When You Don’t Get the Miracle You Want, Part 7

4 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This is part seven of our continuing story of Alan and Lynn that began as In the Shadow of Death. Now Lynn has passed away from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both held in their hearts for her healing. Alan is left to deal not only with his grief, but his view of a God he was certain would heal her.

You can read from the beginning starting here.

From Alan on June 15 (50 days after first email):

I am so thankful for your words of life to me. From the very first response you sent to me, they have been like water in the desert. I have re-read them multiple times and thank God for you and for what He has had you share with me.

I am a little unclear on this thought that you shared: “Of course, that will be eminently more difficult if God is the cause of her cancer, or even if he “allowed” it. Or, if for some unknown reason he volitionally decided NOT to heal her despite her hopes and your prayers. I don’t even think he “took” her. Those are all illusions Christians use to try to make death tolerable.”

First of all, I do not believe He was the cause of her cancer. But Wayne, if He is sovereign and all that goes along with that, then certainly it can be said that He “allowed it.” I believe He was fully capable of healing Lynn completely of cancer while she was on this earth. Is it wrong to think that He could have, but chose not to?

I’m not trying to be difficult, please believe that. I understand this world is fallen and there is an appointed time for everyone to die and all. But, the leper said to Jesus, “You can if you will” when Jesus asked him if he sought healing from Him. Jesus said, “I will and touched and healed him.” He is the same yesterday… so He is still able to heal if He wills to. He can if He will. Is that correct?

I’m trying to pray again, and right now, I don’t feel like there is much use. I want to be able to share my faith again with confidence, but right this minute, I don’t have that confidence. I can say, “Yes, He loves us in that He gave His only Son for us.” But, as far as believing for answers to my prayers, I’m struggling not to be cynical.

Wayne, this is so hard. It’s been three weeks and three days since Lynn passed, and just when I think I am doing better, waves of emotion hit like a flood when the reality of the permanence of her being gone fills my mind. The future things we had planned–gone. The goals and dreams we shared together–gone. I am single again, and that is something I never imagined or wanted.

I just bagged up all of her socks to take to a ministry here that will use them for those in need. (She had a lot of socks). What strikes me about all of this–socks or other clothing, or silverware we bought 30 years ago, or pictures on the wall, or her collection of churches that she really liked, or on and on and on…None of it matters anymore. She is gone. I could take her stuff and throw it in the front yard, and it would not matter. She is gone. Thankfully to a better place with unending joy. But, she is gone from here and from me and from us in this world.

That is the reality that I am wrestling with. Lynn is gone, and nothing seems to matter that used to matter.

The next logical thought then is what purpose do I have left to cling to. A friend texted me, “Now is the time for you to figure out exactly what your purpose is and then put 200% of yourself into. Don’t leave yourself time to think about your loss. If you dare to dream, you can do some amazing stuff.  My prayer for you is that you get a supernatural revelation of your destiny.” I thought that sounds nice, but she’s gone. She’s not here to cheer me on as only she could. What purpose could I possibly have that I would want to pursue without my best friend?

Thank you for your love and help through all of this.

My response:

I would never think you’re trying to be difficult. I have appreciated your openness and honesty with me. How else can anyone go through grief if it isn’t safe to be honest and to question? I hadn’t planned to get into such a lengthy dialog with you when this all began, but I think God is in it. And the things we’re discovering may well have value to others someday. I hope to be able to share this exchange, with names changed on your end, of course. So many people deal with these same issues when disease and death stalk them. I feel like the answers we’ve been probing are for more than just the two of us, with your permission of course.

That nothing else seems to matter in the wake of her absence, is also incredibly normal. Everything will seem trivial for a while, but part of moving beyond this is to take them in stride. As hard as it will be, bills still need to be paid and the yard mowed. Going through those motions, even when they seem so futile is a part of reconnecting to life. I know all of it hurts, but there is no way out of the pain, but to go through it.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the five stages of grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If not, you might want to take a look again. Yes, I know it is a bit tedious to have anyone put our grief on a dissecting table and organize it so, but underneath that is a helpful awareness that what you’re going through is not unique. When we lose someone we love, grief takes its toll. It’s not so much a linear process as a tumble of emotions that push us in various directions. Embrace the grief, don’t fight it, and embrace God in it. He is undoubtedly there, the great big shoulder to cry on and affection that can, in time, swallow our pain. The struggle you’re in now will eventually lead to an acceptance that there is a life still to be had beyond Lynn. I know you never wanted it. God knows you never wanted it, but the cruelty of this world ushered her into the City she has longed for all her life. She is home, whole, and pain-free. You are left here to find a way to carry on. And in time you will. This takes months and years, not days and weeks.

