trials

Day 28

I have a lot of unread messages and a lot of comments I haven’t responded to, but I see them. I like to save them for nights and when I can’t sleep.

I am grateful for your overwhelming support, for the food, the gift cards, the cards, the encouraging messages, the comments, the phone calls. Thank you.

It’s hard to fathom we’re all here. It’s hard to accept. I wish so badly it wasn’t real — we all do. I am so sorry, I am so sorry for our loss. I am sorry you’re hurting so much, too.

My Mom had a beautiful and vast influence. She touched the hearts of many, and now the many mourn. I am sorry we’re all working through the weight of this quizzical grief.

I’m so sorry for my mom. I am so sad for her. I am endlessly sad for her. This is not what she would have wanted.

I am so haunted by answerless questions, and I know we all are. After Patrick died, one of my professors said “Knowing ‘why’ rarely helps,” and I have wholly believed that for years. Knowing why would never be enough — we would all think “we could have worked this out.”

I loved my Mom so much. I know we all did. I know that, in her right mind, she knew that too. I am devastated that she did not leave earth feeling that love. Maybe, maybe in her last few moments she did. Maybe she felt it all as she drew her last breath. Maybe she did, I hope she did.

When Patrick died, I had this vision of him entering heaven with tears pouring from his eyes while he said “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” and Jesus held him and said “It’s over, it’s over. You’re home now.”

I haven’t gotten a vision like that with my mom. Truthfully, I haven’t been able to picture her much at all… I think it is too painful for my mind to recollect at this point.

I am so sad her mind lied so cruelly, and I will forever be sad of that.

I wish so bad I could hold her hand one more time and remind her how much we love her. I wish so desperately she wasn’t gone. I would have loved more than anything to bear our burdens together. I know we all would.

I know this life will be good without my Mom, and I know too well how God brings grace and beauty from horror. But I hate that I have to say goodbye, and I hate that it will be good without my Mom. It reminds me so much of Tolkien’s famous words:

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why.

Two Towers

I love you, Mommy. I’ll always love you.

Day 25

Grief eclipses everything.

Amazingly, it’s not all tears all the time. The majority of the time, it’s a deep feeling of sadness, it’s nausea, it’s brain fog that prohibits one from completing sentences and tasks, it’s an impenetrable void, it’s a minute consciousness of one’s mind and body, it’s a general feeling of unwell, it’s high anxiety, it’s somehow both lethargy and the need for movement. It’s the inability to smile, or, at least it feels that way a lot of the time. A smile seems like so much effort, but smiles still come naturally, too.

It’s a tiredness, it’s a shortness, it’s an irritability. Yet, gratitude persists as well. Thankfulness for friends, for messages, for meals, and for simple beauties.

It’s so sacred, and it’s so miserable.

We went to Jeremiah’s today — that was the last place Scott and I saw my mother. When we left, a beautiful rainbow wrapped the sky. We marveled.

We didn’t cry, but we did lament. Pausing to remember. Oh, how I wish we’d gotten to say goodbye. How I wish none of this was happening. But, we saw a rainbow. And what do we make of that?

I’m angry, sad, and confused. At the end of the day, I’m just a survivor, writing to detail a bit of what it’s like.

The first time we saw an alligator

Day 17

How exhausting. How sad.

I pretended to have a “day off” today. I didn’t answer messages, I didn’t accomplish any grief-related tasking, and I pretended to have a normal day off.

Dad and I went to the grocery store, I made toast and salad when I got home, I cleaned out the fridge, I did the dishes, I took a bath, I enjoyed the solitude. I enjoyed the silence.

Scott got home from work today and I met him at the door, like I always do when he comes home, and then it hit me. Calm tears warmed my eyes. My Mom always made such a big deal when my Dad came home from work. Mom and four of us kids would giddily line up at the door and we would scream “Daddy!” as he entered.

She always celebrated shrilly when Dad came home, and Dad did the same for her. They always did that — one would get home and the other would come to the door with so much joy and excitement.

I hate that my Dad won’t get that anymore. I hate that my Mom won’t be there to greet me excitedly when I go to their house. My family loved so deeply.

This entire situation is so difficult to comprehend, so terrible to realize, and so overwhelming to endure.

