One Last Question
Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
This is the sixth devotion in a series of six devotions based on what I have learned about grief during my year of writing devotions. I often revisit the six needs when I feel the waves of grief crashing down upon me.
Support
Solitude
Rise Up
Rest
Feeding
Fasting
During these final six devotions, I have focused on the six needs and each one has been helpful when despair threatens to drown me. I have often found the need to seek support and also find times of solitude. I have often found the need to take action by rising up and also found many benefits of finding time to rest. Last week I discussed feeding our minds, hearts, soul, and bodies. This week I had scheduled myself to discuss the benefits of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting has provided many positive physical benefits. Instead I have decided to focus on the most important question to answer when you are struggling with grief.
Only one last question remains.
Solitude, support, rising up, resting, feeding, and fasting all can help you when you are struggling with grief yet none of them matter unless you answer the one last question that remains.
This road was never in my plans. When we traveled to Russia to adopt our son in 2001, we imagined a life in which we would raise our son, watch his graduation, and cheer him on as he pursued his dreams. But what happens when we are rerouted and the expected road is exchanged for the unknown?
At the moment I realized my son was gone, my mind has struggled with questions. Questions without answers. Why would God allow this? If God loves me, why would He allow me to feel this pain? When will the pain end? Who can I turn to for help? What will I do now? How can I ease the pain of my family? These questions and hundreds more like them threatened to crush me beneath their weight. I sought the answers to all of them yet in the end only one question remained.
When we returned from Russia in 2001, I created a video of our adoption story. I ended the video with Proverbs 3:5-6. We also found a name card when Bryce was little that included the same verse. Bryce kept that card on his desk throughout his life. The verse says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” That was an easy verse to celebrate after just bringing home the child we had longed for. It is easy to say trust the Lord when life is going well. What happens when it all falls apart? Do you still trust the Lord to direct your path when your path is filled with pain and sorrow?
This is the one question. Do you trust the Lord? Our answer to this single question impacts how we will attempt to answer all of the other questions that come with our grief.
When you turn off the known path and are forced onto the back roads you must follow the signs that will lead you home. If there is road construction, bright orange signs will guide you along your unexpected path. You do not trust the signs themselves but you are putting your faith in the one that placed the signs along the path. On the morning of our son’s accident, I cried out to God. I wanted God to show me that things will be alright.
Hours had passed since the accident. Our son was gone and we were feeling devastated. The house had emptied for the moment and the three of us were alone for the first time. I headed down to the basement to let the dog outside. With tears rolling down my face, I paced back and forth as I waited for the dog. I silently prayed for a sign to let me know that my son was safe. Was he safely home in Heaven? How can you know for sure?
As I write this, Christmas is just around the corner. Everywhere you look there are signs of the season. Lights cover buildings and trees. Green and red are reminders everywhere you look. Many of you will attend Christmas programs in which someone will say. “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Did you catch that? We often focus on the star in the sky as the sign associated with Christmas but sometimes God speaks in more subtle ways. A baby in a manger. A simple sign, with powerful implications.
Repeatedly, I have had moments that those without faith would call coincidences. When you have “coincidences” repeatedly, doesn’t that seem to cry out for something more? Typically, I believe that God provides comfort for us in these small moments yet on the day of my son’s accident something a little less subtle occured.
After pacing, crying, and praying, I walked up the stairs after letting the dog in. Immediately my wife said, “I don’t know if people still receive visions today but something just happened! For just a second, I saw Bryce smiling and doing his typical shoulder shake that he does when he sees something awesome and then he was gone” I told her what was happening just below her as I prayed in the basement. Was this two grieving parents who happened to have their grieving experiences line up in perfect harmony or was this a bigger sign. We know that it provided the exact comfort that we needed to survive the difficult days that followed.
The Bible says that God is close to the brokenhearted. (Psalm 34:18). That may happen in various ways. We are not alone in our time of grief. God also provides people around us. I found it interesting that the only way I could find the answer to my prayer was keeping an open line of communication with my wife. We could only find answers if we grieved together instead of in isolation. On the road of grief, it is important to share the journey.
God has been close to our broken hearts in many amazing ways throughout our journey. Each small sign reminds us to continue along this unknown path. He has never spoken to me in an audible voice but He has spoken to me in many unexpected ways. He has provided the right song at the right moment repeatedly. He has used sunflowers and the number 12 to repeatedly remind us of our son. He has used a Bryce bumper sticker at just the right moment. I have stood in flood waters at sunrise in the middle of nowhere and God provided another man who had lost his son to share his story with me. He provided a girl with a graduation cap designed with sunflowers to sit in front of me during my graduation when I was missing my son at that moment. These small moments and many others are reminders that God has been repeatedly near.
Reminders that God is near do not answer all my questions. So that leaves me with one last question.
Do I trust God?
In this process, I have not found all my answers but I have found the one thing more important than answers. Love is always more important than answers. When my kids were young, I didn’t try to give them complicated answers to everything because sometimes the answers were beyond what they were able to comprehend. Instead I tried to show them love and asked them to trust me even if it didn’t make sense to them in the moment. When you know someone loves you, you trust their intentions. God has repeatedly displayed his love to me during these dark days even when He has not provided me with all the answers. Do I trust the One who has provided me with signs along these back roads? Which leads us to that one last question.
Do I trust God?
I do. Indeed