And, truth be told, you’ve been grieving for a long time, not just for Lynn as her health deteriorated, but for a theology you thought would save you from this pain. So, yes, the relationship with God gets a bit confusing at this point, especially if you see him in any way responsible for Lynn’s death, even by allowing it.

I know that’s what we’ve all been taught for a long time. God is sovereign; he is in control. Nothing happens without his approval. Many find comfort in that; I don’t. I find it leads to a view of God as an abusive deity. If he “allows” little girls to be raped by vicious uncles or disturbed priests, or “allows” cancer to destroy those we love, or allows earthquakes to devastate a culture, then, what kind of God is he? You would stop those things, wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t he?

Some argue that God isn’t powerful enough to stop the things that cause us pain, others deny his existence. I don’t believe either of those. His sovereignty continues to watch over the whole of humanity and our individual lives, and he will bring all of this to its final resolution and redemption. This is not a lack of power on his part, but a lack of understanding on ours. And, no, I can’t logically explain it, either. It just comes from years of reading the Scriptures, years of watching God’s will play out on this broken planet, and years of talking with him about these things. He is always the rescuer in human tragedy, not the destroyer. Whatever he does in the Creation is to redeem it back to himself, but that often comes at an incredible cost, as it did even to himself.

There seems to be a spiritual gravity in the broken Creation that tends toward destruction. The world is out of synch with the Creator, and we are not immune from it. God doesn’t have a home team that he protects from cancer, accidents, or calamity, and an away team he gets to bash with those things. Suffering is the fruit of our waywardness, not necessarily ours specifically, but the residue in our culture. That gravity of brokenness is as much a part of the redemption story as his intrusion into it to rescue us, but those rescues are not always in this life, but in the life beyond. That’s why Hebrews 11 talks about many who die in faith, having not yet received the promise.

God doesn’t make a volitional choice to bring calamities or even allow them; they come because of the fallen world we live in. For God to heal every disease, prevent every tragedy, and to keep people from dying, even if it is only ‘his’ people, the universe would make little sense. Brokenness without consequence would somehow unwind the whole process and our passion for his redemption.

There is a gravity of chaos and disappointment that draws us down into despair. We all swim in that, believer and unbeliever alike. There’s also an updraft of the life of the Spirit that draws us into his light and healing, but it plays out better if we cooperate with him in the process rather than resist him. That’s a process we can’t understand, so we endure it. When tragedy comes, we pray, first to be delivered of it. Sometimes God does that. When it happens, we rejoice. But for purposes and reasons far beyond our logic, sometimes circumstances don’t play out the way we hope. The deliverance we hope for is not from the tragedy, but the deliverance is through it. Again, we’ll rejoice, but that takes time to see it.

We exist in the tension between the Kingdom-Come and the Kingdom-Yet-to-Come. The whys are beyond our understanding and trying to explain them with human logic often puts God on the abusive side of the ledger. Why not rather believe that there are forces at work in this broken world to destroy us, and God is at work to redeem with his mercy until he can conclude all things? Whether he heals or not, his love and power are never in question. So, how do we know what to do? We listen as best we can, not only to his voice within but also to his activity in circumstance around us. Why he intervenes with healing in some cases and not in others is beyond my pay grade, but I know this it is not due to a lack of love. We are just asked to trust and to follow and to let his grace win out over the world’s chaos.

And that is my continuing prayer for you, Alan. God didn’t “allow” Lynn’s death. It would appear he prolonged her life for more time than she would have without him. That seems clear. But somehow, he couldn’t give you this, not for lack of love or power, but for the process of the universe and his mercy within it to play out.

And that’s where we learn to trust, as hard as that is, because it is beyond our understanding.

From Alan on June 17 (52 days after first email):

I wanted you to see something that Lynn wrote when we were engaged – sometime in 1988. It is called “Our Love.”

