I woke up this morning and instantly felt sad. It wasn’t time for me to get up so I tried to just pray for a time to see if I might be able to fall back asleep but sleep eluded me.
It is in moments like these that I will pray the same thing. “Lord please redeem this situation for good…somehow. And {selfishly} give me a small glimpse of that today will you Lord?”
We have been talking about some different “why” questions in the Saturday morning Bible study that I am in, and the reality is that many of my questions regarding suffering and pain just don’t really have an answer. It is the age old question really – why does God allow suffering?
I have read books and books about grief and suffering the past 5 months and no one has a perfect answer to this. And when you are walking through a trial no pat answer is going to change your circumstance….but I said yesterday that even though I don’t (and maybe won’t ever) have my questions answered this side of heaven, I can’t imagine going through this without my faith in God.
He has sustained me. He has loved me and cared for me and I am so grateful for that.
This morning I came across the song “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury again. It was a popular song in 2018 and when I first heard it, it felt like a prayer for Isaac at the time.
On April 28, 2018 I wrote these lyrics in my Bible in the margin near Luke 15 {The Parable of the Lost Sheep}
There’s no shadow You won’t light up
Mountain You won’t climb up
Coming after me
There’s no wall You won’t kick down
Lie You won’t tear down
Coming after meThe overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine
And I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.
And then this prayer – “Praying this truth over Isaac today. Believing that God is calling him, and chasing him down. Trusting that God’s light will break through the darkness and the enemy will be defeated.”
This morning I went and looked at my journal entry for the same day, April 28, 2018 and found this part of my prayer…
“Lord I know that at some point you can restore our relationship with him but at this point that is secondary to the relationship he needs with you.”
I know that I have said it before, but God answered those prayers. Prayers I had for a mentor for Isaac, someone that would encourage his faith where he worked. Prayers for a restored relationship with our family, and over the course of the next year we would see that prayer answered.
At some point in our lives we are all the lost sheep aren’t we? Jesus used the parable in Luke 15 to show how very much God loved us in that he would leave the 99 to rescue the one that was lost.
Luke 15:4-7 (ESV)
4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
This morning, even though my heart is heavy over the loss of my son, I can also praise God that He loved Isaac so much. I praise Him that He loves me so much. That physical death is not the end of the story for those who know Christ. And that there remains hope we will see our son again.