Thy Will, My Sacrifice.

In the past few nights, I have been struggling within my grief, as time approached the anniversary of Will’s passing. I’m so thankful for my community of people who remind me of God’s love for me and His capacity to carry all my big and heavy feelings. Tonight, as I intentionally reflect on how God has shown up for me through some of the struggles in my life within this last year, I want to open up and share my experiences with the desire that someone may find encouragement to trust God with whatever weight you are carrying and to align your actions with your faith in God.

Hope

To share briefly but remain transparent – in this last year I opened my heart up to dating. Obviously, I have dated in my past, however this time around, it had felt like a wildly new experience to seek love again as a widow. That journey will for sure have its own chapter on my blog! However, for now I will just share that so far into my dating experience, I had encountered what felt like a devastating heartbreak – again. I had this plan and expectation for things to go one way, and the circumstances that I found myself in were not in alignment with my expectations. I was hurting and broken, confused and angry.

This season felt like mental exercise. It did not feel natural for me to be in the midst of hardship and think, “this is a good space to be in”. Nothing about the experience presently felt good. But that is where faith and hope show up.

Faith – full assurance in the heart; carrying myself as if it’s already done

Hope – confident expectation of the goodness of God

It felt like a long process, but through the support of some close friends and diligently seeking heaven’s perspective, my faith and hope strengthened my trust in God through that season. Trusting God looked like – pressing beyond the sadness to believe there is abundant goodness coming, consulting Holy Spirit for heaven’s perspective to see through the confusion, and expanding my capacity to love and allowing the pain to transform my heart to look more like Christ.

Spiritual Warfare

I first noticed God nudge me in the direction of spiritual warfare at work. I feel very fortunate that I received an invitation to participate on a panel discussion for Women’s History month at my company. The invite shared a few conversation points and requested for each panelist to share their professional story for their time with the company. To be direct, when I thought about how to share my company story, I recognized that my mind immediately identified this “underdog storyline” with an antagonistic character involved. That made me feel really bad, because I genuinely felt like it was an honor to be invited to speak, and I hated the thought that sharing my story meant making someone else the bad guy in doing so. When I took those feelings to God in prayer, he directed my heart and mind towards His word – Ephesians 6:12 (NIV).

¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

That came as a relief, because it helped me find ways to speak highly of myself and share my story without hurting anyone else in the process. This awareness made the assignment of loving people a little bit easier as well, because I could take the anger, hurt, and offense off of them, and place it where it belongs – against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The same week of the Women’s History panel discussion, Malia had ended up in the city’s children’s hospital. She was previously diagnosed with a “childhood condition” that causes her to have seizures. Like times in the past, upon learning of her seizure, I immediately reminded myself to 1) Breathe 2) Pray and remember my commitment to trust God and declare that my faith in God will not be shaken due to my circumstances 3) Exercise vulnerability and transparency to share with my community of support what we are facing and give space for them to support us.

That afternoon, God sent a flood of affirmation of His word in Ephesians 6:12. One in particular came from my pastor, whom I include in my community of support especially in relation to Malia’s health. We spoke of how the enemy attacks – he comes only to steal, kill, and destroy; with the purpose of disrupting our faith and hindering the completion of our calling from The Lord.

Faith and Works

James 2:14-26 (ESV)

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good^[a] is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

What these experiences have taught me, is that declaring faith is just the beginning. Without walking out that faith through works, it is dead. Works, identifies our actions that align with our faith. What does it look like in my life to “walk out that faith”? Well, with respect to Malia and her health, it has looked like this:

I speak, pray, and declare with the authority of heaven given to me through my relationship with God. I reference God’s words to remind Him, Malia, and myself of his promises of healing for His children. And I physically anoint Malia’s body, belongings, and our home – laying my hands on her and expecting for healing to transfer into her body.

I expect for it to happen, because I believe Jesus walked this earth and physically anointed people to heal them. And according to His word, because I am a believer in Him, I will also do the works that he did, and more!  

John 14:12

¹² “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Year 3

Even with this knowledge and experience under my belt, as the third anniversary of Will’s passing approached, I found myself feeling weak again. The irony, right? You would think that these experiences should have equipped me to be in better standing at this point – at least that’s what I thought. But I found myself feeling very sad with little motivation to shift my perspective.

But God once again showed up for me in my weeping. I have been finding comfort in the community God has hand picked to be in my life. I have learned that when I’m unable to redirect my focus to God myself, it is the community around you that comforts to the best of their ability and points you back to God’s heart for you. I envision it something like having someone to walk up to and hug and cry with, then after they help me wipe my tears, the place their hands on my shoulders and spin me around to see God, waiting right behind me with open arms.