Disclaimer: To my faithful subscribers and readers, I apologize in advance for wandering outside the normal boundaries of real estate related content, but I find myself needing to express some thoughts I have been struggling with of late. I trust you will indulge me and allow me the grace to share my heart. Thanks!
As is typical on most Sundays, I was attending church services at newlife kitsap, listening as my oldest son Ben played acoustic guitar and led our gathering in worship. One of the songs we sang, entitled "My Hope," was written by my friend Ed Kerr and has been recorded by well-known musician Paul Baloche. You can listen to the song HERE.
Here are the words to the song:
Nothing will change if all the plans I make are wrong, Your love stays the same.
Your light will guide me through it all, I'm hanging on, I'm leaning in to You.
Nothing can reach the end of all Your faithfulness, Your grace is with me,
through every shadow, every test, I'm hanging on, I'm leaning in to You.
I don't know where You'll take me, but I know You're always good.
My hope is built on nothing less than Your great love, Your righteousness.
I will not walk another way, I trust Your heart, I trust Your name.
I'm holding on, I'm holding on to You.
You are my rock when storms are raging all around, You shelter me God.
I'm safe with you on solid ground. I'm hanging on, I'm leaning in to You.
I don't know where You'll take me, but I know You're always good.
My hope is built on nothing less than Your great love, Your righteousness.
I will not walk another way. I trust Your heart, I trust Your name.
I'm holding on, I'm holding on to You.
As I sat there, pondering the lyrics, I was overcome with a deep sense of grief and sorrow. The tears flowed freely as I struggled to sing the words projected onto the screen.
As my gaze wandered to those standing around me, I realized that so many of the people I know are in the midst of difficult, heart-wrenching circumstances. A man whose wife has abandoned their family in a vain attempt to recapture her lost youth; a young couple desperately clinging to the hope that their recently conceived baby will be determined viable through an upcoming scan; a young man devastated that his new bride of less than a year has run off with another woman.
For me, this past year has been plagued with death. My Mom's husband, Phil, died from cancer. My Step-Dad, Stan, passed away. And my nephew, Kurt, died in a senseless accident.
And then, I thought of my friend Missy Caulk, and the horrendous series of deeply tragic events her family has recently gone through - the loss of their son, Jamie, in a fatal auto accident, the sudden death of their baby granddaughter Lilian, and the recent passing of her husband, Mike.
Such things shake us to our very core and result in more questions than there are answers. Why does God allow such tragedy to occur? How much pain and sorrow can a family endure? And to what possible end? Why is there death, pain, and suffering?
When you're living right in the middle of such hardship, your heart and mind become numb. You exist day-to-day in a zombie like maintenance mode, going through the motions, simply functioning. You wonder if a return to normal will ever be possible. And the hurt and sorrow overtake you in uncontrollable waves like an emotional vomit.
For some, it's easy to simply lash out in anger towards God, to blame Him for causing such tragedy, or faulting Him for a lack of caring intervention.
For me, my only anchor and steadfast resolve during such trials is to rely upon those things which I know with certainty to be true about God - that He is faithful and trustworthy; that He loves me with an everlasting love; that He is good; and that ultimately, He is supremely sovereign over all His creation.
I also know that we live in a broken world filled with poverty, hate, sickness, and death. It wasn't always this way. Creation started off with perfect people, living in a perfect world, in a perfect relationship with their Creator.
But man's selfish ambition and rebellion destroyed the perfect arrangement, and severed the intimate relationship we once had with God. As a result, sickness, pain, suffering, and death entered into the human experience. This wasn't God's fault. It was the consequences of man's free will and choice.
Fortunately, God did not leave us to our own devices, though as a collective humanity we certainly deserved our due. But He initiated and provided a way whereby the fallout from our rebellion could be completely eliminated, and the loving intimacy with our Heavenly Father restored.
Romans 6:23 tells us that "the wages (the payment we are due as a result of our actions) of our rebellion (sin) is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ."
As my heart breaks for Missy, her daughter Christa, and the rest of the Caulk family, I pray that they continue to cling to the Anchor of their souls.
Psalm 121 states, "I lift my eyes up, to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from You, Maker of Heaven, Creator of the Earth."
Please join me in praying for the Caulk family during this time of loss and sorrow. May God sustain them with an overwhelming flood of His Love and Grace.
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