The funny thing is that she never gave it to me or showed it to me until February of this year, 2019. She had come close to death and told our daughter to find it for her on her computer. She then asked her to frame it and add a picture of Lynn and me to it. She wanted to give it to me for Valentine’s Day

The citation for the verse at the bottom, 1 John 4:16, “And we know and rely on the love God has for us…” is inscribed inside our wedding bands. That is also ironic in that when Lynn asked that we put that verse in our rings, she had no idea that 25 or so years later God would use you and others to reveal to me His mission for my life which is to share the love of God through writing, through preaching, and through a podcast.

I am sharing this with you in hopes that you might get a glimpse into what I have lost in this world, and why I am so broken. Lynn loved more than I think I even knew when she was alive. Even after 25-30 years, I would find myself marveling at little things she would do that sprang out of her deep love for me

Our Love
By Lynn

Our Love is not something that happened by chance
or a feeling to pass with time.
Our Love is the plan of our loving Father that He purposed from the beginning.
We have yielded ourselves to His purpose
And so, our hearts have been joined in this unbreakable bond.
If we had not been seeking the Father’s will,
We probably would have passed each other by;
but He let us see with His eyes the wonderful design
that He had planned in bringing us together.

We will serve Him together, always, with undying love and great joy,
Knowing that in His service, our responsibilities include
The love, encouragement, and inspiration of each other
so that we can be all that He wants us to be.

Our Love will grow because we cultivate it.
As we invest ourselves in it and in each other,
always seeking the good of the other first.

We will love each other as Christ loved us…
…with eternal love and eyes of mercy that see
beyond each other’s weaknesses and flaws
…with sacrificing love
…with unwavering commitment
…with unity
…with understanding and tenderness
…with much prayer
…regarding each other as the valued possessions of God that we are.

Our Love is not an obligation, but a desired choice.
We will live in faith in our God through every situation.

Now, may our lives joined together in Him
fulfill every purpose that He desires from this day
until we meet our Lord in glory.
May we give to each other everything that each other needs
in order to be and do everything God has planned for us.
May His love be perfected in us and may He receive
all the glory due His name in our lives.

With God’s help, I will always encourage you, support you, pray for you,
follow you, stand by you, and love you.

1 John 4:16 – “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
Whoever lives in love, lives in God and God in Him.” 

Wayne, I appreciate you. I have had two terrible days, and Father’s Day all by myself—my daughter did send me a text and a post on Facebook and got me a gift card for a restaurant she knows I frequent. My son called and his fiancée sent me the most beautiful text that lifted my spirit for a bit, but for some reason, I have wept and wailed most of the past two days.

I miss her so much. I need her so much.

My response:

What a sweet poem, Alan, and such a fantastic gift for her to leave you. I’m sure you’ll treasure it always.

I’m sorry you were alone on Father’s Day but also grateful that you had a connection with both of your children that day. Chaos and redemption, working side by side.

Yes, I know you miss her terribly, but if I could be so bold, you don’t “need” her now. If you “needed” her, she would still be here. Now that she’s not here, God has the capacity to be everything to you, even what you found in Lynn. I’m not suggesting it is easy to learn that, I just don’t want you to succumb to the lie that you need what is no longer here. Surely, you miss her, but the time will come to see beyond Lynn’s passing, and continue on the journey God has for you. You have so much to yet discover, adventures to unfold, joy to revel in. I know it looks impossible. Grief does that. But let grief have its work. Don’t yield to the despair, keep leaning into Jesus who has a purpose for you yet, and all the strength and courage you need to discover it. Your life is not over; it is only beginning anew.

You wrote: “I am sharing this with you in hopes that you might get a glimpse into what I have lost in this world, and why I am so broken.” Someday his healing will turn that sentence around. Not, “look what I lost,” but “look what treasure I had for thirty years.” Most people don’t get what you have shared, for even five or ten years. They never know a love as deep and rich as you and Lynn shared. Revel in that. Think of it. Thirty years of having a companion whose love and support you treasured. Someday you’ll be able to celebrate that you had it, rather than lament that you no longer do. All the treasure she invested in your life is still there. All that she helped God shape in you is still there to enrich others. You’ve lost her presence, yes, but not many of her treasures.

You have an exceptional heritage on which to build this final leg of your journey. You will yet be reunited with this woman. You will know her presence and love again, though I’m sure in far different ways.

