Tag: Answers to Prayer (Page 4 of 12)

I had a really long, unusually packed holiday season beginning with the death of our dog, Sally, on Halloween and ending Sunday with my baby girl’s 21st birthday. With Joel’s Heaven day in the middle, two week long trips and my oldest, Joshua, graduating from college it couldn’t help but be packed.

I’ve read that the second year after losing a child can be much worse than the first. The fact that shock begins to wear off and reality begins to sink in is enough to make it true. Add a felony case in the mix. It was really hard. I am so thankful for my friends and family who continue love and accept me through it all.

Last September and October were especially hard. The cooling weather felt like it was dragging me under to the unusually warm December day that we lost Joel. I didn’t have that experience the year before. Maybe the shock protected me from it. Learning how to navigate these new waves is difficult and sometimes frightening.

On my good days, grief takes a lot of journaling and emotional energy. I tell myself many times a day, “Keep moving! Do the next thing.” Most of the time I am able to keep those thoughts inside my head. When I hear my out-loud voice talking to me, I know it’s a really bad day. On those days, my wordless prayers are expressed in sobs and wails.

One day, late in September, after hearing about the sudden death of a friend, I was washing dishes when I heard myself say, “I am doing all the right things; reading my Bible, keeping the worship music turned on, reaching out and encouraging others in the midst of it all. I am normally a strong person with a healthy outlook on life. I am going to make it through this.”

I heard God respond with one word, “Pride.”

My first instinct was to repent. A good instinct for when God confronts you with your sin. I repented several times on different levels as my thoughts raced through what He might mean. I struggled for days. Was it really God? I knew that it was. Could it have been the devil? Was encouraging myself wrong? I didn’t know how I was going to make it. I was trying to give myself a little hope that I could make it through the year, through the depression and post traumatic distress, through the death of my friend and the future deaths I would have to face.

I questioned. I prayed. I repented again. When I got up the courage to journal about it, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 finally came to mind:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I had tried to convince myself that I had “strong constitution” instead of acknowledging the truth of my weakness. I was putting my hope in spiritual disciplines when God wanted to give me experiential knowledge of His strength in my weakness. I wanted that too.. but in my weakness I was failing to be faithful in the waiting.

From Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible:

my grace is sufficient for thee; the Lord always hears and answers his people sooner or later, in one form or another, though not always in the way and manner they desire; but yet in such a way as is most for his glory and their good…

…that the power of Christ, says he, may rest upon me, or “tabernacle over me”; he considered himself as a poor weak feeble creature, and the power of Christ as a tabernacle over him, as the power of God is represented as a garrison about the believer, 1 Peter 1:5, sheltering, preserving, and protecting…

I am starting to understand that being confronted new and confusing waves of grief is going to continue to be apart of the journey. Understanding and accepting that fact is helping. That last week with Sally, I decided that I wasn’t going to worry about them any more. If I am experiencing a wave of grief and I am sad, that’s okay. If I am experiencing joy, I am going to enjoy the moment while I can. Accepting was a turning point for me. That one word “Pride” had stung and cut, but it had also given me the grace to surrender what I never had control over. I am weak; He is strong.

I had the grace to put on a brave face for the holiday celebrations while swallowing down stabs of the grief and pain. I wanted to celebrate family, friends, Thanksgiving, Joel’s Heaven day, Josh’s graduation, Christ’s birth, and I was determined not leave out Judi’s 21st birthday; the day she turned a year older than Joel was when he went home.

With the coming of the new year came the fear of taking off my brave face. I wanted to continue experiencing joy, but I knew my heart needed time to grieve. Sometimes it screams at me in my dreams, “I don’t care how many times you say everything is going to be okay.. it is NOT okay!”

I have felt so conflicted and I didn’t know how to navigate that wave. I didn’t know how to allow myself to grieve even though I knew I needed to. I found the grace to decide that I wouldn’t worry again. Conflicted, sorrowful, joyful.. it doesn’t matter. God will be with me in the midst of the waves. He will give me the strength and the wisdom I need to navigate them as they come. This has become my new self talk along with, “Soon, Jesus will come and rescue me.”

I grieved hard yesterday. I didn’t understand why the wave chose to come that day until after 4 PM when I remembered that it was the 7th; two years and one month since Joel went to Heaven. I had forgotten, but my heart always remembers.

So here I stand in the midst of sometimes overwhelming waves.. coming to terms with my weakness; my inability to make the waves any different than they are. Knowing and accepting that I am weak is actually bringing relief. “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Instead of a foolish hope in my own strength, I am free to turn my hope to the One who is sovereign over us. I can cast my cares on the Almighty, who has promised to show Himself strong in my weakness. I can trust that my Strong Tower will “tabernacle over me;” that His power will be a “garrison” about me “sheltering, preserving, and protecting” me, carrying me through the next set of waves.

