When Life’s Hard… Breathe In

WHEN LIFE’S HARD… BREATHE IN

“Take a deep breath in. Now breathe out. God is active in your life. Breathe in, again; breathe out. God is active in your life. Breathe in, breathe out. God is active.

Every single breath that you breathe is a gift from God — a deliberate act of God’s will to give you yet one more breath of life, and another, and another.

God is not done with you.

Look all around you. There is life! Look up at the sky, marvel at the mountains, admire the trees—see the people? There are so many people! People with their marvelous relationships: there’s the stability of childhood “besties” and college buddies and the complexity of guy-girl relations. There’s children and elderly. There’s black and there’s white. Some people live in dry deserts; others live in swamps and rainforests, or in cold tundras. There’s life, and beauty — diversity and unity. And it’s all good! And all good things come from God. Every single pure pleasure, worthy word, and splendid sunrise comes straight from the heart of God.”

Keep Reading: http://bit.ly/19KN3f6

I’m Angry at God | The Rebelution

I wrote the following article for the Rebelution dot com. I praise God for the way He works and leads. It was a very vulnerable piece for me to write, but the response has been OVERWHELMINGLY uplifting and encouraging, through the comments, emails, and messages I have gotten. I don’t deserve it, but I am grageful that God can use me even in my brokenness. As one song says: “You make beautiful things out of the dust; You make beautiful things out of us.” I want to allow God to bring beauty out of my dirt, no matter how hard it is.

“‘I just feel so dead. I am so torn up inside. Worthless. Believing lies [and] feeling incapable of believing truth. But I just have to. I am desperate. Angry. I need God yet I feel extremely angry at God. I feel hopeless. This battle never ends. I just want to die.’

I penned these words in my journal not two years ago, not nine months ago, but yesterday and they expressed what I wanted to scream at God in that moment — and I did when I was alone.

I’m not proud of it, but I cannot deny: I’m angry at God.

Pain, lots of pain—and anger—along with frustration, confusion, and despair pretty much describe my relationship with God right now. Sounds really Christian doesn’t it? Aren’t Christians supposed to abide in the love of God and rest in His peace?

I wish I could supply some answers. I like to have my life under control. I like to know what is going on. I hate struggle. If something is bothering me, I like to know why and I like to deal with it. I hate confusion. I hate not knowing which way is up.

But God has chosen to devastate my life like an eruption devastates a volcano. And this frustrates me. It makes me angry that He took my Mom in a car accident nine months ago. I resent the feeling of disconnect from God that I feel. I can’t sleep well; it’s hard to concentrate on work.”

Continue reading: http://bit.ly/angryatgod

“I Love You Too!”

The other night as I sat with friends and family in the Miller living room, it suddenly felt like Jesus silently walked in, sat beside me, and whispered “I love you!” In disbelief at first, I ignored it. “I love you!” he seemed to repeat. It seemed like He wanted me to respond. So I did. “I love you too!” I thought awkwardly.

This is relationship. I had real interaction with Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of life! I think that this type of interaction really happens many times, but I usually doubt it and dismiss it as simply emotion. I will always cherish this brief interaction with Jesus, and look for more. It amazes me how loving and good God really is. Even in His wrath, He is still loving and good.

Yesterday morning, as I sat in on a chapel service, the speaker showed a YouTube clip about persecution in Indonesia. In the clip, Muslims were slaughtering other Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Although it was only six minutes long, I kept thinking to myself “Just make it stop already! Just make it stop!” I thought the clip would never end, but I knew I had to watch as much of it as I could stomach. I had to see. This brutality is the price these people have to pay in order to follow Christ. And then I thought about how this is what Jesus had to pay to set us free! Not only was He mocked and ridiculed, but He was beaten and bruised, and His flesh was torn apart. He suffered immense pain, agony and separation from the Father [God] so that we could be forgiven of sin and unified with the Father.

And I realized how pathetic my love for Him is. Could I honestly bear His name, while having half my scalp chopped off? I’m not sure I could, save by His incredible grace.

I desperately desire deeper love for Christ. I long for stronger faith so that I can stand firm on the Rock, Jesus Christ. I want to trust Jesus, rather than doubt Him or His love. I want to be convinced of God’s goodness. By realizing my security in Christ and knowing that He is completely good and loving, I can endure the pain He may call me to.

Someone once said something like: “to the degree that we suppress pain, we also suppress joy.” I desperately want to be surrendered to this concept: that to experience great joy, I must also allow myself to experience great pain.

