For seven years, Easter has been the most difficult holiday for me to endure.
You’d think the hardest would have been the time we spent Christmas in the hospital (2015) or Thanksgiving in the hospital (2016) or the five Fourths of July’s or the four of my own birthdays also in the hospital. While those were admittedly terrible, for me the very worst holiday since our son became ill (You can read about his battle here) has been Easter.
Why?
Easter represents the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Jesus once and for all time defeated death and the forces of hell by sacrificing Himself in our place, ending the power of satan forever. He died so that we could be made whole in body, soul and spirit, for our freedom in every area of life from every stronghold of the enemy. Our sin, our sicknesses, our emotional pain — He took it all for us.
I fully believe that with every cell of my being. But over the years I couldn’t reconcile my belief with the daily horrific experience of watching my son suffer. A day representing epic victory juxtaposed against my (physically) un-victorious life… an inescapable tension between grief and hope. I’ve cried through the last seven Easters, a literal war going on inside me, wrestling with this reality.
What do we do with our life circumstances when they don’t line up with the Truth? I’ve written about this before [Truth > Experience] and [How to Wait] …. but this matter is so important, I am bringing it up again today.
It saddens me that the body of Christ has largely come to expect a life of oppression when God’s expectation is that we would live from the victory purchased for us. When will we get so tired of the weight of attacks that we actually will rise up and believe what He said about all we can have?
What if we could really win over all that Jesus said we could? What if we didn’t have to deal with this crap and instead experience a lifestyle of being “tired of winning”? What if our wrestling hard with the faith to believe He will do what He says is the exact place He’s been waiting for us to get to all along:
And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened…for everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. (Luke 11:10)
This is our journey and it’s been an excruciatingly painful, horrific, amazing, exhilarating one. Someday, I will be released to tell the whole story, which is so much bigger than I ever thought. Bigger than just our son getting his health back, bigger than just our family experience.
This Easter was different. We were able to go to church together and spend time with my parents. I didn’t cry a single tear, at least not in grief.
We are beginning to see the result of the years of our planted seeds of faith, soaked with gallons of my own tears that have been dead, quietly dormant in the ground.
Just like the power that surged forth that day when Jesus rose from the dead, the seeds are bursting forth, defying natural laws of gravity, forcing their way out.
Please take a new look at your impossible circumstances with spiritual eyes. If you are wrestling with some of the same things, keep wrestling until you come out on the other side, the side of resolute faith. Without the wrestle you can’t get there.
Our God is Justice, He sees all, He responds. He is love, He knows us intimately, nothing is missed. His plan is better than we imagine.
You’ll see.
9 Comments
It was so exciting seeing all of you together and looking so dapper. God is so good and loves so much.
Praise the Lord, Bryn!! Thank you, Jesus, for the victory Carson’s Family is experiencing!
So beautifully written Bryn. I agree wholeheartedly with the importance of the concept of wrestling. You have such an important voice on the subject because through your trials and how you have come through them shows us to not be afraid of what the wrestling will bring. Thank you for that! We love you all so much!
Great news-PTL
Battling with you always, and declaring His victory!!! King Jesus, You are worthy of it all!
Bryn, that is a beautiful and terrifying challenge that you’re speaking of. I’ve wrestled over the years but feel I’m in a new place of wrestling now….not sure where the Lord will lead it, but confident that He Will. I love you!
This was so exciting to hear. We pray for all of you everyday. God is so good to allow you to be in his House of Worship on Resurrection Day. We will continue to pray!!!
Praise the Lord! So thankful for this blessing for your family. These verses came to mind as I was reading your post.2 Corinthians 4:6-9 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
Amen. There is definitely a time of wrestling with our crisis of faith and then choosing who we are and what we believe. I know that each one of those times in my own life has produced the greatest miracles. We endure, like He did, for that Joy.
My heart is full of thankfulness to hear your words today.
Love, Faith