1 Peter 1:3-9 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Love,
Jenny

Dear Family and Friends,

Praying that you are in good health and good cheer. We are very excited to have a new college graduate in our home this week, even though he has several more years of school left before he has his masters and possibly doctorate. 🙂  We are very proud of Joshua.  It’s been a long hard road.

I came across a poem I wrote a couple of days before the sentencing of the young man who murdered our Joel while praying about what to write this year and felt a tug on my heart to share it with you:

Come
Tuesday April 9, 2013

My old friend, the Morning, now stings with
Reality that I so long to see erased.

Lord, Jesus, come.
Be my Sun.

Tuesday, only Tuesday, how the days drag on.
When will I see your face?

Lord, Jesus, come.
Be my Sun.

Tears and more tears; sorrow clouds Joy.
But is not It’s undoing; only hate.

Lord, Jesus, come.
Be my Sun.

Lord, Jesus, you alone are my hope, my joy, my song,
The Morning, that I so long to see dawn.

Lord, Jesus, come.
Be my Sun.

Only Your loving kindness can make my heart,
my soul, my mind new.  Come.

Lord, Jesus, come.
Be my Sun.

Come with Your peace.
Come flood me with Your joy.

Come let Love begin It’s healing work
On the ache from deep with in.  Come.

Lord, Jesus, come.
Be my Sun.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how glad I am that it’s not our place to judge or as Mike said, “or to even ‘fix’ people.” Our ONLY job is to LOVE them. Mike and I were thankful for the roles the justice system, the judge and the district attorney played in our case. We didn’t want the responsibly of judging or deciding the sentence. None of that would have brought Joel back. Our only roles were to love and to offer the forgiveness that Jesus extended to us and we were thankful for the grace God gave us to enable us to do just that.

I’ve also been thinking about the way Jesus loved us.. by entering into our world.. into our suffering and SUFFERING with us. It’s that kind of love that keeps me going each day. Seeing Jesus strip off his glory, put on humanity and submit himself to suffer and die for me.. it.. woos me. It’s a whole new kinda of glorious. It’s a beautiful, crazy kind of love with abandon like none else.

He didn’t judge us or fix us first.. He SO loved us.. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

I read a devotion last week about Jesus’ bold love for Zacchaeus.  He was a scoundrel, a liar and a thief. Not only that, he was one of the ringleaders. Jesus never even mentioned any of those things to him. He led with, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19).  He called him by NAME and invited HIMSELF in.

The crowd was horrified,

“All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’”

But look at the results!

“But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

“Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house… for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’”

Jesus’ bold, uncondemning love rocked Zacchaeus’ world. All the years of hatred and scorn from his peers did nothing for Zacchaeus. Jesus’ seeking and loving and climbing onto His own tree did it all. That’s the kind of love.. the seeking.. saving.. glory shedding.. mind-blowing.. sacrificial kind of love.. that heals us and makes us whole.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34

That’s what I am in training for. I am broken. I miss up a lot. But I am learning to see Jesus looking at me not with disapproval, but with the kind of love that rocked Zacchaeus’ world. And I am learning to see the way He looks at the broken, hurting people around me.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17

We need saving. We need His love. We need the Healer of the Brokenhearted to come and make us whole.  He is our only hope. We can not fix things.. especially ourselves. All we can do is trust and wait and obey in the waiting.

Isaiah 30:18-21 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Much love and prayers..
and wishing you a Merry Christmas.

The Colemans

I woke yesterday from a residual bad dream with a desire to find a new life verse.  I have had a few. When I was a struggling in my role as a young mother, the Lord directed me to

Titus 2:5: “To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Through holding on to those instructions, I learned to value a calling that I never imagined would be my own.

For many years, I struggled through the lessons of

John 15:4-5 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can don’t nothing.”

Then sometime before we moved to Alabama, the Lord began speaking to me about my need for the gift of joy and Psalms 16:11 became my verse:

”You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.”

I am thankful for preparations that the Lord has worked in my heart through those verses and years that have helped me through this nightmarish season.  Joy has been the backdrop for all the sorrow that I have experienced through losing Joel, and I acknowledge it as a precious gift from God.

There have been moments and days where the pain overwhelmed the joy and I wondered at God’s word to Paul that His grace was sufficient.  On those days, I held on to these verses:

Psalm 37:3 “Trust in the LORD and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness.”