When my dad almost died 12 years ago after a botched surgery, he saw what a basket case my mom would have been without him. He asked God then, to let him outlive his wife that he would be the one to see her to death’s door. That prayer still blows me away. Five years ago, my mom died with Dad at her side. He came home that day from the assisted care facility, where she died, with tears of gratitude that God answered his prayer. He got to walk her to death’s door and send her with appreciation into the lap of her Father. Now, at 94, he goes on alone. Yes, he misses her every day, but he also finds joy and purpose in the people God puts in his life each day.

That’s what you did for Lynn! You may not have asked for it as my dad did, but you were able to escort your gift to Father’s kingdom. God is pleased with what you did, Alan, and the pain you feel now is still part of that giving to her. It will subside. You will carry on. There are mountains to climb, rivers to ford, and people to love. Perhaps there is yet a great rescue for your children or others around you. You will laugh again, grow more in him, and share that with others in writing and podcasts. Don’t rush it or try to make it happen on your own but take hope in that. She does not want your life to end at her passing. She has now joined that great cloud of witnesses that cheer you on to all that Father has for you.

And I’m cheering with her!

Read on to Part Eight here.

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When You Don’t Get the Miracle You Want, Part 6

4 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

We’ve switched the headline, but the story continues. This is part 6 of our continuing story of Alan and Lynn. Now that Lynn has passed away due to metastasized breast cancer, Alan is left to deal not only with his grief, but his view of a God he was certain would heal her.

You can read from the beginning starting here.

From Alan on May 26, 2019 (30 days after first email):

Thank you for writing back. I appreciate your being here for me through this horror, this nightmare. I realized yesterday that for almost 35 years, I have had a best friend, a companion that I talked to every day. She’s gone. I can’t converse with her anymore now.

We became fast friends before we fell in love and knowing she won’t be here to encourage me and to let me encourage her is unbearable. She won’t be here when I get home from work, we won’t go to the grocery store together, and on and on it goes.

She believed not only in me but in the dreams God has placed in my heart. She was my biggest—sometimes only—fan, and I am so empty now knowing I will never hear the “I’m proud of you, Alan” in her sweet, precious voice again. She encouraged me to write, to get ordained, to be faithful with my podcast, to preach God’s love, and to do my best in my “secular” job.

She never allowed me to stay in my thoughts of frustration or rejection. Now the sounds of my wailings, my sobbing, my screams of “Why God!! And Where are You, God!!” are all I hear.

I will re-read and read again the words you’ve written to encourage me. I pray God will bless you greatly for your investment of time and life in me.

My response

You will get past this, Alan. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Isn’t it such an amazing gift that Father gave you? Your own personal cheerleader, to encourage you to God’s best. You will learn to treasure what you had more than you feel cheated for no longer having her. But I suspect she is still with you. No, not in some occultic way, but in all that encouragement stored up in your memories. I know when I travel, and Sara isn’t with me, I can go away from a conversation knowing precisely what Sara would have said to me had she been there. I know those moments she would have been proud of me and which she would have grimaced a bit at my response. In that way, she is still with you.

What you’ll also learn is to take your validation and encouragement from the Father himself. There is no substitute for a well-placed, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” especially when it comes from him. The grief will give way to that light in time. I know it is so dark now that all other light is eclipsed by it. But it will not always be so.

From Alan on May 27, 2019 (31 days after first email):

Thank you. I feel like I know what you mean about knowing what Lynn would say. I just wish I could hear her say it.

I don’t believe God is counting my sins against me, but I am starting to wonder if He is punishing me for things I did in my past that were not pleasing to him. As a child, I accidentally said something bad about the Holy Spirit, and I have been scared my whole life that I have blasphemed the Holy Spirit and wonder if I am really born-again. All of this terrible stuff is so much to deal with. It just does not align with my thoughts that He loves me. It’s funny that preaching that message is the life’s mission that God has given me, yet I am confronted with questions I never thought I’d have.

From Wayne

I understand about wanting to hear her say it. Unfortunately, that reality has changed, and it will take some time to get used to it.

As to your fears that Lynn’s death is some kind of punishment from God— He. Just. Isn’t. Like. That. For God to take some careless words of a child and use them against the love of his life some 50 or 60 years later, would never happen. With each email I get from you, I see the self-talk that will only drive the pain deeper by eroding your faith in a loving Father. You need to find a better conversation with yourself and a self-compassion that more reflects the nature of the Creator.

