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A Gem Hidden Deeply in God’s Word

God’s Word has become so very rich since Becca’s death, even in preparing for what I wanted to say at her funeral. But that isn’t usually the case for those who are grieving the death of a child.

Sometimes it takes two to three years for the pain and fog to lift to be able to even make sense of what is being read (which happened to me for quite a while in the deepest part of my grief). Or, these grieving parents are angry and struggling with their faith, like the woman I heard from yesterday who lost her son five years ago, and just this week walked out of a church service because she still can’t stand to hear people say that God is good.

I have to say that for me personally, many verses I have been taught or have seen a certain way (some of them since I was very young) have become a life-line of hope in a whole new light.

God tells us that His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths (Psalm 119:105). And in the depth of darkness that we find ourselves in after the death of our child, or any deep loss or tragedy, we desperately need any tiny pinhole of light that we can get.

I would like to share one of those scriptures that has taken on a totally new meaning to me now.

Ephesians 3:20 says talks about God being able “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

I have always heard this verse in the context of things like, “When you ask God for a good job, you can claim this verse and He will give you even a better job than you asked for.”

Or I have heard Christian leaders share about applying this verse to something they are praying for (like having a ministry bigger than they could ever imagine) and then adding in a laughing humorous way, “and I can imagine a whole lot!”

As I was reading through the book of Ephesians one day, I realized how much that verse truly applies to those of us who find ourselves in an unwanted and indescribable darkness of deep grief, tragedy and trauma.

We all think and say things like, “I can’t imagine EVER getting out of this pain and darkness.” “I can’t EVER imagine living life without my child.” Or, “God, when will I stop hurting so much?”

And that is exactly where the truth of this verse comes in. God promises that He is able to do more than we could ask for, or imagine! We cannot imagine ever coming out of our painful darkness to a place of living a life of purpose and meaning again. It feels impossible. But He can, and He will do what we cannot even imagine!

Any time we cry out to Him from that place of horrendous pain, even the smallest plea of, “God HELP me!” He goes to work making good on that very promise! Many times, it doesn’t seem like it because often nothing seems to change. We can go days, weeks and even months in the same suffocating darkness and turmoil. As a parent who has to learn how to live again after the death of their child, that grief journey is a long and very slow process to work through. So are other deep tragedies and losses. But God is at work, because we cried out, allowing His power to be at work within us.

So, it’s okay if you cannot imagine ever having hope, light, or purpose in your life ever again. God’s got this! And until that time comes, ask God to send loving, gracious people your way, who will walk with you through the darkness.

 

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.
  • If you are not a bereaved parent but want to support those who are, or want to follow us as we give hope to these precious parents, please connect with us at Friends of GPS Hope on Facebook.
  • If you are a bereaved parent, we encourage you to connect with us on Facebook.
  • Subscribe  to Laura’s YouTube channel for grieving parents.

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Evangelism is More Than Just Talking

When we hear the word “evangelism” it’s easy to think about sharing Christ as a thing to “do” rather than a way of life.

I get it, I’ve been there.

Often times, witnessing becomes an “event” and this mindset sticks with us even into our adult years. I remember in youth group we would make events out of passing out tracts, or going into city streets or shopping malls to pray for people, or even put together special services to invite friends to church.

I’m not putting any of those things down, but as we have been ministering to grieving parents, we’ve quickly discovered that love and compassion in action is a powerful way of sharing Christ with those around us. Evangelism isn’t just praying with a person to accept Jesus as their Savior, but it includes planting seeds of His love, and then being willing to take the time to water those seeds.

And often we feel a need to evangelize or “preach” at someone, helping them get the victory in their difficult circumstance, when what they really need is someone to listen to them and feel their pain with them. As a whole, the Christian community is good at rejoicing with those who rejoice, but not so good at weeping with those who weep (Romans 12:15). We would rather find a way to fix them, so we can move on.

Sometimes that means spending time with others, such as

1. Inviting them out for coffee or over for a meal 
2. Recommending a book or move with Christian themes, and follow up with an invitation to discuss it in a comfortable setting
3. Simply being in the right place at the right time

What are some “love-in-action” ways you’ve shared Christ’s love with others? Feel free to tell us in the comments below. Perhaps they would help the rest of us, including Dave and myself in our ministry to grieving parents.