Romans 12:12  “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

James 1:2 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, a whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

A few of those things I felt like I could do:

Trust in the Lord..
Feed on His faithfulness…
Be joyful in hope..

– I learned to trust that He would carry me through to the promise of Heaven.

Dwell in the land..
Patient in affliction..
Let perseverance finish its work…

–  The tougher set, but the hope above made it possible.

Faithful in prayer..

– There have been many days where the only prayers I could pray were groans and cries…

I won’t pretend that I was able to “Consider it pure joy.” There have been a few trials that I’ve been able to face with the joy of being made more like Jesus, but not this one.  I am not sure the death of your loved ones was meant to be included in “trials of many kinds.”  The Bible says that “Jesus wept” at the tomb of Lazarus.  He had hope: “I am the resurrection and the life.”  He knew that in a few minutes he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.  And still “He shouted for joy” at Lazarus tomb. No. Still “He wept.”

The kind of life verse I was longing for when I woke up from my nightmares yesterday was the kind that contained the word “SOON!”  Soon we’ll see Jesus and He will wipe away all my tears and all the wonderful no mores will become reality because this old I am experiencing will have passed away.

Hebrews 10:25 ..but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Revelation 22:20 The one who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

“Soon!” is the word that the Lord has been using to encourage me.  He endured the cross for the joy set before Him, and I endure my cross with the same hope for joy at His appearing. As we near the holidays and the second anniversary of Joel’s first day in Heaven, “Soon.” is the whisper that keeps me persevering.

Soon, I need to get off this computer and start cooking Thanksgiving dinner, but before I do I would like to share some pages I made for our family to read aloud together on Joel’s Heaven Day.  The verses speak of soon, and Jesus and of clouds and crowns.

I learned something new in my reading yesterday. Many scholars believe that the verses that speak of Jesus coming in the clouds are speaking of “the great cloud of witnesses.”  It opened my eyes to see past the puffy white things in the sky to something much greater surrounding my soon returning Jesus.

I had a coupon for half off a photo book at Walgreens that expired last night. You can find coupons like that often but with Joel’s day just around the corner, I rushed to finish it in time.  I am not completely happy with how they came out, but they will have to do for this year.  The photos were taken by my parents and I in the Tennessee mountains.  Feel free to use them to make your own Heaven Day book.

“Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day

–and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:8

Running for that crown..

Love,

Jenny

One of the oddest things for me about losing a child is how we as bereaved parents obsess over the lost one… doesn’t matter how many surviving children we have… the lost one is the one on our minds and hearts 24/7.  I’ve struggled with it… fought it.  I’ve tried to honor and enjoy the kids I still have here while I can… and yet the obsession hasn’t gone away.

When my kids were really little (I had 4 in under 6 years) and I took them all to the grocery store with me, I would continually count them… 1, 2, 3, 4… to make sure one hadn’t wondered away.  Often when one had wondered off, Joel was the one who was missing.

As my four grew into young adults they chose to live at home, work and go to college locally (happy me). Counting grew a little more challenging: Josh is doing a lab, James is on his way home from work, Joel has to leave for work in an hour and Judi is teaching swim lessons.

1, 2, 3, 4.. all accounted for.

I had this 1, 2, 3, 4 thing so much in my mamma heart that I always hated pictures of only three of my kids …now all I can take are pictures of three. In those pictures one was missing.  Two kids in a picture was okay because the missing one wasn’t by themselves.

This is the last picture I have of the three boys together.  Josh and James are glad to be home with Joel and are telling him all their news.  Judi is teaching swim lessons at the Y.  I was so caught up in the joy of the boys enjoying each other that this photo never bothered me

I want to see the joy on His face and rest on His shoulders.

I felt like God was saying to me through the story, “It’s okay.  You don’t have to feel guilty about obsessing over your lost lamb.  I AM like that, too.  I’d leave 99 at home and search for the one.  You are created in My image. And it’s okay.”

Some bereaved parents find comfort in the fact that their children aren’t really lost. They know their child is Heaven and refuse to use the word lost when referring to them.  I understand, but my heart counts 1, 2, 3, and then comes the terror … FOUR!!  Where is FOUR?  He is lost to me… no longer in my possession..  for now.  My heart searches endlessly for him even though my head knows that I am powerless to recover him… and that if I could, it would be wrong to take him from his happy joy in Heaven.

Until the day I join him there and the terror is washed away, I will ever be teaching my heart to rest in my search secure in my hope in Heaven, in His joy and upon His strong shoulders.