I think in many ways I have tried to suppress my pain. I have tried to be strong. But I think there is something beautiful about just letting yourself hurt and allowing yourself to be weak. The picture that I get is a big and strong middle-aged man kneeling before a gravestone bawling and letting his pain out by gasps and screams.

Many times we get knocked down and we can’t get back up. We need a helper, a savior, a healer. Jesus Christ is that Healer.

I do not know if I have responded well to the pain and hard things in my life, but I want to do better. I want to allow myself to hurt: to grieve loss, struggle with change and allow Christ to bring healing when it is time.

I don’t like pain—I run from it. I pursue happiness just like everyone else. But there is health in bleeding; there is relief in flowing tears. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Finally, I am beginning to understand this verse. Jesus is saying, “Allow yourself to hurt, because I will comfort you!” And we will hurt, but we can’t “bottle” it up, or we’ll burst.

Keep battling on. Keep hurting. Keep healing. Keep relating. Keep living. The end is in sight, just a few more years. God is faithful, by His strength we can do this!

Poured Out Like Wine

Hugo McCord

Would you be poured out like wine
upon the altar for Me?
Would you be broken like bread
to feed the hungry?
Would you be so one with Me
that you would do just as I will?
Would you be light and life
and love My Word fulfilled?

Yes, I’ll be poured out like wine
upon the altar for You
Yes, I’ll be broken like bread
to feed the hungry
Yes, I’ll be so one with You
that I would do just as You will
Yes, I’ll be light and life
and love Your Word fulfilled

Where He Leads Me

Ernest W. Blandy

I can hear my Savior calling,
I can hear my Savior calling,
I can hear my Savior calling,
Take thy cross and follow, follow Me.

Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.

I’ll go with Him through the garden,
I’ll go with Him through the garden,
I’ll go with Him through the garden,
I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.

Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.

I’ll go with Him through the judgment,
I’ll go with Him through the judgment,
I’ll go with Him through the judgment,
I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.

Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.

He will give me grace and glory,
He will give me grace and glory,
He will give me grace and glory,
And go with me, with me all the way.

Where He leads me I will follow,
I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.

He Loves Me, Yes!

I have found it healthy to now and then go back and remember life: to recall one’s thoughts and actions a couple of days, weeks, months or years ago. This morning I took the time to look back in my journal nearly three months. I came to November 4, 2012 in which I wrote about some personal struggles I was having. About half way through I penned these words: “I just wish I could feel and touch, see and hear Jesus.”

On Monday November 5, 2012, I wrote about what I might say at my brother Asher’s wedding reception on the 10th (which I did not actually say, then). I also described some good experiences we were having in Colorado. Life was relatively normal—even good, I would say.

[Turn the page.]

November 12, 2012: “My life has forever changed.”

I cannot bring myself to read November 12^th. I read the first paragraph and realized that every fiber of my being loathes this journal entry, but every fiber of my spirit says that reading it would be healthy. It is like pulling off a bandage for the first time.

My left elbow got all chopped up by glass in the accident and the first gauze bandage that was put on, “healed” itself into the wound. This meant that if I wanted to take the bandage off, the scab had to come off as well. It felt like all the healing had been “undone.” But if I wanted a wound free elbow again, it had to happen.

Or maybe it is better described like my back, which was severely put out-of-place. Apparently the vertebral column is so smart that if put out-of-place, over time it will align itself with gravity so that your head will be straight again, even if your back is still out-of-place. So over November and December my back “fixed” itself and quit hurting. Then I went to the chiropractor and had it adjusted, and the pain was renewed. It is not that the chiropractor gave me a bad adjustment, it is just that my back fixed itself wrong, and it may continually need to be put back in place until the muscles get used to the normal positioning.

So it is with my soul. Over time it has coped and settled with the new reality of the absence of Mom and the grief and pain that accompanies it. But God comes along and, sometimes gently sometimes not—but always perfectly, gives me an adjustment.

Great pain is not something one can just ignore and still remain healthy. If I lightly burn my finger, I can live through the pain and my body will heal itself properly; but if I break my leg, it would be wise to immediately seek medical attention and to continually do so until my leg is fully healed, not necessarily made “normal,” but healed.

God is the Great Physician. It is fun to watch Him “do His thing.” It is not always fun to have him “do His thing” on you, but it is always worth it.