But we endure. Always, always enduring. Some moments it feels less like enduring and more like living, but those moments are scarce these days.

Day 16

Silence. Quiet. Peaceful, terrible.

Tomorrow will be the first day without any guests. All have gone home, and my father, my brother, and I will experience our first bouts of alone time. It’s necessary, it’s healing, and it will likely be painful.

Torrents of grief, sacred and terrible, assuage we mourners. I’ve loved and appreciated the depth and beauty of sadness, but I still hate enduring it at this level of intensity. Sorrow opens one’s eyes to a new world and demands a new perspective from the sufferer. This new perspective can make one bitter or it can make him or her more compassionate, but it either way the perspective shift prompts a response.

Grief is traumatic. It assaults the mind and the nervous system. It manifests itself in sadness and anxiety. It steals sleep from some and it keeps others in bed for days. It produces shaky hands and sore eyes. It creates fear and mistrust. It eliminates filters and threatens boundaries that otherwise would protect its victims.

We aren’t strong, we mourners, we are incredibly weak. We are at our most vulnerable and most sensitive. We are raw. We hurt, often more than we ever deemed imaginable or bearable. Yet, we bear it.

Some watch mourners with awe and amazement — unsure how we could function. Some are offended if a mourner is snappy or not as “bubbly” as normal. Some prefer to look away, noting how painful it is to even think about what a mourner endures.

Grief manifests differently in every individual because of the uniqueness of every single relationship; while that makes each person’s experience vastly personal, a wondrous communal aspect exists when we mourn the same individual.

It’s private, and it’s not. It’s personal, and it’s shared.

Mourning callously brings out both the best and the worst in people, because we join together in our grief but can quickly isolate from offenses and hurts. We are vulnerable, we are tired, and we are boundlessly sad.

When we love each other and show up for one another and extend continuous grace — that is when we mourn well.

We mourn because we lost someone so incredibly precious, and we cannot stop loving them. Love transcends time, space, and even death. Love well.

Above all, love each other deeply for love covers a multitude of sins

I Peter 4:8

Day 14

Two weeks.

There’s a weight so heavy on my chest I feel like I can barely breathe. It feels like I am operating at 50% of my normal capacity, if that. It feels so heavy. What does that even mean? Why does it legitimately feel like there is a weight pressed against my lungs, collapsing them? How does that work? How does the body do that?

I thought we had something special, me and my mom. I thought we had a great relationship. Now I feel like I didn’t even know her. Who was this woman I spent so much time with? I thought she liked being with me, I thought she wanted to be in my life, I thought she wanted to be here. But in the end, she wanted to leave me. It wasn’t worth it for her to stay in my life. She didn’t want to see me grow up anymore. I thought we were going to be two old ladies together. I thought she wanted me. I thought she wanted me. Did she think I did not love her? Why weren’t we enough?

I hate my name. I’ve hated it for a long time. My mom gave me this name because she hoped so badly for me… what good did that do for her? It’s so cruel to be named Hope when it feels like so many people in my world are hopeless.

“Hopey, you’re my Hope. You make me believe that everything’s going to be okay and that we’re really going to make it.” That’s what my brother Patrick told me two days before he ended his life. Once he died, I really started to hate my name.

Before that, I was always a pessimist. It felt so ironic to be called “hope” when I so seldom experienced hope myself.

Now this? I hate my name. It feels so cruel tonight.

Why did I start writing these? I keep asking myself that. More precisely, why did I start publishing these? I’ve loved writing for my entire life. I used to write fantastical stories, dreaming worlds late into the night when I was just a young girl. Then in puberty I started writing to cope with my ever-changing world. Now, I almost exclusively write when my emotions cloud my head, spill out of my eyes, and pours from an ink pen onto a blank page.

So, why did I start publishing these?

After Patrick died, I seriously isolated myself. I did not answer my phone for over a month and I had no desire to make contact with the outside world.

In our American culture, grief is so private. Suicide is beyond taboo, and people in mourning may be given three days of bereavement leave. Three days… how pathetic. Our culture almost treats grief like something to be ashamed of or to be quickly gotten over. Because of this, death and grief are seldom discussed and very few — especially at my ripe old age of 27 — people have much of a framework/understanding of mourning and grief.

