Last year, I wrote a blog about what it means to worship God in Spirit and in truth. This season of my life has tested that word, maybe more than any season previous.
When we lost our son Asa in April, I won’t lie, I was angry with God. You see, God had told me many times since 2022 that he would give us a baby boy who would bring us and the people who knew him so much joy. Baby Asa was prayed into my womb last November, and before we announced his pregnancy, God had given a friend visions of a baby in my womb. When I shared the fear of losing another baby (we had a previous loss in 2021) with a trusted sister in Christ, she prophesied over me, sharing that God was restoring what the enemy had previously stolen from us. And when I brought these fears to God, he told me that he was fortifying my womb after almost 10 years of secondary infertility. As you can imagine, when we found out our baby was a boy, I fully believed that he was the baby God had promised me. And when I found out his heart was no longer beating, I fully believed that Jesus was going to raise my baby from the dead.
When Jesus, in his sovereignty, did not raise our baby back from the dead, I could not understand why God would allow me to be misled in this way. I could not understand why he would allow who I thought was our promised baby to die. The hurt of feeling deceived by God overshadowed the grief and confusion of losing our sweet Asa.
At church, I could no longer sing songs about God’s goodness to me. I did not feel in those moments that he was good. I could not choke out the words of him not failing me, because it felt like he DID fail us.
But because I KNOW that my feelings do not determine the truth of who God is, I pushed into him. I pushed into his heart, bringing completely the rawness and confusion of my own heart.
I pushed into him the only way I knew how. I knew the pathways well, because I had walked the trail faithfully in many other seasons. I read my Bible- even when I did not feel like it, because I know his voice and his heart is written on every page. I continued to pray, journal, and speak my big emotions out loud. Even in my anger and hurt, I KNEW he is my only safe place. He is my only place of healing. Most times, the things I spoke to him were not pretty, and to others, my words probably would not have sounded too holy… but the things I said were always honest. Brothers and sisters, let remind you here in this moment, that God can handle your honest. He WANTS your honest. When we keep those doors of communication open to our Father, it gives him the opportunities to speak into our broken seasons. But we MUST share with the expectation of him correcting the lies in the way we need him to. We must equally be honest with him and want him to remind our hearts of who he truly is.
I told God that I did not trust his goodness in this heavy loss, but because his word SAYS that he is good, I knew in my heart of hearts that that is the truth. I asked God to show me that he is faithful, to help me to trust him again, and help me to know his goodness. I started singing the songs again, not necessarily because I believed them, but because I KNEW they were true- I decided that I was going to sing them until my heart felt and believed them again.
In this season, God has shown me how patient he is with my heart, and that the things I have been feeling are just part of the human experience. He has shown me that he too was so grieved in the loss of Asa, and that everything that he allows on this side of Heaven, is for my good and for his glory. God has reminded me in countless ways that He DOES speak to me. This has been such a beautiful gift to my heart, because I questioned if I had EVER heard from him after this loss.
In this season of pushing into God’s heart, I write down the truths of his word, the ones that oppose my doubts. I write them down and read them to myself, knowing that the more I worship him in these truths, the more I will also be able to worship him in Spirit too, because my heart will believe increasingly more what it already KNOWS to be true.
Today, I am still walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but Jesus has never left me. Not for a moment. Because of what I have learned and because of how I have grown in this valley, I have been able to speak boldly the truth of the Gospel into the lives of the people around me. Through the death of my son, the reality of eternity feels even more present, but I am not ready for Jesus to return- not just yet. Because I want to see so many others get to experience the glory of heaven with me, with our Asa, with our baby Hope.
Brothers and sisters, let me remind you once more that our feelings do not determine truth. How do we know what truth is? Truth is anything that stands up when it is weighed against God’s holy word to us- the Bible. His word is infallible, unchanging, and absolute truth. I want to encourage you once again to worship God in Spirit and in truth. Push into his heart in the good seasons and on the mountain tops. Especially push into his heart in the bad seasons and in the valleys. Push into his heart in the seasons you feel like you cannot, in the seasons you simply do not want to. Do not allow your heart to be hardened to him; by doing so we allow the enemy to win. Instead, ask him and allow him to renew the way you think every day, changing you into the person he is calling you to be. Lean into him in every season, because he is still and has always been faithful, he still has plans to give you a hope and a future, and he still is working all things together for your good, when we love him and when we are called according to his plans and purpose for us.
“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