Love,

Jenny

In the early mornings as I study the Word and worship, the Lord gently reveals places in my heart that are still broken; places that need healing that only He can give.  I journal them through quiet tears in an exercise of placing Brown Paper Packages (older post) all wrapped in string at His beautiful feet.

Once everything is journaled out, I am released to go about my day accomplishing the things I have the grace to do while continuing to worship with IHOP.  There were many months where the devastation of my heart was so wide and so deep that I spent whole days journaling and searching the Word for comfort, understanding and healing.  Not journaling meant leaving all those anguishes circling in my head like buzzards picking away at my brain and heart.

When I am in the solitude and privacy of my car, the true intensity of my suffering often shows itself. At home, I am rarely alone and even the brick walls are too thin for the piercing cries of my heart.  There are times when I am afraid to be alone in my car because I know somewhere deep inside that the pain is going to be overwhelming.  There have been times when I thought I was okay, focused on things ahead, and once down the road in my car the grief has jumped out in ambush.

Driving alone to church has been especially difficult.  There is the dreadful desolation of my heart lurking; waiting in the car for me, and then the “How are you?” greetings once I am there. It’s crazy how a casual greeting can pierce a grieving heart.  How do you answer a casual, “How are you?” in the normal 5 second allowance with red swollen eyes after just having an emotional meltdown in the car?  “Trying to hold it together long enough to get through the service.  Thank you?” When another grieving parent asks, it’s different because they understand that “Okay” means “Not falling apart at the moment.”

It has been important for me to not to pretend that I am something I am not.  When you are grieving, you feel a million emotions at once and not one of them is “Fine.” My desire has been to communicate honestly so that when others suffer they know that I can relate and I am willing to love them through it.  How can we help heal each other when concealing our suffering?

There were a few times when I was putting so much effort into just attending a service that I was caught off guard by the casual greetings. I would find myself trying to self evaluate and come up with an honest answer, my 5 seconds way past up, and think, “I was doing better before asked.”  Just recently, there was a day when it was all I could do to smile and nod.  It was awkward, but opening my mouth would have opened the floodgate of sobs. Once someone greeted me with, “It’s so good to see you.” and I thought, “Really?” and so wanted to just melt into their arms.

What does “Fine” mean anyway?  When anyone asked before losing Joel, I would mentally think through each of my four kids… if they were all healthy and doing okay, I was actually “Good.”  It didn’t matter that I’d lost my breasts to cancer and was still dealing with residual pain, or that I was having another allergic reaction to some unknown something, or that I was in that wonderful time of life where pre-menopause and PMS meet.  I was “Good” as long as my four were good.  Now I get halfway through my list and one is dead (has moved to Heaven).  I don’t even know how to evaluate any more.

At one point, I wished I could just hand out a picture of what my heart looked like in answer to the casual greetings and actually googled “broken heart.”  To my dismay, I basically found pictures that look like this:

Is that what most people think a broken heart looks like?!

It doesn’t even begin to describe the brokenness of my heart.  Torn paper doesn’t express the shatteredness; the shards of what was left of my heart with their sharp, painful edges; the muck and the mire of it; the literal breaking we felt in our hearts wave after wave.

 He shot his arrows deep into my heart.
The thought of my suffering and
hopelessness is bitter beyond words.
Lamentations 3:13

I have had to learn a whole new set of terminology in order to describe the state my own heart.

mire   mīr/
noun
1. a stretch of swampy or boggy ground.
soft and slushy mud or dirt.
synonyms:  mud, slime, dirt, filth, muck
2. a situation or state of difficulty, distress, or embarrassment from which it is hard to extricate oneself.

When we first lost Joel, Mike asked me how my hope was?  I answered, “What hope?” I didn’t even know what the word meant anymore.  At that point, I was still holding on to the fact that God loved me and thankfulness was pouring out of my heart.  I was thankful that Joel was the only one that died at the birthday party.  Josh had been shot at 4-5 times with only a scratch.  Judi had been invited but decided not to go.  I could have easily lost all three that night. Hope had been deferred till Heaven and my heart was close to death (Proverbs 13:12).  Along the way, questions about “Love always protects… Love never fails” from 1 Corinthians 13 found their way into my heart; akin to the devil’s “Is God really good?” questions in the garden.  I am sure.

Thoughts like: “This was not loving.  This was not protecting.  How can God be love and allow things like this?” were my constant companions.  The pain of my own inability to protect Joel was deafening.  My heart was so, so broken it could no longer produce even it’s essence; the thankfulness which had been it’s fragrance when first broken.  I so wanted to “give thanks in everything,” but how can you squeeze thanksgiving out of a heart that no longer feels loved?  How can you feel loved when you feel so unprotected?