 

 

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.
  • If you are not a bereaved parent but want to support those who are, or want to follow us as we give hope to these precious parents, please connect with us at Friends of GPS Hope on Facebook.
  • If you are a bereaved parent, we encourage you to connect with us on Facebook.
  • Subscribe  to Laura’s YouTube channel for grieving parents.

 

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How Can I Still Believe God is Good after the Death of My Child?

What determines God’s goodness? Is He good because He answers my prayers the way I want Him to? Is that what makes a person good? Because they give us what we want to make us happy? Or are they good because they know how to make right decisions for everyone involved? Are they good because they are not willing to compromise in the moment, but hold fast because they see and know the greater good further down the road?

I find it very sad when people walk away from God because He didn’t give them the answer they wanted to a prayer. God is not a vending machine where we put in the prayer, push a button, and the solution we want drops out for us.

As Christians, we often don’t realize how we treat God like a genie in a lamp. If we claim the right scriptures, say the right things, do some fasting and have enough faith (how much is “enough”?) then we will have our prayers answered.  We treat it like rubbing the lamp, having God pop out and say, “Your wish is my command!”

If we have made Jesus Lord of our lives, it overrides everything. It gives Him permission to be God in our lives, no matter what that looks like and includes when we don’t understand what He is doing or allowing in our lives.

I am not discounting speaking God’s Word over our lives and those we love, and pressing into Him through prayer. Not at all. But that is not a golden ticket to get what we want from Him and to never have the trial and tribulations He tells us we will have in our lives.

We have a young granddaughter who is being taught to say please and is learning that just because she says “pleeeeease” doesn’t mean she automatically gets what she wants.

When you ask someone for something, they have a choice to say yes or no. When we ask God for something, He has the choice to say yes or no. Did I want Him to say yes and allow Becca to stay here on this earth? Of course I did, with every fiber of my being! As a matter of fact, I believed He was actually going to heal her heart, either through a miracle or through a heart transplant. I was totally blindsided when she died—even though she was very sick.

But I have chosen not to change my thoughts and beliefs on who God is just because I did not get a prayer answered the way I wanted Him to, no matter how painful it may be and the deep suffocating darkness it threw me into.

And that is what trust is; to believe in someone when what I see or feel doesn’t make sense at the moment, no matter how much it hurts or how wrong I think it is.

Your emotions may be telling you that you cannot trust God and that He isn’t good. However, decisions made based on emotions are quite often wrong. I encourage you to make the difficult choice to trust Him, not based on whether or not you get what you want, but based on the fact that if you cannot see His goodness in your situation yet, it means He isn’t done working on your behalf.

We all have choices to make about trusting God. We ask our children many times to trust us, especially when our decisions cause them pain (and we know what they don’t know, and can see what they cannot see). God is asking the same thing.

A greater measure of healing will begin to happen when we decide that we are going to believe in His goodness and trust Him with our lives once again.

The choice is mine and yours. And the question becomes: Are you going to make it based on anger, resentment or frustration? Or are you going to move beyond that, believing He knows how to make right decisions for everyone involved, and that He was not willing to compromise in the moment, but held fast because He sees what we cannot see, and knows what we do not know?

I hope you will join me in believing in what He promises, that even if it doesn’t happen here on this earth, we will see the fullness of His goodness when we are with Him and our children once again.

Laura has put together a coloring book and journal with 42 words that have to do with our grief journey as parents who have lost a child. If you would like to have the pages on the word ANGER (which includes a thoughtful reflection on this word as well as a helpful scripture) let us know below. (To find out more about My Grief Journey: Coloring Book and Journal for Grieving Parents click here.)

Expressions of Hope is written by author and speaker Laura Diehl to bring hope, light and life to those struggling in darkness after a tragedy, especially bereaved parents. If you would like more information about Laura as an author or a speaker for your next event, click here.

GPS Hope exists to bring hope to parents who have suffered the death of a child, acknowledging their unique grief with support, connection and education for them and those around them.

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Four Ways to Help Bring Peace While in the Deep Pain of Grieving the Loss of Your Child

The pain of losing our child seems to always be with us. Even if I’m not emotionally feeling the pain at the moment, it is still there. It’s almost like a physical chronic pain. There are times you are so used to having the pain that you don’t even realize you’re feeling it.

During the first few years after our daughter Becca’s death, God gave me many reminders to rest in Him and His ways that didn’t make any sense. It was a hard thing to do, because I could not see any light in my darkness or understand why God was allowing so much intense pain.

