Abiding in Christ
For the past several weeks I have been reading scriptures, meditating on the words, concepts, meanings and implications of those scriptures and trying to apply those scriptures to my life, and my daughters new life. Abiding in Christ. What does abiding in Christ really mean? "In Christ or In Him", phrases peppered throughout the New Testament. Abiding, living, taking up residence, making a home with, being a branch, staying....
They are written so often that one can totally miss them or read through them without a thought. They are everywhere, the Gospels, Ephesians, Colossians, I John etc. It seems easy when everything is going well, when things are all right in the universe, my universe, my daughter's universe. But I know they apply and are true in these times too. They must be, I have staked my life, present and future, on them.
I had a challenge Sunday. I was leaving for church alone. Laura was off at a friends house, Liz was still recooping from the previous weekend and job interview, and Rob was ministering healing in his own tangible way, operating on an elderly woman, ten miles down the road. I pulled the car out of the garage to leave and then pulled back in. What was the sense of going? I sat there for a moment and then realized, "I'm going to be with my family. My family is there and that is why I'm going." And in the midst of my family, my Father met me in Psalm 145, with assurances but also with unanswered questions. And He wasn't afraid of those questions.
Verses 18-20 are in that Psalm too, right at the end. Promises or truths. But I have many questions regarding those verses and their reality in our lives over the past few months. And I know that we do not see the beginning from the end. We are living in the present and now it is a mystery, not a revelation.
And then this morning another challenge came in Hebrews 3. Yes, I will hold fast my confidence and my rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. It is a choice, a hard choice at times, to rejoice and know that our hope is trustworthy. We take it by faith and not feelings. For where else would we go, for He has the words of life. God has been faithful in the past and will continue to be. In the fourth chapter I read that we have a great high priest, that is passed into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, so we should hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And I think that maybe He was crying too when she was last night. So I come boldly to the throne of grace, so that we all but especially Elizabeth may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in her time of need.
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2 comments:
There is nothing I can say other then I continue to cry for you and I do not cease to raise your family up in prayer.
I went to school with Elizabeth and have been dropping by both of your blogs since Christian's death. I lost my first born at 15 months in 2001. Life is such a churning force pulling us along in the face of such pain and grief. When I think back on that first year, so much consumed with just breathing in and out each day...eating, moving, coping in a very physical way. The next year so much more emotional- depression, coming to accept death for what it is, the feelings flooding each day...very hard. The third year more about healing...not picking at the scabs, I'd cried and ached enough...Letting myself have a break. The fourth year--- growth under the scar, feeling the energy to create and grow again. And then the fifth year, days of actually feeling "alive", "really good", and not "broken". Such a long process...not a prescription by any means... it is different for everyone...Just a perspective. Be well. Love to you all in this journey.
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