Grief shouldn’t isolate. It should be something that pulls us all together, something that makes us stop and hold one another closer, something that prompts us to change our lives for the better.

As my friend Olivia Chancellor always says “Alone is a lie.” Maybe if I share my thoughts, others will have the courage to share theirs too. Thoughts can be scary and painful and feel so isolating, but alone is a lie. “Everything that is exposed by the light becomes visible–and everything that is illuminated becomes light,” Ephesians 5:13. It’s only when we share our darkest thoughts that we are truly able to heal from them.

I want to live. I want to have a life full of beauty and joy and pain and wonder. I want to experience it all. I want to be fully present. I want to experience life to the full in every possible way, no matter how it hurts.

I don’t want to move on from this. I will be carrying this for the rest of my life, and I want to grow and learn to carry this with grace and love and even hope. I want to live, and I want to live well.

Day 8

Funeral preparations cease but a few friends and family members from out of town remain close. Reality slowly creeps in as the whispers of finding a “new normal” lingers just around the corner. In a matter of days, most of the world will return to work while we begin to reorganize our lives.

My Daddy, of course, will have the most significant adjustment for his day-to-day life. Already, he sleeps without my Mom, but he has not had to experience a “typical” day without her. They were partners, they were friends, and they were lovers. I always thought they really would be that couple from The Notebook: I never thought this could happen.

Their relationship was an anchor in my life. They endured and overcame agonizing trauma together again and again and again, and they were the best of friends. Growing up, I always wanted a marriage like theirs. Since getting married, I still wanted a relationship like theirs! My marvelous husband and I watched their love for one another with reverence and admiration. They were such an amazing team. They loved being together and they loved each other well. It’s difficult not to be really angry with my mom when I think of their truly inspirational marriage… and then it’s really, really, really sad.

As my brother Luke reminded, my siblings and I had never known a world without Mom until eight days ago.

Rehabilitation — that’s the word that keeps bustling through my mind. Learning to live without Mom feels like rehabilitating back into normal society: walking, driving, talking, biking, writing, smiling, and so much more, feels so foreign and unnatural. I feel as though I can barely hold a thought or concept in my mind.

Denial persists more than anything right now, a dull ache thumps within me at all times, but most of the time I can’t believe my Mom’s gone and I can’t believe my mom left me feels like a distant thought and not an annihilating reality. My Momma, I still mumble in shock. Moments of mayhem pierce me to the core, preparing me for when the shock wears off and when I’ll have to truly face this menacing reality.

My Mom grounded and anchored my life, creating stability and safety. What now?

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

I have provided many things not to say — all of which from comments multiple people have made, not just one-off comments as to not single anyone out — but there are so many good things people say as well.

“I’m sorry” feels like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the mourners and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.

Future Ways to Help

Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, calling to set up a dental appointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on – it’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.

We’re a grieving community, and we’ve got this 💙

Grays, Blues, and Splatters of Red

Apprehension gathers around my temples and sends shakes into my hands. 

I feel calm: I smile to myself as I peer into my rear-view mirror, fighting the duplicity of my inner turmoil.  We’re nearing the end of the year, the end of the decade.  So many endings. 2020 looms menacingly behind a two-week’s notice, and its emanate arrival bubbles conflict within me. 

bubbling… boiling… overflowing… overwhelming… apprehending.

I don’t feel calm: tears kiss my quivering lip, fear desires to relinquish the skirmish in my mind.

Am I going to believe what I know to be true?

I know God is good.  I know 2020 will hold good things.  I know I’ve had a lot of joyous moments in 2019.  I know the progression of time is natural.  I know ending the year numerically/measurably separates me from pretty terrible experiences from 2019.

This year feels like finishing a chapter of a Stephen King novel; the horror is over, but the adrenaline from terrors pulsates through one’s veins and makes him aware that the books is not finished and that more trepidation awaits.  With apprehension, the reader begins the next chapter. 

I know I’m not living-out a horror novel, however, Jesus literally promised “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33).  I know that, and that’s easy [for me] to believe.  He also declared, “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10) and compared, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). Somehow, those two facts are a bit harder for me to believe. 