Most of the healing is not done through a grand miracle or a great remedy, but through the slow process of therapy; the process of going back, again and again for adjustments, learning how to walk again, or talk—or love.

So here I am: learning to “walk” again and to trust God. It is easy for me to get lost in the world between the pages of November 5^th and November 12^th; to wish for life before November 6^th happened and to fantasize about how life would be had it not. But I am learning that reality has me in a pool of grief flowing from November 6, 2012. And the amazing thing about reality is that God wants to swim with me in my grief. He does not want to take me outside of the pool and have lemonade. He wants to soak up my grief with me and be there to teach me to swim in the deep parts.

I cannot do this alone. I need God. I need His peace to get me through. I need His love.

His love.  What an amazing thing. If I could only grasp a fraction of it, I would be content. But wait, I do not need to grasp His love. He gives it to me freely, and pours it unrestrained into my heart, and from this truth every lie flees. Because if God—the Almighty, the Holy Judge, the Sovereign King over everything—has given me His love without condition, and has justified me and placed me in Christ who sits at God’s right hand: who is there to condemn me? Who is there to keep me from peace? Who can stop me from being healed? No one, I say, because nothing can separate me from the love of God.

On the morning of Tuesday, November 6, 2012, I again repeated to Jesus those words I had written two days before: “I just want to feel you and touch you, to see you and hear you, Jesus.” Three days later as people filed passed my family after attending my Mom’s funeral, I realized that every single day since the 6^th I had felt and touched, seen and heard Jesus in an amazingly wonderful and terrible way; because I had felt, touched, seen, and heard the Body of Christ.

He listened to me! And in a weird way, He used tragedy as an answer to my prayer. Yes. Yes! YES! He loves me!

It is because of this love that I can keep pressing forward (although I need daily reminders). It is the assurance of Christ’s affection for me that gives me hope, because I know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Why? Because He loves us.

The Love of God

Frederick Martin Lehman

MercyMe: The Love of God [open in separate tap]

The love of God is greater far

Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star,

And reaches to the lowest hell;

The guilty pair, bowed down with care,

God gave His Son to win;

His erring child He reconciled,

And pardoned from his sin.

–

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure

The saints’ and angels’ song.

–

When years of time shall pass away,

And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,

When men, who here refuse to pray,

On rocks and hills and mountains call,

God’s love so sure, shall still endure,

All measureless and strong;

Redeeming grace to Adam’s race

The saints’ and angels’ song.

–

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure

The saints’ and angels’ song.

–

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

–

O love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure

The saints’ and angels’ song.

C.D.

The Canvas

There stood the white canvas on its easel, with a chair, all alone in a lush green meadow. Beyond the canvas in the distance towered a jagged blue range of mountains, and behind the canvas a dark forest was stretched out reaching for the great blue sky.

The Great Man approached the canvas, brush in hand. He sat down and began to paint. He painted and painted, loving every stroke. He painted His favorite things, which were from His heart. Once He had brushed out the setting, He added a new thing. He painted a figure resembling Himself, into the picture. He liked it and smiled as He sat back and stretched. He thought His picture a fine piece of art—and it was.

The Great Man’s servants came to look at the painting. They marveled at the new figure resembling the Great Man. With awestruck worship they began to sing for Him. The Great Man loved how they sung, and it made His joy greater.

But something strange began to happen on the canvas. The figure which the Great Man had painted started to drip off. The servants were shocked. Right there before their eyes, the painting’s most amazing figure was messing up the whole piece. The Great Man was devastated: He knew what had happened, and He knew what would need to be done in order to reverse it.

The Great Man sat down again and began to paint like never before. He painted with passion and love for His painting. He always painted what would ultimately make the picture more beautiful, but sometimes the figures in the painting did not understand. Sometimes the little figures thought that the Painter was making things worse—some even questioned whether the Great Man existed, or maybe He had forgotten about them and was letting the painting drip away into oblivion. The Great Man loved the painting and the figures, and He knew that if they would just trust His strokes, they would eventually understand His love for them, but they had become stubborn in their dripping.

The hardest strokes for the figures to understand were those which took other figures out of the picture. But the Great Man knew that sometimes figures had to be taken out in order to perfect His plan, and reveal His glory and love to them. If the figures had feared the Great Man while in the painting, He would breathe true life into them so that they could live in the Great Man’s world—the real world. But if they had not feared Him, they were forever separated from His guidance and presence—a most horrific thing.