My heart before was filled with the fragrant joy I found in Him:
“Life is good!  God loves me!  God has good plans for our lives. I have a hope and a future. I am so thankful!”

My heart after:
“Life is hard; crushing; unbearable!  This does not feel like love.  ‘Hope,”good,’ and ‘plan’ are all four letter words tearing into my heart.  My only hope for a future is in Heaven. Why am I still here?”

From my journal on February 6th, 2014:

“I am in a very dark place near where Joel died.  Part of who I’ve been.. part of what I have believed.. part of what keeps me from remembering and believing this awful truth is also part of the reason Joel lost his life.  I trusted God implicitly with the lives of my family.  My whole life was a prayer of faith and trust and intercession for my husband and kids.  I basked in God’s love for me; lived a life of thanksgiving and praise and adoration for all He had given me and I taught my kids to live a life trusting that God in His goodness would lead and direct their paths and show them what to do and give them a good, abundant, long, meaningful life.

They believed me.  Joel believed me.  They believed God.  Joel believed God.  He trusted God.  He lived a life listening to and submitted to the Spirit.  When the young man came to the birthday party with a mask and an AK47 and shot at everyone at the party, Joel didn’t run because he wasn’t afraid.. because he was so full of God’s love for him that he didn’t believe that someone could be so hateful and irreverent of life.  He thought the shooter was playing a practical joke that he wasn’t using real bullets.  He didn’t run even just in case.. he believed implicitly.

The truth that I believed and trusted and taught.. that Joel believed and trusted and died is too unbelievable.. too horrible to believe.”

I still wonder if I had taught Joel to be more cunning and less trusting …if it would have saved his life.  We don’t know if there was a moment before he moved towards the shooter that he realized that he was using real bullets and had to be stopped.

    God’s way is perfect.
All the Lord’s promises prove true.
He is a shield for all who look to him for protection. 2 Samuel 22:3

The one good that I have hoped would come out of my suffering was that I could be honest about my struggles and learn how to offer comfort and encouragement to others who are going through hard things. I wanted to learn how to persevere and have hope, peace and joy while going though trials …how to love and feel loved in the midst of suffering.  And I was failing miserably on the feeling loved part.

O thou who dry’st the mourner’s tear,
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to Thee!

The friends, who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes are flown’
And he who has but tears to give
Must weep those tears alone.

But Thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And e’en the hope that threw
A moment’s sparkle o’er our tears
Is dimmed and vanished too;

Oh! who would bear life’s stormy doom,
Did not thy wing of love
Come, brightly wafting through the gloom
Our peace-branch from above?

Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright
With more than rapture’s ray’
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day!

~ Thomas Moore, 1779-1852

We learned to transfer our hope from this world to the next and choose “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job 13:15.  Our choices were to choose to be content and trust Him where we are, or choose a very dark place of not trusting.  Choosing to trust, to believe we are loved when it doesn’t feel like love, and to keep an eternal perspective, has been our battle… And I believe it is the battle we all face in this world.

We have to choose to believe:

Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  …We hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.  Romans 8:18, 25

The constant cry of my heart has been that God would be my Good Samaritan, bind up my wounds and pour in the oil of His Holy Spirit into the broken places in my heart.

   The Lord gives healing to the brokenhearted and binds up their griefs.  Psalm 147:3

In the midst of my brokenness, God has continually reminded me that He is a wounded healer, that He understands our pain and suffering, and that our suffering is not ours alone but apart of the fellowship of His.  It so encourages me that when Jesus faced His time of suffering that He said things like, ”My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death.” and “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” And that the one who said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” also said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

    The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.  Psalm 34:18

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15

He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.  Isaiah 61:3

It took REALLY long time before I started feeling like God was healing me. I have so much more healing to go, but I am encouraged by even the smallest progress worked in me and thankful that He is walking with me through my hard days.

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

I’ve learned that it is really important to stay “rooted and grounded” in God’s love; feel it or not, to keep an eternal perspective, and to hold the Word up to the devil’s, “Is God really good?” questions because:

    Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:12

I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:16-19

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. Colossians 2:6-7

Still “Finding Joy in Him” (Really.),

Love,

Jenny

I’ve been stunned by Jesus’ humility this Passover/Lent season.  I think I am just beginning to understand that the Creator of the Universe put aside all of His majesty and glory to suffer along side of us… to die the horrible death of the cross for us… to really love us.  He couldn’t demonstrate His love towards us while sitting on His throne in glory.  He had to humble Himself… to draw near to us… to suffer.. in order to really love us.  LOVE could do nothing less.