These truths I know, but I battle each day to believe them.  I echo a millennia-old cry: “I believe!  Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

I exhale, imagining the year altogether.  An overwhelming year amplified by increased stressors from the past few weeks.  I’m tired of fighting.  I reminisce on the past year in color: grays, blues, and splatters of red.

Gray.  The color of endings—colors fade into a vortex of grays.  From dust we came and to dust we return (Genesis 3:10).  It’s the color of loss, of hopelessness, of abandonment, of absence.  A sky convulsing with beating rains.

Blue.  The color of sadness—shades of somberness in waves of emotion.  As deep as the ocean, as expansive as the sky. 

Red.  The color of passion—drops from the hands, the feet, and the head of Christ.  It indicates hurt.  Likewise, it’s the color of life, of love, of anger, of danger, and of longing. 

Apprehension gnawing at my soul and shivering in my hands, I petition myself again: Am I going to believe what I know to be true? 

I know James was earnest when writing “the testing of your faith produces endurance,” (James 1:4).  I know that God works all things together for good (Romans 8:28).  I know that it is God who works within me (Philippians 2:13).

But oh, how hard it is for me to believe that my pain will not be wasted.  How easy it is for me to believe that all of this is for nothing.  That my pain is meaningless, that my words are meaningless, that I am a failure because I do not always believe the truth that I know, and that my pain will be wasted because it’s not easy for me to believe in goodness.  

It’s hard to see the world around you when you’re filtered through gray, blue, and red.  I am of little faith.  I cling to the truths I know—I see God’s mercy, provision, and grace all around me—even while I shudder at thoughts of the future. 

Yes, I’m happy to leave 2019.  But 2020 will be the first year of my life without Patrick, and that’s never something I wanted to write.  I will no longer live in the year of his death.  The closer we get to the date, the more apprehensive I become.

It’s not that I don’t trust God with the future.  I do.  It’s simply hard to look forward to an unknown that currently holds little tangible hope–yet, my hope is in Christ and I know that my hope will not be put to shame (Romans 5:5). 

Hebrews 11, a chapter exemplifying people of great faith, begins with “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen,” Hebrews 11:1.  I have faith that God will bring good things from the dark year I’ve endured, but I also know the reality of their lives: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (verse 13).

“Remember the promises of God,” many tell me.  I remember them, I acknowledge them, and I cling to them, but I know that I might not live to see his promises fulfilled.

I—we, my friends—may never witness one drop of goodness to come from the tragedies in our lives, but we will experience God’s faithfulness.  While not tangibly measurable, if we surrender ourselves to Christ, we are guaranteed to see some promises fulfilled. We will experience sanctification.  We will experience knowledge and growth.  My broken perspective doesn’t make God’s workmanship any less true.

We might not see the goodness amidst the darkness of today, but we can see God’s faithfulness.  We can see God’s mercy, and we can trust God even when we cannot seem to believe. 

“Cling to What Is Good”

November 22, 2018

“Here, Hopey, it’s your turn.”  My Aunt Beth smiles as she hands me our family’s Thanksgiving notebook—the ledger that preserves memoirs from the past three years of each of our lives.  I release an oppressed sigh as my fingers trace the globe on the book’s cover and my mind drifts to a conversation I had with a dear friend the week prior.

– – –

“Hope, how are you doing?”  My eyes involuntarily fell into my coffee cup before I mustered the courage to respond.

“Honestly?”  I paused as I decided between duplicity and vulnerability: “I feel physically beat up.  I feel like I got knocked down this year and have been kicked over and over and over again.  I am physically and mentally exhausted.”

– – –

Beholding the journal, I apprehensively open the cover.  What on earth am I supposed to write this year?  Thanksgiving looked different than what I had anticipated weeks before, and I dreaded receiving this notebook; however, recalling that memory, sitting in my brother’s house, and being surrounded by family, somberness softly melted into gratefulness.  Thus, I began with three simple words: “2018 was a year.”

* * *

I pondered the past eleven months of one surreal year.  I spent New Year’s 30,000 feet in the air headed for London—I felt independent and free and unstoppable.  I was twenty years old and flying to Europe for a five-country tour with some of my best friends, and then returning to my final semester of college.  I had no idea what my life would look like after graduation and studied for half our trip, but I was reminded to enjoy the moment.  God would provide in such miraculous ways in the months to come.

