God of the Impossible: Day Four, Week Four

This week has brought to light a sad reality: life is unpredictable. Two families in Redding, California, lost their sons in a landslide while camping. These precious boys and their families are dear friends of my son’s family. They are in community together. The mothers are in a weekly bible study with my daughter-in-law. One of the boys attended school with my granddaughter, and they were on the same school sports team.

The day after the tragedy, I lay in bed with my 10-year-old granddaughter as she cried herself to sleep and continues to cry herself to sleep as I write this article. She has known these boys since infancy, and she is now at the age to understand the deep sadness death brings into our lives. 

Yet, amid their grief, I sat with my son and daughter-in-law as they put on worship music, held their daughter, prayed together, and cried together as a family.

I wept in thankfulness as I listened to my daughter-in-law say, “In all this, Lord, we know that you are still good.”

In that moment of great pain and sorrow, peace flooded me as a parent when I witnessed their turning to Jesus for strength and comfort and modeling that dependency on Jesus for my granddaughter.

When death comes into our life, we cannot help but reflect on our own future. Even though all of us endeavor to serve the Lord daily with our lives, death is an ever-present reality that humbles all of us.

As I reflected on this tremendous loss that will affect countless people in the Redding community, I understood that there will be many questions for God that may never have answers on this side of heaven. Heartbreak such as this leaves a wound in our soul that only Jesus can heal. It also simultaneously creates an opportunity for the enemy to accuse God or accuse others.

None of us have gotten to where we are in life without pain and heartbreak. I have observed that pain is often looking for someone or something to blame. When there is nothing to blame, we can easily fall into despair.

The heart must find a way to continue to live, and in doing so, we form our own conclusions and come up with our own answers to the unanswerable questions. These become the “stories we tell ourselves,” as Brené Brown would say.

This is the place where fear, unbelief, bitterness, and all sorts of other hidden beliefs can take root without our awareness and sometimes without our permission. Due mostly to the brutal pain of life. This brings me to this week’s prayer, which is on forgiveness.

In my personal prayer life, I start all my prayers asking for forgiveness, especially for unintentional sins or words spoken that inadvertently could have caused hurt to someone. I am a mental health therapist, and there are opportunities for me to miss it in therapy. Or when counseling couples, I am often in a position to tell hard truths that can hurt, so I always clear the slate with God when I pray.

I also think it is good for us to humble ourselves in surrender to Him when we go to Him in prayer.

This week, our prayer is, “…Lord, forgive me. Reveal to me the hidden things in my heart and cleanse me completely, that I may be a vessel of honor for you.”

There have been times in prayer when the Lord has brought a memory to my mind that I had forgotten all about. One day in prayer years ago, a particular memory of my son surfaced. This memory, during his baby years, was a good memory and, at the same time, one that caused me deep sorrow.

I wept and wept as the Lord reminded me of that memory. I had forgotten all about it, but I heard the Lord speak to my heart, “I did not forget.”

I suddenly realized how many things get buried deep down in the human heart, but God sees them all.

 Since then, I have prayed that God would reveal any hidden things in my heart.

Working with patients, I have also seen first-hand how fragmented the heart can be. When we give God permission to shine his light into every area of our heart and forgive us for things we have forgotten about or disregarded, not only does it bring forgiveness, but it also brings deep healing in unimaginable ways.

Today and this week, pray and meditate on this prayer with me. Let us all become clean vessels of honor that God can and will flow through.

Until next week, occupy until He comes,

Kathy Chastain