Finally, all was ready for his plan to take affect. He gathered the servants around Him so that they could watch. And again He sat down, but this time He did not paint more figures resembling Himself. Instead, He painted Himself right into the picture.

The servants did not understand. What was going to happen? The Great Figure spent much time in the painting while the Great Man continued to paint. After much painting, the Great Figure dripped all over the canvas, just as the other figures did, and mixed up all the colors. But when the Great Man began to clean away the mixed colors, the servants saw that there were some figures that had stopped dripping. These new figures were beautiful.

“I love them!” the Great Man said.

The Great Man continued to paint. Fervently yet patiently He stroked out the figures, who sometimes dripped, but when they looked to the Great Figure who had been sent to save them, the Great Man forgave them.

He, the Great Man, did not intend for the dripping figures to remain this way forever—His plan was not finished. He decided that there would come a point on the canvas at which He would quit painting and discard it entirely. But first He would transpose all His beloved figures, who had been saved from dripping, into this awesome World wherein the Great Man painted. It was a much greater World than that with the drippings, and He knew the figures would love it there.

This was His plan and He was determined to continue painting beauty onto the canvas until He came to that one point. He loved each of His figures, and because He loved them He had given them the choice to look on the Great Figure for help, or to continue dripping. If they did look at the Great Figure, they were saved, if they did not—they were lost forever. It broke the Great Man’s heart to think that any of the figures would be forever lost and forgotten, but He restrained His passionate love in order that they might respond to His calling on their own accord.

If you were a figure, what would you chose? An eternal Heaven? Or a temporary painting?

C.D.

[Not] an Accident

Imagine the scene. Tuesday, November 6, 2012: Election Day, a presidential election no less. The nation is attentively watching President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, who will win?

Somewhere in the deserts of Colorado a teenager opens his eyes, sensing commotion coming from everywhere. He feels the cool November air against his skin. His body tells him a story he does not understand. He shakes his head and looks around but what he sees does not commute to his brain. He is in tremendous shock. The fact that he is in a vehicle of which the roof is creased and the sliding door is shaped like an awkward ‘v’ registers nothing with his senses. All he says is “What? What?” and even those words mean nothing to him.

The young man realizes that there is a woman leaning through the driver’s window of the vehicle. She is talking. He finds she is attending to another woman: his mother.

He finds the word: “Mom?”

Suddenly his senses are beginning to actually make sense. He sees that his sister is no longer in the passenger seat. Yes, she had been in the passenger seat and is now walking around talking on her cell phone. There is another girl with her, also using a cell phone. Forgetting that his seat belt remains fastened around him, the young man makes movement to get out of the back seat he is in.  The strange girl puts her hand out and tells him to stay put. He looks confusedly at his sister as she says, “Christopher, we’ve been in a car accident,” and “It will be alright.” The dots begin to connect.

I am that young man.

I woke up to a new life that day. I became one of those motherless teenagers. I began a journey I did not ask for, but one God entrusted me with.

I could give you a full report of my mental processes. I could tell you of my tremendous pain, or I could tell you about how awesome and peaceful God is. But you know both are true and to speak of one without the other would be incomplete. We have to face it, life is painful. Yet, the pain we encounter does not negate God’s goodness, in reality it is our own fault that pain is in the world. The pain I have encountered has helped me to realize the importance of one’s view of God to how one reacts to life.

I believe God is sovereign and in full control of the universe; I also believe that God is completely good and the very definition of love. But one cannot reconcile His two characteristics without remembering that, firstly, it was we who brought pain into the world and, secondly, God has a plan. I could scream and holler and relieve my pain and guilt by calling God unjust for taking my mother; but I do not—I cannot—because I know that He is completely loving and therefore MUST have a better plan in mind. Mom is enjoying perfect bliss away from pain and one day I will join her, but until then, God has a marvelous plan which is somehow better through her death. God makes no mistakes, He knew exactly what He was doing when He allowed her to die.

All I know is that from the moment I awoke, I had a very strange calmness about me.

I looked around the vehicle. Oh yes, I remembered my new red backpack, no longer next to me on the bench seat, but on the floor. Instead, with me on the seat was a shattered car window—everywhere. I remembered that my sister’s name was Kristi and that we were in Colorado for my brother’s wedding.

I remembered a dream I had while unconscious. It was a weird dream about a truck coming straight at me.