26730908_1520870774632920_5734749559510876688_n.jpgLife was a blur between January and May—sooo many late nights spent with Isabella, Emily, and Judd.  Book club continued with Candace as we finished Priscilla Schrier’s Resolutions for Women and began Amanda Bible-Wilson and Raechel Myer’s She Reads Truth.  We celebrated Ben and Lauren’s engagement and we cheered as Judd open for John Mark McMillan.  School was crazy, but that’s consistent, so what’s new there?  It was a perfect semester, culminated with enough stress and excitement to fill one’s life with awe and thankfulness.  I spent more weekends than I had preferred in Hampton, but, in the end, I will forever thank God for how He arranged those trips back and forth.

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Then we come to my favorite memory: at the end of April, Walter, Tyler, and Josh visited me in Lynchburg for a Hillsong concert. I remember sitting at dinner with Walt and Ty and thinking that it felt like old times—these had been my dear friends since I was 16. We all headed back to Hampton for Matt and Kayla’s beautiful wedding and continued to make the greatest memories.  Walter convinced me to stay in Hampton after graduation and my sweet friend, Rachel, made that possible.   I remember calling my mom that Monday and telling her how sweet that weekend had been—Ty and Walt visited me every year I was at Liberty and I didn’t think that would have been possible for them to come this year.  That was the last time that I saw Walter.  God was so kind to allow that trip.31430356_1616995038353826_3057660479495575863_n.jpg

After that weekend, everything seemed to fall apart.  There were nine weeks of affliction—nine weeks where God revealed that nothing is constant, and nothing is permanent apart from Him.

Weary and discouraged, I boarded a plane to Portland, Oregon for a trip my grandparents had planned months before.  I spent 18 days surrounded by family in a place far from the troubles of home.  I learned how to breathe again and how to rest in the Lord’s presence.  I realized the amount of pressure I bombard myself with when I attempt to rely on my own strength.  I am so, so weak.  I learned to lean on the strength of my Savior.

37927544_1727112754008720_5934112775352614912_n.jpgWhen I returned, my external circumstances remained uncertain, but my internal conflict ceased.  I was ready to leave Virginia and would have given up had it not been for the encouragement of Nelly, Derek, and my grandparents.  August 8th, five days after I got back, I accepted a job in Virginia and chose to persist; the shadows of the uncertain slowly began to fade away.

– – –

I dreaded receiving that notebook, for I had no idea what I would write.  What do you write for a year you wish did not exist?  It’s been a year.  Many things about this year feel fake–like they didn’t or shouldn’t have happened.

Yet God reminded me of His faithfulness.  I remembered all the little moments that God used to prepare me for greater trials.  I remembered Becca and Brittany and Lauren and Ben and Candace and Daniel and Maddie and Katie and Jocelyn and Jenny and Judd and Isabella and Emily—29102040_1573573962695934_132536839882033839_n.jpgI remembered all of the friends who made college so wonderful and who helped me finish.  I remembered how God allowed Candace and I to read a book about how He is permanent in a world that is passing away before and after Walter met Him.  I finished college feebly, returning to school for final exams and papers the week after Walter passed away.  I remember how Sandy and I clung to one another that first week back.  I remembered how kind, supportive, and understanding all of my professors were.  I remember how God allowed me to graduate despite the hardships—I would not have finished that final semester apart from God’s grace.32982080_1638167396236590_9186676991623954432_n.jpg

33027682_1638178599568803_2408179426903719936_n.jpgI remembered spending almost every Friday night with Morgan, Gabi, Laura Kate, and Lauren watching It Takes a Church and laughing together.  37121019_1708897055830290_1329648512505217024_n.jpgI remembered the summer that my Church became my family in the purest way.  I remembered visiting my parents in their new home and getting to spend a week of sweet vacation with them.  I remembered going to Colorado to visit Tyler with Lauren, Mike, and Scott, and enjoying ourselves though everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.  I remembered running to the beach with several friends to get away when things got too rough at home.

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I remembered worshipping with those closest to me—in tears, in song, in celebration, and in laughter.

* * *

I received that notebook and I relentlessly wept as I mourned the past year.  My family saw me and they held me as I clung to them.  Nothing needed to be said, we all knew.