One of the first things I learned after losing Joel was that we grieve deeply because we love deeply.

Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by others, and a man of sorrows, intimately familiar with suffering; and like one from whom people hide their faces; and we despised him and did not value him.

Love requires humility and suffering.  When God asks us to love Him with all of our hearts, all of our souls and all of our strength and to love others as ourselves, He is inviting us to enter into His suffering heart.  He is asking us to abide in His love which was humble and lowly and which willing suffered the death of the cross for us.

His love is truly stunning.

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,
4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Hebrews 2:17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Jesus asked us to partake of Passover in “remembrance of Me.”  When we drink the wine, we are to remember the blood that He poured out for us.  When we eat the bread, we are to remember His flesh given for us.  The flesh that He took on so that He could draw near to us.  His flesh that was despised and rejected, beaten and spit upon and yet carried that heavy cross up to the mount of the skull for us and suffered and died for us.  When we eat and drink of Him we are communing with His suffering and we are to remember that He is communing with ours.

Then comes Easter Sunday when we celebrate His Resurrection.  We are celebrating not only our new life in Him but also our future resurrection with Him and the death of death.  All things will be made new!  How I long for that day!

1 Corinthians 15:54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

A couple of weeks ago, the plea bargain agreement that the young man who murdered Joel asked for was presented to Mike and I.  Although Joel was the only one killed that night, the case was much larger than just us because he (Tim) had shot into a crowd of kids; injuring several others, also.

We decided that for our part that we were willing to agree to the plea bargain as an act of mercy towards Tim.  God has given us so much grace this whole time to forgive.  Our only hearts desire has been to:

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  Ephesians 4:32

Last Thursday afternoon, we were told that he would be sentenced the next morning.  A good friend asked if we had written a Victim Impact Statement.  No one had really talked to us about one.  It was our opportunity to honor Joel; to show that he was more than a case number and a name on a sheet of paper.

God gave me grace to sit and write the things on my heart that afternoon.  When Mike came home from work, he was able to write what was in his heart; completing what I was unable to put into words.  It was truly a miracle of grace that we were able to write it so quickly.

Two of my girl friends dropped everything to meet us at the court house the next morning.  I am so thankful for them.  Their presence gave me so much strength and courage.

The court room was loud and busy; twenty or so inmates had just been seated to wait for their motions, plus their lawyers and others signing papers, walking in and out and back and forth across the room.  We were unintentionally seated just one row directly behind Tim.  It was Mike and I’s first time to see him in person (Josh’s second).  We watched as he signed papers and read our Victim Impact Statement.  He looked young and vulnerable next to other inmates in the room and I felt for him; so much loss that night.

Judge Smith put our case at the top of his agenda so that we wouldn’t have to wait long.  The noise and busyness of the court room made it difficult to hear, but when the District Attorney began reading our Victim Impact Statement before the judge for us, the room was quiet for just a moment.  I pray that it has some small effect on everyone that heard.

Tim pleaded guilty to four Class A Felonies: one murder and three attempted murders, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.  He will be eligible for a parole hearing in 15 years from the date of his arrest according to current Alabama state laws.

Our Victim Impact Statement will be included on his record:

Victim Impact Statement
from Joel Manuel Coleman’s parents
Thursday, April 10, 2014

Your Honorable Judge Smith,

It would be impossible for us to describe to you the depth of the pain and heartbreak that we have experienced since losing our precious son, Joel Manuel Coleman, on the 7th of December, 2012.  It would be as impossible as it would be to explain the joy we felt the first day that we held him in our arms, or as impossible as it would be to explain the depths of our love for him through the 20 years that we were given with him on this earth, or as impossible to explain as the great pride we felt about the young man he was growing to be.  The only thing that comes close to the depths of our heartbreak is the depths and the heights and the widths of God’s love demonstrated towards us when His Son, Jesus, took on human form and died on the cross for us.

Joel had started college and was just promoted to a shift manager at his work.  He was beginning to realize some of his hopes and dreams and was becoming a prolific guitar player.  Joel was a best friend to each of his siblings and a loving and devoted son to us.  He was loved deeply by his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.  He lived his life humbly, honorably, and to the fullest.  He worked hard, studied hard, and played hard.  He loved hiking, nature, making people laugh, playing his classical guitar, and playing with our pets.  He treated everyone he met (young and old) with love and respect, listened to their joys and sorrows, put his arm around them, and made them feel like they were his best friend.  We miss him terribly each and every day.  The pain we feel will never completely go away as we continue to realize the lost opportunities of Joel’s life on this earth and miss his fun and joyful presence.

