When life falls apart at the seams

What do you do when life falls apart at the seams? The last several months have brought more loss than I care to endure again- the passing of my wife and then the passing of my father just five months later. I find myself as a 42 year old widower and single dad to a 5 and 8 year old. In many ways, this has been the darkest most difficult season of my life and yet it’s here in the darkness that the beauty of Christ’s love shines all that much brighter. People often ask, “How are you doing it?” But I’m learning that the real question lie in the “it.”

The “it” for many people is “How are you remaining strong?” The answer is “I’m not.” Each day brings moments of joy, discouragement, anger, and fear. In fact, the journey of watching my beloved wife die of cancer taught me just how weak I really am. To watch the love of your life suffer and to be completely unable to do anything is the closest to Hell I ever hope to come. I was suddenly confronted with my humanity and to be honest, it brought no small amount of shame. Reality is that I’m not strong. I yell at my kids, I’m careless in my time with Jesus. Yet, in it all, I’m learning that it’s drinking from the spring of God’s grace that changes everything. What if “it” is less about what I do and more about receiving some powerful truths of who Jesus is? What if the way to find strength in life’s darkest moments is more about receiving?

What does that look like practically? Let me suggest three things that I’m learning in this journey about what receiving looks like.

Receiving begins with a bigger picture of God and a smaller picture of myself.

This weekend I was reminded of three powerful truths. “I am NOT God.” “I am not in control.” “I’m only human.’ When hard times and difficulty come the great temptation is to overthink, worry, and plan. What if trying to figure it out is exactly the problem? To be sure, there are acts of obedience that we will be called to pursue, but what if the real issue is not in discovering our strength, but surrendering to His! Jesus himself calls us recognize this truth in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells us in Matthew 7:7-11.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

One of the most freeing places that we can come is to receive both the reality of God’s goodness- that he is the father who delights in me. Accepting that reality though requires me to accept that I need him and that I’m not God. Can you imagine how different our perspective would be if we spent as much time in worship as we do in worry?

Daily, we must learn the art of cultivating a bigger picture of God and a smaller picture of our selves. It’s here that we are freed from the illusion of holding it all together because we see that He already is.

Receiving calls me to see that the love of Jesus often comes through the hands of others

One of the greatest gifts God has given me in this journey is the gift of men and women who call me to see the truth. I could literally spend a life time telling the stories of brothers and sisters who have loved, encouraged, and challenged me to cling to what is true. When life falls apart at the seams, the temptation is to hide and isolate but pressing into relationships couldn’t be more important. Their love became an incarnation of the love of Jesus in those dark times. Receiving that grace though will stretch us as it exposes and requires us to be vulnerable.

Through this journey, I’m convinced that vulnerability is the starting place of community. In vulnerability we acknowledge our brokenness and we allow people to speak into those places. It requires us to acknowledge that against the darkness, we don’t see clearly and we have a vital need for others to call us to see and cling to what is true about God. Through His love, God has actually deepened community among those we do life with. How much I would have lost if I hadn’t received the gift of God’s people and His love expressed through them.

Receiving calls for risk

Receiving means that what I seek, I don’t have, and there is one who does. While grace is a beautiful and amazing gift, receiving it means that I must take the risk of trusting another to find it. We want to live under the illusion that we are self sufficient and have it under control. Receiving confronts that lie and reminds us that we don’t. Risk is the realm of faith. It’s holding on, trusting, and following even when it doesn’t feel true because we believe that there is one who is accomplishing purposes that we can’t fathom.

Perhaps receiving is continuing to be faithful in marriage when everything screams for you to call it quits. Maybe it’s clinging to integrity in a world where it seems that those who compromise get ahead. Maybe it’s patiently enduring persecution and suffering trusting that God is using it for His glory. In the Kingdom, to risk is to follow in obedience when the outcome is uncertain. It’s faithful surrender in spite of the circumstances that seem so unpredictable.

Today, where is Jesus inviting you to receive? In these moments when life seems to fall apart at the seams, we see the faithfulness of the one who truly is holding it all together. Each day may He teach us to live from a convinced certainty that no matter what comes our way, nothing will separate us from the love of God. That’s where our true hope is found.