The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it
abundantly. (John 10:10)
About 5 years ago today, I was riding in an hour long
commute back from our mission site in Jogoo, Kenya back to our hotel in Nakuru,
sitting cheek to cheek with my friends, 4 of us on a seat designed to fit
3. We had just finished our week of
service to the people of Jogoo, sharing the Gospel and providing vision care
and were looking forward to going on safari the next morning before we headed
back to the main mission site in Nairobi and ultimately back home. As we drove one last time down and out of the
village on quite possibly the bumpiest road on the plant, we offered up our
prayers of Thanksgiving for those we were able to serve in Jogoo. I concluded the prayer with a request, “and
as we go on safari tomorrow Lord, if it’s not too much to ask I would really
like to see a lion; one would be awesome, two would be a blessing and three,
Lord, would be abundance.” And as I have shared in previous posts you know that
God indeed lavished abundance on us that day with 3 juvenile male lions all
laying together in a clearing together.
I wept. I cried because in that
moment I felt the overwhelming love of God directed fully on me in a very
deeply personal way as if God was saying, “No baby girl that’s not too much to
ask because that is exactly how much I love you, abundantly!!
So much has happened since then it could easily feel like a
lifetime ago. I came home from that trip
to an already crumbling marriage and within slightly more than 3 years my whole
world would be turned upside down. It
would have been very easy for bitterness to have slipped into my heart, but I
made a conscious decision after the divorce to not allow bitterness to take
root. I did not want to be like Naomi, from the story of Ruth and rename myself
Mara. Instead, I frequently look back to
that moment with the lions and I am reminded over and over again that despite
all that I have been through that God loves me abundantly. And in case I had any doubt that His feelings
toward me had changed since then, God sent me another encounter with 3 dolphins
last November to make sure I didn’t forget.
Missing Jake has not changed
significantly over this last year. It
feels like yesterday and forever all at the same time and the intensity of the
loss does not become any less over time.
It really, really sucks!! It is
very hard to explain because the intensity of missing him and the hurt seems to
grow stronger with the passing of time but there is also a seasoned experience
that comes along side of the tremendous hurt.
The seasoned experience coming alongside the hurt as if to say, “it
hurts like hell, but this will not kill you and later you will be okay.” This year has been challenging. Life continues to deal harshly with us and
we’ve had our fair share of trials and loss this year. So much of what the kids and I have been
dealt has been beyond our control, it would be very easy to let bitterness or
anger sink in. Honestly, it’s a daily struggle at times, but something I feel
strongly about. I do not want that for
me or my kids. I refuse to be a bitter
old woman! I want that life that Christ
speaks of in John 10:10, an abundant life.
I wish that “abundance” meant that nothing bad would happen to us
anymore, I wish that in that abundance all our hurts would magically be gone,
like a spiritual lottery suddenly all our problems solved, but I know that is
not truth. The truth is life is life and
being a Christian doesn’t make me immune to it.
For me, life abundant is experiencing the love of God in the midst of
the trial and the hurt and God has also been teaching me that life abundant is
also allowing my heart to be open and vulnerable to the people He puts in my
path. That sounds like an easy thing to
do, but when you have experienced profound loss that can be challenging. The risk of opening up your heart is that you
can get hurt deeply again. After Jake
died, I didn’t think I would ever be able to let someone new in my life. A new “someone” would never have known Jake
and that was unthinkable to me. Tears
flow freely even thinking about that now.
Jake is so much a part of who I am, how could I share my life with someone who has never
met him. But God once again ever so gently
reaches in and begins to unfold truth so that I might have that life
abundant. God makes a way where there seemed
to be no way and I felt Jake speaking to me across time to say that in the
realities of time and Heaven, he already knows the someone new.
As Zach and I were talking about
that possibility the other day he said he was afraid to get attached to anyone because they
may not stay and I was faced with the reality of my own fear. Opening up your heart to someone after losing
a huge piece is terrifying. Life is
still life, loss will happen again. It will
hurt and there is no magic balm that will fix it, but I feel the Lord leading me in life
abundant, I know He will not fail and I trust Him.
