The Most Beautiful Gift I've Heard Sung

When I got married, I was very young and I was very immature. I had a worldly heart and a childish spirit. There were people in my life at that time who made belittling comments that affected my outlook on my relationship. I'm not saying that the people who said these things meant harm, but that I was silly enough to let those comments affect me in a negative way.

Words matter. Words are powerful. God spoke the universe into being.

As humans, with no other power than that of speech, our words have effect - for right or for wrong.

Recently I heard a song that touched me so deeply that I am still playing it on repeat almost two days later. The lyrics spoke into my heart to remind me of the most beautiful gift I have been given: Redemption.

Words. Power.

The tongue can bless and the tongue can curse. The person who wrote this particular song shared a blessing he received when he needed it. I have a feeling that he might have no idea how his voice, his words, blessed me.

I know God loves me. I know that I have forgiveness and salvation. I know all that, but I was struggling in a darkness so deep that I was starting to lose sight of all my blessings. I was literally praying every moment for God to take me out of this life and into the next. I actually prayed that.

While I was listening to some music, just to drown out all the self-pitying voices in my mind, I heard this song called "Redeemed".

Those words spoke to me. They spoke the truth of what it means for me to have God's love. They spoke to all the sorrow I was feeling and all the shameful wishes for death that were lingering around me like a cloud.

I felt so happy that I literally stood up and raised my hands in praise.

The sadness and grief I felt is still here. I'm still a failure at so many things in life. I'm still in financial ruins. I'm still trying to find my way out of some difficult circumstances. I'm still sometimes such a mess of a person that it's a wonder that I've made it this far in life without a minder.

But guess what?

I am redeemed.

Those lyrics of that song - just words, after all - were what I needed to hear at just the right time. I can't even listen to the the song without wanting to weep for joy.

When people say that God doesn't answer prayers, I know that He does. I know that He doesn't answer the prayers I've prayed with my human heart ("Let me just die, Father"), but He answers the prayers that come out of my very soul ("What am I living for, Father? What's the point?").

His answer this time was that I need to remember that I am redeemed.

I am redeemed, no matter what a mess I sometimes think I am.
I am redeemed, even if I spend the rest of my life alone.
I am redeemed, no matter how many times I fall down in sin.
I am redeemed, no matter what anybody else thinks about me.
I am redeemed, even if I never make it out this financial mess I am in.
I am redeemed.
No matter what.

Any time I'm tempted to think of my faults and my struggles, I am going to turn to my Bible and remind myself about God's gift of redemption.

That is the only gift I need. It's the most beautiful gift. And it's a gift that I'm glad my family members also had.

Go here to look at the video and to hear the story behind the song.

God bless those people for that song.
Peace
--Free

Joy in Place of Grief

I'm dealing with my grief much better this week. I believe that's because of two things:

1. I went to church Sunday
2. I realized how selfish my grief is

The sermon Sunday wasn't directly related to grief, but it did affect my thoughts about death. The current sermon series is on the Bible book of Daniel. Daniel is a book of prophecy. All Bible prophecy is about the promise we Christians hold for our salvation. 

While the pastor talked on various verses, I kept reflecting on the fact that we are living in the "end times", and that no matter how long those times might last, every person - saved or not - lives their own end times because of our mortality.

My sister believed on the blood of Jesus Christ. The last hours she was alive, she called out His name and prayed, even though she was in so much discomfort. I believe now that she was praying and yearning for rest. I believe her rest was granted.

Yesterday, while I was going through some of her things, I prayed to God to help ease my sense of loss. I'm not breaking down at every memory of my sister like I was earlier on. I still have moments of pain at the "gone-ness" of her, but I feel more relief and joy as every hour passes. I think of what we all have been promised as Christians. I think of the Henry Van Dyke poem that my dear friend +Sandy Sandmeyer shared with me: 

Gone From My Sight (by Henry Van Dyke)

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

So now, when I think of my sister (and my mother and father and my brother), I think of their gain more than I think of my loss. While I realize, as my little brother just told me in a recent phone call, that our grief is normal, I know that it can also be selfish.

My sister would be heartbroken to think of any of us wallowing in our misery at her death. She would want us to think of her with love and laughter, not regret and pain. She would want us to go on. Mostly, she would want us to know that her death was not an end for her but a beginning.

I still miss her, but I am better now. Now when I think of her, I try to imagine the joy of those who were calling out to her as she arrived on the other shore. 

We have been promised that there is no weeping in Heaven and, if I believe in that promise, I must put away my time of weeping here on earth for those who are now Home. I'll save my sorrow for those who don't yet believe in life everlasting.

If you are in pain from the loss of a loved one, here are some of God's promises that may help comfort you as they did me:

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2)

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

My favorite right now is Luke 23:43 because it reminds me that my sister went immediately into Paradise. Immediately. And it reminds me that my brother who, like the thief beside Jesus on the cross, was accepted into Heaven even though he found Jesus very shortly before death. Praise God.

Peace

--Free