a faith observed: Wait for God.

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Wait for God.

“Do not lose heart my friend. For God won’t be long. This present trouble’s not the end. Even though you carry a heavy load. So hold on my friend, be still, and wait, and wait for God.”

This song –written by Coty Andersen– might make its’ way into our documentary “Life Jacket” later this year, but this week it has made its’ way into my heart and I have been unable to shake its’ simple words and gentle melody. It penetrates those hidden places of my soul where grief and hopelessness settle like dust, in corners unseen. It is a song I’d like to share with the many friends God has connected me to on this journey who live not with grief sediment and shards but earthquake-size boulders.

“Do not fear walls of dark. The dawn won’t be long. And though you are looking for a spark, heaven knows you’ve been looking for so long. Hold on my friend, be still, and wait and wait for God.”

When God calls you to be a carrier of His transforming love to those who are suffering, it would be naive to think that this will be without experiencing suffering ourselves. As we follow in the path of our Christ, we follow a path of suffering that leads us to dark places. In those shadows and valleys God asks us to hope – for the dawn, for a spark, to trust that God is still in control and that God is good. We intentionally place ourselves into situations where we are confronted with the destructive and unjust impact of evil and sin and come closer to the reality of spiritual warfare. Our lives become deeply impacted when interwoven with those who have known these horrors so personally – horrors that penetrate the walls of security and comfort we fight so hard to erect around our countries, families and selves.

And yet we are called, to cross over the logical barriers of self-protection and preservation so that we can show up in those dark and dangerous places both literally and metaphorically. And we need to be there – to offer a drink, some food, clothes, a classroom where children can learn to count something other than the number of bullets that have shattered their sense of safety. As Beyond Borders staff, Helen Spencer wrote of the classroom she leads with asylum seeking children on Lesvos, “We do seem to be doing something really special”.

Special things happen when we choose grace and love over safety and security. Special things happen when we choose to enter a place of pain so that we can love the one whom it has ravaged.

Special things happen when we wait in our uncertainty and grief for the Good Shepherd. Because it is only the Good Shepherd who will lead us all through these dark and dangerous places to the living water He speaks about and those green grasses where lions and lambs lie side by side.

So be still, my friend, do not lose heart. Be still, my soul, do not lose heart. Together may we wait for God. For God won’t be long.

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This is me, a faith observed.

C.S. Lewis writes about the pain of losing his beloved wife, Joy, in his book, "A Grief Observed". In some ways this is my attempt to share my journey through grief and back into life, as the past nine months have been characterized by an immeasurable longing for my beloved father, who died suddenly this past January.

After months of hibernation from the internet, I unexpectedly find myself able to re-begin this blog and connect with my larger community of family and friends. This blog will likely reflect less of the intensity and depth of my pain and more of the simplicity and ordinary joy that keeps my life full - namely days running after our little boy, Simon Pierre. But it is because of the incredible love and presence that defined my relationship with my father, that I feel I can will myself to not just survive each day but to pour that same kind of love and attention onto Simon.

My father was an endless source of strength to me, a pillar of faith. His last words, spoken to my mother as he passed into that which is unseen, "God is good - good all the time", have remained with me through this dark cloud of grief. And when God seems hidden, when justice seems to be losing out, when life is unfair, and when death swallows up the one I most love, I remember my father's words and breathe in this promise, that the God of love is in the process of restoring that which has been destroyed.

And as my father told me in dream I've had since his death, "Look to Jesus. As a father, to point you towards Him is the best gift I can give to you." So here I am, this is me, a faith to be observed.

I hold onto that which is not always seen- the promise of God's goodness, the hope that one day in the promised new heavens and earth- on a grassy hill or a sand covered beach- the lion and the lamb will lie down side by side and I, too, will lie down side by side, next to my father, and we will laugh and laugh until there are no more tears left to cry.