest in knowing that although we may feel the sting and pain of death for the rest of this life, because Jesus went to the cross and took the penalty that we deserved we can have hope in eternity and eternity is much longer than we can even imagine.

     “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:7)

Growing in Grace Part 2: Counting our Trials Joy

           “Count it all Joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” James 1:2-3

            Count it joy because of Christ. Count it joy because our hope is not in this world but in the world to come. Count it joy because God will take this pain and he will refine you and shape you into the image of His son.

It hurts now, God does not dismiss that. God does not say to act joyfully, or even to feel joy—He says to count it all joy. That means that despite our limited perspective we can know that God is doing something good in and through this.

How is God’s goodness displayed in tragedy? Why would the death of our young babies be good? Truly I don’t have all the answers of why God uses tragedy, but I can say that through tragedy God takes things we only think about Him and makes them into things we know about Him. God is not after our comfort He is after our righteousness. Whatever pain we might endure in this life is not to lead us into sin or to break us—or for us to even find strength within ourselves. God’s sole purpose in our trials, temptations, and pain is to bring Himself glory. We might think then, that we don’t want to bring Him glory, but we forget that God is good, His kindness is everlasting. His glory is always for our good. He displays it in the grace and mercy that He will pour into you in your darkest time, giving us His strength. The end goal of your tragedy is more of Christ.

So instead of shaking our fists at God, or wallowing in our lack of understanding, let us trust in Him. In who His word says He is. We can count it joy because God is giving us more of Him, he is “conforming us into the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29) Jesus is the ultimate treasure and a deeper, fuller relationship with Him should always be our goal as Christians.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 9:37)

Growing In Grace Part 1: Did my Faith Fail me?

            After my miscarriage, I ran through every possible cause in my head, did I drink too much caffeine? Did I eat too much sugar? Did I not rest enough? Did I not exercise enough? Did I just not want the baby bad enough? Did I not have enough faith that God would provide for that baby?

We all have heard people say, “You just gotta have faith.” People say it in both simple and complicated situations, they throw it out like you can just reach into your pocket and pull out some faith, or maybe you can stop by the supermarket and pick some up- you just gotta get it because “you just gotta have faith.”

            I have heard people claim “faith” over people on life support saying that if they just have “faith” the person would rise up and walk out of the hospital-and then they died. Did the people praying for them just not have enough faith?

            When my son died I did not even have a chance to exercise “faith” I did not even find out he was dead until he already had been for days. How does faith play in a situation like that?

            When we treat faith like something we can just muster up and use to get what we want, we are forgetting where it comes from.  “The measure of faith that God has assigned.” (Rom 12:3) God is not waiting for you to prove your faith in him so that he can lavish you with blessings. Any faith you have comes from him to begin with; He is assigning it to you!

            If we are looking to ourselves for more faith, we will always come up empty handed. If we look to who went as far as the cross to bear our burdens, he will not leave us without faith, he will sustain us. 

            There is no amount of faith that can change the path that God has sovereignly laid out for you, but when trials hit and winds of grief are blowing over you, and clear skies are nowhere to be seen, “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”  (Heb 12:2) he will bring you through this to the end he will “finish” our faith.

             Do not ever wonder if your lack of faith has brought trials into your life, that is not how our loving and merciful God works. Sometimes the trials are the blessing. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1) Our faith is not in what will come to pass in this life, but what God will accomplish in eternity. He will one day make all things new. Although there is pain, anguish and death now, by faith we can look forward to when “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:3). 

       Have faith, ask the Lord to give you faith. Do not expect your faith to spare you from trials, but with it you may endure trials. In faith, we may suffer in such a way to glorify God, but more on that next week.

Growing in Grace and Knowledge of our Savior

           I had another post to share with you this morning but I decided to put that on the back burner and instead introduce a series of posts that I hope you will find helpful.

            Here at David’s Hope we believe that the greatest comfort in tragedy is knowing and understanding who God is and his purposes.  I do not want to placate you in the hardest time of your life with silly Christian clichés that provide no real lasting comfort for you and may just leave you with more questions. The truth is the bible is more than sufficient to communicate God’s desires for us amidst tragedy. I am well aware that it is not hard to find a sad story online about how someone overcame their miscarriage and were stronger in the end. That may be true and those stories have their place, but here – I don’t want you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, fight through it, and get over it. I want you to have your hope firmly planted in Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.  You have not sinned your way into this situation, you are not being punished, and God is not looking the other way. I hope that you will check back next week as we begin to unpack some of the harder questions we might have when dealing with miscarriage and infant loss.