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IS GOD REALLY WHO HE SAID HE IS?
Back in 2017 a couple of months before we were set to move across the Atlantic to start work with YWAM, with our four kids, we found ourselves suddenly facing the unthinkable for our youngest sons health. In the late hours of this particular night, I found myself face to face with my raw inner wrestle of belief. Could I trust God now? With this? In this timing? The wrestle for control almost actually felt easier to handle!
Struggling to see where God was, fear was raging as I stood facing what was being spoken by doctors as the likely prognosis. They had mentioned a tumour. It hit like an arrow straight to the vulnerable place in my heart. The place that had been laid bare the day my five-year-old self had watched her mum being laid to rest after dying from cancer. Now in this moment, even the possibility of walking this road with our son felt too much. Everything inside was screaming no.
On this night, after I’d tucked everyone in our house into bed, the silence of the evening hours made the racing thoughts of my mind so loud. I wanted to block them out so I did what made sense to me – found a way to make noise that would deafen the silence…..so I took a seat at my piano to play music. But as my fingers found the familiar notes I’d played so often, I found myself unravelling. Before I knew it, I was expressing my anger, my fear, my questions in melody. But as I did I also found the real and tangibleness of God right there in it with me.
I remember being so conscious that God wasn’t asking me to deny my fear. He didn’t belittle it with easy words or try to force me to trust in Him. But in the sound of the melody, I found the courage to simply be with Him. Here in the darkened living room, together we journeyed through remembering who and where He was in every part of the journey of this life so far. In being with Him, my fears found a place to embed in peace. My feelings grounded themselves in truth. I gave God my heart to hold once again.
Nothing changed in the reality of our circumstances but something in my spirit was irrevocably changed. This song of truth and trust was birthed. It became the new melody in the face of the unknowns ahead.
I knew that night, as my voice found these words, no matter what the next morning brought, it would not and could not overcome us. We could face it empowered by Love that wouldn’t fail us – a God who loved my son even more than I did. (Even if I still wondered how anything could be stronger than my parental love?!). But deep in my spirit, I knew that God was completely trustworthy. In life and death. He was unchanged. He was still good – Still faithful. Just as he had made a way for the people of Israel across the Red Sea. Just as He’d been in giving His son for the world. Just as He’d been through every tear and silent ache of a girl who’d lost her mum far too young. And just as He would be for every moment, every day of the future. There truly was no one like Him.
I’ve learnt over and over through this journey of life that God – even when new waves of doubt rise – is not the author of devastation, brokenness or pain in this world. But He’s broken-hearted with us in the storms of this life. He’s offering us peace when we should freak out. He’s offering us joy in tears, grace in the unknown, relationship in loneliness….. He always invites us to sit at the table with Him – He even pulls out the chair to make it easier to say yes! He does not force because he wants us to choose Him and allow us the freedom to accept His constant open invitation to live life with Him. It’s not about yes just for eternity, but yes here today in the middle of our messes! He wants us to experience a little bit of heaven here on earth.
Today may you also know that no matter what you face, that God is a constant unchanging trustworthy presence readily available in the middle of every circumstance.
Clare
PS Praise God the doctor’s suspicions were wrong! Our son had a benign cyst and is healthy