He would share His reminders to just “be” and to rest in Him in so many different ways. He would remind me to take a breath and breathe in His love and peace.

He never sugarcoated anything but would acknowledge how difficult and steep my climb was, telling me to cling tightly to His hand, reminding me to look at Him whenever my circumstances overwhelmed me.

Here are four things that helped me be able to rest in God’s love for me, even in the midst of my intense suffocating darkness, that I would like to pass on to you.

1. Anytime you feel like you are sinking under the swirling waters, call out “Lord, save me!” just like Peter did in Matthew 14. Whenever I did that, somehow Jesus always reached through the storm and pulled me up out of the drowning sea of emotions, into His secure arms, where I would feel like He was holding me. He knew how weak and helpless I was, and He never tired of meeting me in my place of need.

2. Do whatever you need to do to be aware of His presence, which might include playing some worship music, or just sitting in silence in a place of nature where there is beauty and peace. Not only would He “hold” me, but He would encourage me to relax in the awareness of His presence. Some of my most precious times with the Lord were in my greatest times of weakness, just letting everything go and melting into His peace, love, and compassion.

3. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you some positive things that have happened because of the deep brokenness (no matter how small those things may be). When I was only eight months into this journey, I asked God to do this for me, and I came up with a list of eighteen things I saw Him working in me through the darkness, such as learning to become nonjudgmental (I didn’t have time or energy – that kind of thing just wasn’t important to me anymore), seeing the love and grace of God in a deep way, becoming free of what man thinks of me, enjoying being in His presence (just resting and letting Him love on me), learning it’s okay to be broken and to be a Christian and a leader, and so on.

4. Be determined to live from a place of surrender. This means we must learn to live from the spiritual part of our being—Christ in me and I in Him—and not out of our emotions or flesh. I always thought I did pretty good at that, but I have found a new level of living in it by tapping much more deeply into who God is in me. Here is something I wrote in my journal, eighteen months after Becca died.

4/21/13: This morning I just had to get to my prayer room, and there’s been such a sweetness of just wanting to be here with Him. I finally put my finger on it: it is the contentment of surrender! I almost feel guilty for not being agitated or in some sort of emotional pain, but there is such a peace and contentment—very unnatural, and yet it should be natural, and I pray it has become a natural part of my life!

I will readily admit though, that the pain is still pretty intense at times, and I can feel like I am going backwards as I lose that peace and the place of rest I am fighting to keep.

For instance, at one point, Becca’s husband dropped off four plastic tubs on our front porch that he no longer wanted. They all contained things of Becca’s that were special and important to her, along with some of her medical equipment and other not so good memory items.

It was really hard to go through those bins. But the thing that left me in a crying mess for the next few days was when I discovered her wedding dress smashed in the bottom of the last bin. It felt so cruel, so careless. My daughter’s life has been reduced to four plastic bins, I thought.

But instead of allowing myself to go in that direction, I told myself the truth. Her life was much bigger than these four bins. However, it was another door of finality I had to painfully work through, and once again make a conscious decision to rest in who God is, within the painful circumstance.

I have now learned that peace and pain can both reside in us at the same time. Whether I am consciously feeling the pain or not, an underlying peace seems to travel side-by-side with my pain. It is definitely the peace of God that goes beyond any understanding, and I am so thankful that He offers it to us and gives it freely.

I wish God would just speak a command and make it all better, instantly removing the pain and replacing it with constant peace and rest, but it doesn’t happen that way. Learning how to live in that place is a process for each one of us.

Learning to rest in God is a must if you want to get out of your place of darkness. And that means spending time alone with Him. You don’t even have to talk to Him, just “be” with Him, in your pain, your anger, or your darkness. And don’t feel guilty about taking as much time as you need to be intimate with the One who loves you like crazy and wants to get you out of the suffocating pit and onto the path of living again. Spend intimate time with Him. Lots of it.

Let Him show you the way out by resting in the fullness of Himself.

This article was taken from Laura Diehl’s book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child. Laura will be doing a live six-week deeper dive study into this book with anyone who wants to join her. Click the link below for more information or to register.

 

Yes! I am interested in doing a study with author Laura Diehl on her book When Tragedy Strikes.

 

Expressions of Hope is written by author and speaker Laura Diehl to bring hope, light and life to those struggling in darkness after a tragedy, especially bereaved parents. If you would like more information about Laura as an author or a speaker for your next event, click here.

