In Other Words - In Christ Alone...

If you would like to join in the "IOW" meme, just copy the quote above, insert it into your own blog post and reflect on the message of the quote. Come back and add a link to your blog (link the specific post so it is easy to find) and then come back to read all about it from other points of view and leave a comment on my post! Thank you for allowing me to be your host and for joining in. This post is extra special as it reminds me of two things... that the Joy of the Lord really is strength and that God can do amazing and powerful things when surrender to Him, and Him alone... Just as Jesus did on the cross more than 2000 years ago! Blessings.

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My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. 2 He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
Psalms 62:1-2 (NIV)

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As I read Mary's precious story of freedom through imprisonment all I could think was how much I could relate to her bondage and her pain even though I had never been sentenced to prison for any length of time. I lived in prisons of my own making, shackled to a past riddled with self-reliant and authority defiant behavior. Wanting to be a better person but struggling to figure out what exactly that meant. I lived in the "desert" as a prodigal lost to everyone in my life including myself for more than ten years.

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Of some things I had no control, but of others I lived fully pulling the strings and digging my own pit of despair, depravity and ultimately I hit bottom. It was in those months and years following humiliation and shameful experiences that I would begin to look up. I should be dead many times over due to the choices I lived out all those months in the desert. I should have been in prison based on the laws I broke and the authority I defied. But, somehow each time I found myself facing consequences bigger than myself, I also found myself blessed by a grace I did not understand. A grace that came to my life when I was 12 years old and grew up around me and would point me back to God in His fullness of time.

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When everything I could do on my own, when all my resources were exhausted and I was both financially and emotionally bankrupt, God would pull me back unto Himself. No one knows what I have learned from God through the bondage in my life. It rests between He and I alone.

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I never realized the principle of sorting out the messiness of life alone with God more than in the early days after the death of my son. Though I cannot say that it slayed me, at times it left me with confused emotions and mixed up ideas about what God might be doing in those days when I could not for the life of me uncover how my son's death was an answer to my prayer for God to bring him out of the darkness of the world, to empower him to walk in his salvation and ultimately for Him to manifest Philippians 1:6 in Justin's life fully. I asked God, I begged Him to complete the good work He began in my boy on January 14, 2001, when Justin asked Christ into heart and life as Savior.

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In those days I received cards, letters and phone calls. Hugs and tears flowed freely from my closest friends and family. I received words that were meant to be encouraging, hope-filled words that offered me insight and truth.

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Words that rang empty in my aching heart. Knowing my son was in Heaven with God is not comforting when I am longing to hold him close to my chest and tell him just one more time how much I love him. Knowing my son's troubles did not follow him to Heaven, that his body was spared any more pain, did nothing to assuage the pain in my own heart, the anguish that would be my life for many months to come. Knowing that God's glory was greater than my pain left me aching, weeping and kneeling on my son's grave every single day asking God to keep my son from becoming an idol that would stand between Him and me.

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On one occasion, I received an email late one night. It was from a younger woman in our church. She attended the women's ministry Bible studies and events I led and organized. She had been close to my children and close to my heart in those months leading into Justin's last days on this earth. She was one I counted close, a friend I trusted and loved very much. She wrote: "Please tell me what I can do to help you. I need to help you and you need me to help you."

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I found in those days, that these kind of requests were more than I could bear. My soul rose up in anger, indignation filled my veins. I wanted to scream to cry out... "And what exactly do you think you can do for me?" God could not avert the most horrible circumstances my own mind could conceive - the death of my child - what on earth could I ask or expect of man that would ease my pain?

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I gathered my thoughts and quelled the rising, irrational bout of anger that was roaring within me to reply to her heartfelt request. I could only write: "I understand your need to help me, to somehow make things better for me, but honestly - unless you can bring my son back to me, there is really nothing you can do right now to help me. I don't even know what I need from minute to minute or hour to hour. All I can do right now is take each step of this journey with God, sorting out my feelings and my experiences with Him alone. When I am ready I will share what I can of my journey with others, but for now I need you to understand where I am is something I am trying hard to understand and I cannot begin to know what it is to ask for much less what would help me right now.

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If you want to help me... the only thing I can say is do what you would normally do when you are around me. Don't be afraid to talk about my son, your life or to even laugh. If you think you might like to go for ice cream, ask me - I might need to get out that day. And know that if my response is somehow inadequate or not what you need from me, that it is not a personal thing. It is just where I am right now... a place of loss."

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I did have to work through things with God. I fear I may have run some people off with my withdrawal and my "irrational" fits of confused feelings. But as I walked through the journey of my pain I found God to be more and more real, more and more identifiable and more and more true to His Word. It was a journey that tested my faith and bred a testimony that strongly points to God as I declare that God indeed completed the good work He began in my son the day He took Him home to Heaven. Heaven is now my comfort as well as a place I long for deeply. I long for eternity like I never knew I could. And, in that longing, that hoping and that expectation I find comfort. Comfort that came to me first as I sought to resolve my tears and my pain in Christ alone.

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As I wrote this post the following song resonated in my heart and in my soul. Enjoy the words as you consider the parts of your journey that were taken with Christ alone.

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In Christ Alone
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"In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
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In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.
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There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
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No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
‘Til He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand!"
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Stuart Townend & Keith Getty
Copyright © 2001 Kingsway’s Thankyou Music
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Thank you for joining me for today's "In Other Words" please leave a link to your own post and
a comment and read on my friends! God is a mighty and a "good, good, good" God. (I say good three times because in the OT when a word appeared three times it indicated to a greater degree than one or two words in succession!)
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God is more than enough to meet us in our deepest Need! May He bless you deeply as your share your hearts and insights with us today! I am blessed and humbled by His grace today. For more information on this meme check out Amy's site: In Pursuit of Proverbs 31.