As an EMS lady helped me out of the minivan, I saw a black book wedged beneath my mom’s jarred seat. I knew it had significance and I desperately tried, to no avail, to make my brain think of what it was: my dad’s Bible. I pointed at it and she asked me if I wanted it, I believe I nodded. Once put on the flat, hard, plastic board with a brace strapped onto my neck, they allowed me to hold the Bible close to my heart.

At this point memory filled my brain as water fills a bathtub, slowly but steadily. Mom, Kristi, and I were on our way to somewhere in the city of my brother’s fiancée, when apparently we were in an accident.

My neck hurt.

The ambulance ride was very uncomfortable, but what should one expect when strapped to a board and unable to move their neck? The EMS lady with me in the ambulance asked many questions. She asked me who the president was, I told her Barack Obama, but added hopefully, that it might change.

I do not know why, but they did not use sirens for me. In fact, I heard my sister’s ambulance pass me while I was stopped at a traffic light (or something). Apparently they were not too concerned about me. Maybe it was because I had answered all their questions right, or maybe they saw the tears I shed as I heard my Dad’s voice call out my name and as I saw the faces of my brother and his fiancée. My sister, though, was in shock. Shock has killed people. And my mom? She was life-flighted, but she would be alright, I just knew it. She had to be alright. She was Mom.

When we reached the hospital they swiftly pulled me out of the ambulance and pushed me through the emergency area into my room. It was like being in a movie—only much worse. This was real life—that is what shocked me more than anything.

The next few hours could be described in one word: waiting. I am told it is standard procedure for victims of a car accident to be cat-scanned for any internal injuries. Of course they did not find anything. I could have told them as much.

My memory was still weak at this point, but with every familiar face I saw, the memories returned. It is hard to imagine the significance of a familiar face until one no longer has them. Seeing friends all around me kept me from despair.

After both Kristi and I had been scanned, they wheeled me into her room because “my sister wanted to see me.” I thought they were referring to my sister Kristi who was healthy and wanting someone to chat with. (I did not know that because of her concussion she could chat with the same person and talk about the same subject over and over again for hours and have a wonderful time.) I soon realized it was Carita, my other sister, who wanted to see me.

I was hoping above hope that she would say Mom is okay and the life flight was an unnecessary precaution. That Mom would be at the wedding. Instead I heard those accursed words: “Mom’s heart couldn’t take the trauma.”

How does a teenager respond to this? Both my sisters began to weep. I was confused. The knowledge of death settled into my mind and I too began to weep, but the reality of it all remained very far away.

I declare that God is still good. This response does not come from Christopher Witmer, but from Jesus Christ who lives inside of me and all followers of Jesus. Yet, the goodness of God does not remove the pain; in fact, it may be God’s goodness which allows me to feel pain. It tells me I am alive. It forces me to ask questions—to be honest before God and express my heart to Him. It forces me to worship God, because the only other response would be anger and hatred towards God.

I am on a journey. You are on a journey. Each journey is different, but each journey must encounter pain. How will you respond to the pain that you WILL face? I have found coming before Jesus is the only thing that calms my soul. It is easy to get caught up in other pleasures in order to distract my soul, but only Jesus gives me the peace which allows me to say that “I am in pain, but God is good.” He is the healer, the miracle worker, the peace giver, the sovereign God, the Almighty, the Beginning, the End.

Who am I? I am a sinner, I cannot lie. I sin. I have sinned, I do sin, and I will sin. I do not flaunt this as something to be proud of, but I simply admit it. I am a fallen human. But therein lies the key–the mystery. Through my confession of guilt, I admit my need for justification. I have disobeyed the Lawmaker, but that very Lawmaker has justified me because Somebody came and paid my fine. I am a sinner, but Jesus served my penalty and justified me. So now, I am a child of God. I went from deserving Hell, to being an heir of all that is good. Now God, in His mightiness, can reach down and lavish upon me all His rich goodness. In reality, I am no different than the “unsaved,” but I have accepted God’s forgiveness and have had my relationship with Him restored. The wall between He and I has been torn down. I am no different as far as my tendency to sin, but I live with the constant expectation that Christ will develop growth in me—that He will sanctify me. I have an even greater hope that one day, He will glorify me with all the believers and this crazy body will no longer desire to sin.

God is the One who sustains you through pain. Pain is a necessary process in life. It helps us grow, but no one can properly respond to it apart from God. Develop a relationship with God. In the end, anything else will be consumed, as fire consumes wood; but a relationship with God makes you to pass through the fire and come out pure gold.

C.D.