The night of the 7th of December is a nightmare that we sometimes cannot believe really happened.  We wouldn’t want any parent to experience the depths of pain and heartbreak that we now feel.  Our only hope is that those who’s life’s were spared on that awful night, including Timothy Goldsmith, will turn their hearts towards God and live in such a way as to honor God and share His love with others. Nothing can change what was done to our son Joel or the pain we have endured.  Only God’s grace and the expectation of being reunited with Joel in God’s Kingdom can help us to get through the great loss we are experiencing.  It is not for us to determine what anyone’s fate should be, so we trust God and this court to ensure whatever justice is required is delivered.

Sincerely,

Joel’s parents

My prayer for all of us this season:

Ephesians 3:14-21 For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Love,

Jenny

Save

We live in a culture where there is so much instant gratification that some believe anyone can achieve instant gratification if they just have enough faith.

They focus on stories about slaying giants and winning victories while leaving out or explaining away the ones that are messy and hard. They quote Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

while leaving out the preceding verses where God explains that His plan includes 70 years of captivity to Babylon. When the verses are read together, you realize that God’s loving plan may include gratification delayed until Heaven.

Real Faith

Real faith isn’t built by instant gratification. Real faith stands the test of time. Real faith holds on to the belief that God is good when its circumstances are not. When wounded and weary, real faith rests. When left in the dark, real faith looks up to the One who made the stars and waits. Real faith obeys God even when it looks stupid to others. Real faith trusts in a God that collects each tear in His bottle.

When you are in a valley, you are especially vulnerable to attack. You need to know what real faith looks like so that you can endure. If you believe it looks like instant gratification, you are going to be attacked by guilt and condemnation when it doesn’t work out that way.

Real Stories

The Bible is honest about life and full of stories that are messy and hard and require endurance. Not every hard thing in the Bible was avoided by faith. Even Paul couldn’t pray the thorn in his flesh away. Some things are just difficult and painful and faith doesn’t make them hurt less.

My life in this valley is messy and hard right now. It’s difficult to paint a true picture… for the most part there just aren’t any words. I have a deep desire to share authentically because I believe that stories tidied up and wrapped in a bow can destroy those who are suffering with guilt, condemnation, isolation and shame. Real stories don’t always have commercial breaks or superficial Hallmark endings. I’ve been in this painful valley for a little over a year now. There is no tidy bow. I am still struggling, but I keep looking up to the same faithful Savior.

It’s Not All About Us

In Exodus 14 God lets Moses in on His plan to place Israel in a vulnerable situation, harden Pharaoh’s heart, and entice him chase after them so He could gain glory for Himself and show the Egyptians that He is the Lord.

His plan was FOR the Egyptians. I love that He does things not only for us, but also for those who desire to kill or enslave us. I love that he hardens the hearts of pharaohs, so He can show many hearts His glory. I hope that God will use this very vulnerable place that I now find myself in for His glory, too.

God had shown Moses a plan and purpose for putting Israel in danger, and Moses understood that it would be for God’s glory. Moses didn’t know what God would do next, and yet he responded to Israel’s fearful cries with extraordinary faith.

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” – Exodus 14:10-12

Moses answered the people with faith that said,

 “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.” Exodus 14:13

The next verse has hung on my wall since going through breast cancer:

It has been a word in due season that has strengthened and encouraged me when I couldn’t do much more than “be still” for months while I allowed my body to heal.

Still in Vulnerable Places

I’ve spent a lot of time being still before the Lord this past year as well. After loosing Joel on December 7, the 7ths became Exodus 14:14 days for me. I’ve learned that I have to be especially nice to myself on the 7th of each month; I have to be still and let the Lord fight for me. I have prayed for help, wisdom, comfort, and healing. I have been still in His presence waiting for His direction and answers. I have been obedient in what I have known to do to the best of my ability.

This past Thanksgiving, the kids’ favorite holiday, was our last “first” without Joel. Then came the first anniversary of Joel’s Homegoing. Joel spent most of his last earthbound day at “home” with me studying for finals, talking to me, and playing his guitar while I put up our Christmas decorations. Putting up and taking down Christmas decorations now means reliving that last day. It was really hard, but I was determined to be thankful for all the days we had with Joel and not to dread Christmas.

I don’t want to dread Christmas. I love Christmas. I love that Jesus became one of us so that He could show us His love for us on the cross. The wreaths, trees, lights, candy canes and nativities all comfort me. The 175 of names of Jesus on my Christmas tree comfort me. I love being surrounded by reminders of His love for me. Most of all it comforts me to remember that Jesus drew us to Himself before Joel lost his life… that Joel is now in Heaven seeing Jesus face to face. We are blessed. It all comforts and pains me.