Thankfulness overcame me as I thought about the family that surrounds me.  I held my niece each morning as she ate breakfast, and I played with my nephew’s hair until he fell asleep.IMG_0030.jpeg  I enjoyed early mornings with my parents and Luke and Karley and Aunt Beth and Uncle Terry and spent the afternoon the whole family.  Each day was so sweet and so special.  It’s been wonderful to have Luke and Karley live near–they have blessed me so much.  Each of my siblings and their families have surpassed my expectations this year–I wondered what our relationships would look like once Mom and Dad moved away–I have grown closer to all of them this year.

It’s been a year–more painful than words express.  I did not want to be grateful this year.  I did not want to acknowledge all that God has blessed me within 2018–I wanted to focus on all that God has allowed to be taken from me.  But He has blessed me, and He has been with me and before me through it all.

Let love be without hypocrisy.  Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.

Romans 12:9

I am so weak.  I need God’s strength and I need that reminder to “cling to what is good.”  He is good, even when life aches.

When my strength fails, He is strong.  When circumstances change, He is constant. When people disappoint me, He is faithful.  When I make mistakes, He is forgiving.  When everything collapses, He is a firm foundation.

2018 was a year.  Yes, I do feel beaten down, but “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair,” II Corinthians 4:8.  Therefore, I will hope in the God that provides everything I need yesterday, today, and forever, and my hope will not be put to shame.

For Further Reading:

Hebrews 10:39

II Corinthians 4:16-18

Job 1:21

Psalm 136

Hosea 2

I John 2:17

Deuteronomy 31:6

II Corinthians 4

You’re Making Revival

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.” Psalm 66:16

Every so often, I venture out to grab a cup of coffee and read God’s word in a different setting.  The past few times I’ve gone, though I have chosen a different location each time, I have sat across from fellow believers who likewise are studying the word!  This morning, I heard a young man, assumedly in high school or college, discipling a younger boy (about junior high aged), and was filled with joy!

Over the last few weeks, I have seen young people seeking out and studying who God is all over!  This generation is eager to know Him and He is moving everywhere.  This might be a dark time in our nation and in this world, but He is still working all around us.  I’ve seen so many people of my generation professing the gospel and teaching it to those around them!  Like the verse in this Psalm, we should be telling those around us what the Lord has done!  Believing, showing, proclaiming that Christ is enough.

We may feel far from persecution, but our brothers and sisters—our church—is strongly being persecuted.  Some of my favorite verses are found in John 16; in this chapter, Jesus explains the Holy Spirit to His disciples and tells them that He will soon leave them.  Knowing their hearts, He said “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20).  Later, verse 22, He mentions that they will see Him again and they will have joy that “no one will take.”  Jesus affirms that He will return to the Father soon and the disciples react saying “Now we know that You know all things and do not need anyone to question You; this is why we believe You came from God” (John 16:30).  Jesus informs the disciples that they will be scattered and assures them that the Father is with Him (John 16:32).  The chapter concludes with Jesus saying “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world, you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  Time has passed on, and not all suffer as the disciples did, but persecution still exists and new persecutors, namely ISIS, have come to invoke fear from believers as they terrorize our body of Christ.  But they cannot stop our God.  Job declared “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

In Acts 4, Peter and John defend that they “cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).  After that, they prayed for boldness to speak of the Lord (Acts 4:29), and so they did.  Their faith, and others of the time, gave us the 27 books of the New Testament, and now faith has spread around the globe!  Today and these past few weeks I have been able to watch Christians fall in love with God in coffee shops across America!  As I learn more about Him I continue to grow in my love for Him, as do those studying with me!

Our generation is eager and searching for God, and our lips utter His glory, we should exclaim “Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man,” (Psalm 66:5) as the generations before us did.

I am encouraged by this revival awakening in my generation.  No matter what, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat” (I Corinthians 4:12-13).  God is moving, and we can choose to follow and serve Him, or we can choose to “shrink back” out of fear.  Either way, God’s will shall endure, and Christ will be victorious.

 

For Further Reading:

II Corinthians 4:8-12

Hebrews 10:39

Romans 8:19-27

Isaiah 48:10-11

I Thessalonians 5:18

Micah 6:8