These next words may sound harsh, but I don’t mean them to be. You’re trying to see these circumstances with a control you don’t have. You were not the determining factor in Lynn’s death, or the healing you hoped for. That doctrine of healing will crush you.

These are the brutal days of grief, Alan; don’t make conclusions here. Don’t give voice to fears if you can help it. Stay in the fountain of his mercy and know that God already has a way for you through this and beyond it to greater freedom and joy ahead. It is what Lynn would have wanted, as you would have wanted it for her….

From Alan on June 2, 2019 (37 days after first email):

Thank you for your email. I appreciate your candor and encouragement. I cannot be making any of this horrific journey without God having brought you alongside to help me, and for that, I am sincerely grateful.

I went to our church this morning without Lynn. I realized I have not been in or around the church for the past 33-34 years without her. She would hold my hand and make sure I was staying awake, and I would put my arm around her, and she’d move in a little closer to me. All of that is now gone.

I have been honest and transparent, and I will continue to do so.

Wayne, I’m having difficulty handling the notion that “God is our deliverer” or “God is our refuge” or songs like “I’ve seen Him move mountains and I believe I’ll see Him do it again” or people saying, “Just find strength in Him.” My mind responds with, “He allowed Lynn to get cancer and then refused to heal her in this realm. How can I rely on Him now? How can I pray for me or someone else when it is obvious that it ultimately may not be answered?

I feel very disappointed. I know that God owes us nothing—he gave his Son, and that is the ultimate gift. But, all these verses and promises in Scripture seem to not be as meaningful or reliable to me as they once were. Lynn even wrote in her journal that she believed for miraculous healing here on earth. We were fully invested in believing the “promises of God are yes and amen in Christ” yet here I am all alone with no hope of Lynn ever coming back, and I guess I just feel let down.

God is not a genie, I get that, but what is the point of having faith when in the end you stand a great chance of being let down.

I feel the weight of his taking Lynn and allowing me to be all alone, and it is so heavy. But, I will try to count it all joy at some point. Just probably not today.

Wayne’s Response

Isn’t it precisely at the moment we feel most disappointed and broken that we need a refuge and a deliverer? If God is ever that, this is why and this is when. I’m praying that you discover that. I’m confident you will, though it may take some time since your theology of suffering and healing seems to be a barrier to that. It’s the theology that needs to die, too, so that you can discover God as he really is. He is the only sure anchor in a broken creation that deals out death and destruction to us all. The promises in the Bible were not to give us a free pass to get out of suffering but to give us a real and present God who can hold us through the challenges and disappointments that we face in this broken Creation.

Every book in the New Testament speaks to our suffering in this world, and that Jesus will be in it with us. The promises were not so we could get what we want, or even what we think is best, but that God is at work through it all until his glory enfolds all of Creation again. That’s a great day coming. Until then, we live in the pains of childbirth, yearning for all to be set right. It just isn’t yet.

I’m sorry you didn’t get fifty years with Lynn, though I know you’ll get an eternity with her. For the time being, you’ll have to learn to live beyond her presence with you. Of course, that will be eminently more difficult if God is the cause of her cancer, or even if he “allowed” it. Or, if for some unknown reason he volitionally decided NOT to heal her despite her hopes and your prayers. I don’t even think he “took” her. Those are all illusions Christians use to try to make death tolerable. It isn’t tolerable. It’s a rift in the Creation—a temporary accommodation to our sin and the hope of a coming Resurrection.

You’ll get through this, Alan. I’ve known lots of people to lose spouses at 35, at 45, even at 75 years of age, and find themselves as broken as you are. Yet, surely, God’s grace will rebuild a path for you. He still has joy for you as hard as that may be to believe. He still has people for you to unveil his life to, and those you can love and comfort in his name.

What makes this much more difficult is that you see God as the cause of your loss and pain. How can you come to him as a refuge, then? The enemy has come with lies to besmirch his character, which is a tactic as old as Eden. He didn’t cause Lynn’s cancer or her death. He wasn’t complicit in it, and he grieves with you at what this has done to you.