Not having Joel Manuel here with us, not having him come in the kitchen and see how Christmas lunch preparations are coming, not having him help set the table, not having him sit and eat with us, not having him play games with us is excruciatingly painful and rightfully mourned. Although I had managed not to dread Christmas, I found myself running into my closet several times on Christmas day to let out deep, sorrowful screams into my pillow.

A few days after Christmas, we took a weekend trip to a place we had taken Judi and Joel just 4 years before. We made it through remembering/imagining seeing Joel just around the corner there. Then a friend lost their daughter. We spent New Years Eve grieving for her and her family and for Joel and for the new year we had to spend without him. Judi turned 20 on the 4th of January. She is now the age Joel was when we lost him last year. We made it through all of it with joy and hope and sorrow and tears.

On the 7th of January, I got in my car to drive to a party and discovered that I hadn’t truly made it through. It’s in the privacy of my car that I often discover that I am not okay; I am still in the midst of my grief and I need God to fight for me like never before. I thought we had reached a finish line. I thought that after the first year, I could stop observing the 7ths. I discovered that after “firsts” come “seconds.”

My heart counts the 7ths involuntarily. The 7ths are still Exodus 14:14 days for me. I don’t know how long this will last. I chose in the middle of this discovery to be still and to be obedient to breathe even though it HURT, and though I was deeply disappointed and ashamed that it was all I could be obedient to do.

Moses’ Faith

This week, I heard a message that taught that being still wasn’t enough, that Moses was rebuked for telling the people to be still, that being still wasn’t acting in faith, that instead of being still Moses should have moved.

I was crushed. Was there something I was missing? If I had enough faith, could I just walk out of my valley?

I decided to reread the context for myself and I understood something for the first time that really encouraged me.

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? – Exodus 14:13-15a

God’s response was to Moses.

“THEN THE LORD SAID TO MOSES”

There is no record here of Moses crying out to God in unbelief or fear. Moses’ FAITH was what cried out to God. His command to Israel to be still spoke louder than all over one million Israelis’ cries of terror. I believe that God’s question was not a rebuke but a deep emotional response to Moses’ faith.

FAITH IS WHAT REALLY MOVES GOD.

Moses didn’t know the plan for escape. He had never seen a sea parted and dry land appear. Where was he supposed to move to? He only knew that God was good and sovereign and had a plan. He believed that God would show him what to do next if they could stand firm, be still and wait on the Lord. It was a stance of trust in the face of certain death for a over million of God’s people.

Mike said that he is coming to believe our faith shouldn’t be in our faith or “in a particular outcome, but in God’s sovereignty and goodness.”

God invites us to cry out to Him in faith for wisdom when we are in the midst of trials (James 1:2-5). He will not rebuke us. He delights in showing Himself strong in our weakness and in coming to our aide.

God Wants Our Hearts

God’s deepest desire is for relationship with us.

He proved it in the extravagant act of giving His ONLY begotten SON for us.

God put His own Son in a vulnerable place so He could show us His glory.

Relationships require faith, trust and vulnerability.

If God had only wanted obedience, He would have never sent Jesus to die for us. He would have laid out the whole plan for Moses in verses 1-4, Moses would have parted the sea and the Israelites would have walked straight through. Instead, He tested Moses’ willingness to trust Him in a very vulnerable place. And if such a thing were possible, I believe that Moses’ faith exceeded God’s expectations.

To say that Mike and I don’t know or understand all of God’s plan, would be a huge understatement. We don’t understand why God allows so much pain and suffering in us (personally or collectively in the human race). We only know, as the meaning of Joel Manual Coleman’s name proclaims, that God is sovereign, that God is with us and most importantly we know that God is good.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT

We are waiting on the Lord and obeying as He gives us grace and instruction. Holding on even when that grace and instruction is only to stand still.. to breathe.. and wait for Him to fight for us. We are standing in faith even when that instruction is to wait in a vulnerable place where we feel like God could have come up with a better plan.

We have a long way to go, but we are trusting that He is the “author and perfecter of our faith,” that at the end of our race we, too, will see Him face to face. If we hear that longed for, “Well done, good and faithful servant” as He wipes away our tears, it will be because He has been faithful in us and found glory for Himself through saving us. At last, we will hug our Joel and sing and dance with him in a triumphal song of praise for all God has done for us and because our last enemy, Death, has been swallowed up in His victory.

Exodus 15:2
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and He has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

For now I am singing

Love,

Jenny