from Terry Butler
“You will weep and mourn,” he said “but your pain will turn to joy.”
John 16:20
It happened right in front of them. They could not believe what they were seeing. The boat carrying four of their children had capsized in the river. The young friend of the family who was steering the boat was frantically trying to find each child. The boat had struck a submerged log in the river. Despite desperate attempts to retrieve all of the children, only two survived the accident. Carol and Lee, my brother and sister, were gone.
Dad was in his first church as senior pastor that summer. How could he go on? How could they go on? This tragedy could have made my mother and father bitter towards God. It could have halted forever my father’s call into ministry. Many years later, I heard statistics on how many marriages end in divorce after the loss of a child (or children). It is staggering. How did my mom and dad keep going?
Pursuing my own healing of the past, I had to ask them that very question. Mom reflected back and said, “…the prayer’s of people we hardly knew, close friends who did not give stupid pat answers but who cried with us and let us mourn, and God’s incredible mercy.” Dad told me that they had to focus on raising the four us who remained–that it actually helped them keep getting up every morning and going on.
One of the songs my parents sang in church back then was called “God Hath Not Promised” which contains a powerful message: God hasn’t promised peace without trouble, joy without sorrow, sun without rain. The chorus tells what he has promised: strength for the journey and that He will never, ever leave us or forsake us. As I look back I realize that Mom and Dad deeply believed the words to that song. They were authentic with God their grief and sorrow. He laid His hands on them and ministered healing to them so that they could continue on. I don’t know where our family would have ended up if Mom and Dad had given up on God.
What are you mourning? Have you lost a close friend on the journey? Has your team sustained some radical changes in personnel? Have you left the comfort and security of your old gig to go with a church plant across town or across the world? Or are you simply in a new season where God is asking you to give up the old, so he can reveal what’s next?
Pour out your heart. Admit to yourself that you are grieving. He is here to listen. “The gospel calls us continually to make Christ the source, the center, and the purpose of our lives. In Him we find our home. In the safety of that place, our sadness can point us to God, even drive us into God’s loving embrace. Here mourning our losses ultimately lets us claim our belovedness. Mourning opens us to a future we could not imagine on our own-one that includes a dance.” These words by Henry Nouwen speak of the kind of radical trust and love I’ve seen in my mom and dad.
My parents have had an eventful life. They have had major ups and downs. They have more than survived ministry. They still dance (maybe a little slower)! Their choice to sing those words, “Yet I Will Praise” has allowed them to live out an authentic life of faith and love, tears and laughter, mourning and dancing that has touched so many other lives. I’m one of those lives.
Lord, you never promised sun without rain. But, you promised you would never leave me all alone. Your amazing, astounding love helps me leave the house of fear and beckons me to live with You in the house of love. Whatever may come, I know You will be with me.
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