GPS Hope exists to bring hope to parents who have suffered the death of a child, acknowledging their unique grief with support, connection and education for them and those around them.

 

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Trusting God After the Death of Your Child

Every step on our life journey is a step of trust. We either trust in others, in ourselves, or in God.

Trusting completely in others, or only in ourselves, will eventually fail. But when something horrible happens in our lives (such as the death of our child) we often tell ourselves we can’t trust God unless we know the “why.”

I often use my own experience as a parent to help me understand my heavenly Father. Are there times I need my children to trust me without giving them an explanation? Of course. Are there lots of reasons I might not tell them why? Yes. And I know there are times my children have asked why (or why not), not because they really want to know, but because they want to be able to argue against my reason, whatever that reason is.

We can have the same attitude with God. Even if He told us why He allowed this tragedy in our lives, it wouldn’t be a good enough reason in our intense pain and darkness, and we would just want to argue with Him on how wrong He was to do this to us.

Understanding will not bring us peace. That is why we are told to trust in God and not in our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). For some reason we often think if we can figure things out we can be in control. But the relief felt doesn’t last very long because soon there is something else we are trying to make sense of.

During deep grief, people either move toward God or away from Him. But when we move away from Him, we are moving away from the One who can help us the most. God wants to walk with us through this valley of death. He wants to give us comfort. He wants to give us strength. He wants to give us hope. These are all things we desperately need. But if we choose to move away from Him, we will continue to desperately need these things. This is a time to get as close to God as you possibly can.

The picture I get is one of a distraught child crying uncontrollably as a father bends down to pick up that child. The child is so upset that he is kicking and screaming and fighting his father. Eventually the child runs out of strength and relaxes in the embrace of his loving father. And now that child can receive the comfort, strength, and hope he wants and needs.

It is the same with us. We often fight the One who can give us the very things we need. Instead, we need to quit fighting Him, receive His embrace, and allow Him to carry each of us in His strong arms of love.

We choose what we want to believe.

I can choose to believe there is no God or He would have saved my child.

I can choose to believe that if there is a God, He isn’t good and He isn’t fair or He would have saved my child.

Both of those options leave me feeling angry and empty.

I have chosen a third option. There is a God, His thoughts and ways are so much higher than mine, He loves me with a perfect love, and even though I don’t understand why He has allowed this to happen, I still trust Him with my life both here on earth and for eternity.

This option has brought me to a place of peace, rest, hope, and life again—even within the pain.

It is possible to choose to trust His love for you, even when you can’t see it or feel it. Not only is it possible, but it is a necessary step to get through the suffocating darkness into a place of light.

I would like to share something God spoke to my heart, that is just as true for you as it is for me.

I have a love for you that is so special and so deep and so unique that I can’t love anyone else with it. It is a love that is only for you! No one else can receive it because it is yours and yours only!

I suggest you read it again, slowly this time, hearing God speak this truth directly to you. Read it several times if you need to. Read it out loud. Keep reading it, until the truth of it breaks through and you know in your heart that because of His incredible, extravagant love for you, you can trust Him.

As a parent who has lost a child, I have gone through the trauma, grief, and darkness that come with it. I am also someone who was able to plant a seed of hope in my life that is now growing into a tree of life. It is a different tree with different fruit from before my daughter, Becca, died, but it is alive and sprouting and starting to bear some fruit.

Death is a part of life. We will all die at some point. And as painful as it is, some of us will have children who leave this earth ahead of us. The question is, how are we going to choose to live the rest of our lives when they are gone and there is nothing we can do to bring them back? Am I going to live in a way that reminds everyone my child died, or that my child lived?

I have chosen to trust God and continue to trust God, knowing He could have healed Becca but did not, allowing her to go to her eternal home ahead of me. He has a purpose and a plan that I cannot see or know about, because He is God and I am not.

I hope and pray that you will do the same.

This article was taken from Laura Diehl’s book When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child. Laura will be doing a live six-week deeper dive study into this book with anyone who wants to join her. Click the link below for more information or to register.

Yes! I am interested in doing a study with author Laura Diehl on her book When Tragedy Strikes.

 

Expressions of Hope is written by author and speaker Laura Diehl to bring hope, light and life to those struggling in darkness after a tragedy, especially bereaved parents. If you would like more information about Laura as an author or a speaker for your next event, click here.

GPS Hope exists to bring hope to parents who have suffered the death of a child, acknowledging their unique grief with support, connection and education for them and those around them.

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