Any theology that even has God “allowing” our sufferings is unworthy of him. It makes him the divine abuser, and that’s not who he is. He is the redeemer in the story, sometimes healing, but more often the one who comforts and restores those still living. I grew up with the idea that if we just knew Scripture well enough and how to work it, we would never have to know pain or loss. We’d always be healed and live to a ripe old age. That belief caused me no end of disappointment and disillusionment. Some day we can talk about why that isn’t fair to Scripture or to him, and that God’s participation in the Creation is not as easy as our misinterpretation of those Scriptures allow. But in the fog of grief, I don’t know that this is the best time.

If you can even for a moment suspend your certainty that Father has done these things to you, that he chose against yours and Lynn’s desires, you have a chance to learn about a Father more compassionate and caring than you’ve yet known, and of a Kingdom far deeper and far wider. You are loved, Alan. I know you have been gravely challenged by one of the worst things that can happen to a human, but God is bigger still, and he can walk you through this in a way that will transform you and your capacity to walk alongside others with his wisdom and grace.

I know you’ll find that. He is faithful to his children. He will win this wrestling match going on in your soul because I know you genuinely want him to. You want to see him as he really is, and this circumstance inside the heart of a loving Father. I know you may feel far from it now, but just keep coming to him, trusting that his love is not less than you believe, but more than you can see.

To be continued…

Read on to Part Seven here. 

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With Prayers for Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton

2 Comments / Culture Watch /

Let me make a few comments about the tragic shootings last week in Gilroy, CA, and the two weekend shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH. Our community suffered a mass shooting only nine months ago where eleven young people and a sheriff’s deputy were killed in a country-western club, hosting a college night.  I’ve been asked to assist our community with planning some gatherings around the first anniversary to help our community heal. Being behind the scenes has taught me a lot about mass shootings and what goes on in a community that deals with this kind of horror.

It’s hard enough having a child die by disease or accident, but there the anger and helplessness that comes from a senseless murder is a deeper wound. To think someone is so depraved that murdering innocent people will somehow satisfy their twisted soul is impossible to comprehend. It’s maddening to think that a choice to go back-to-school shopping at a Wal-Mart, or dance at a club, should end someone’s life. Grief, anger, and frustration can mix in a toxic brew. The people who lost loved ones need our prayers and, if you know them, our support as they try to make sense of something that is entirely senseless. To be the victim of another person’s abject selfishness is so brutal.

The first victims from a shooting like these are only the tip of the iceberg. Grief experts know that in the next few years more people will die of suicide because of these shootings than died in the shootings themselves. And that isn’t just among the families and friends of the victims, but first responders, medical people, and others who were swept up in the tragedy itself and its aftermath.  Stay close to anyone who has suffered grief, not just for a next week or two, but for two to three years. Make sure they have an outlet to deal with their pain and the senselessness of it all.

Do NOT push a community on to resilience. I saw on an NBC news report last night a headline about El Paso Resilience. Don’t use the term so quickly after a tragedy. It is offensive to the people who matter.  Outsiders love to talk about the resilience of a community to respond to such tragedies, but those who’ve suffered loss from these evil shootings see it as minimizing their pain so you can get back to your life. The news vans are going to pick up and leave as the funerals end, and media people want to believe the community is healing as they head off to the next one. Grief is a two to three year process at best.

Some have tried to put the term ‘resilience’ on our community after only nine months and the response from the victims’ families have been clear. They mostly worry that their children, friends, and parents have died in vain and that people will soon forget them. “Resilience” is only a term for those only tangentially touched by the tragedy, it doesn’t ease the pain of those who touched it personally. It is often an excuse for people to ease their conscience as they get back to their lives and leave the survivors even more isolated in their grief.

My heart goes out to those communities today who have been touched by violence, and not just the three most recent, but those still healing from their own mass murders. Now is the time for our national leaders to move beyond the partisan rhetoric that seeks to use these tragedies for whatever political agendas they have and find bipartisan solutions that can stem the tide of mass shootings by misguided young people.

If you are concerned that someone you know is angry and detached enough to act out in violence speak up! If you are one of those that fantasizes about inflicting violence on innocents as a way to get revenge for how unfair life has been to you, go seek out an older adult who can help you find what you need not to waste your life with such wanton destruction. It’s no way to end your life or theirs.

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In the Shadow of Death, Part 5

7 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This is a continuing email exchange between Wayne and a man who is struggling with healing, faith, love, trust, and mortality as his wife appears to be dying from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both held in their hearts for her healing.

You can read from the beginning starting here.

From Alan on May 21, 2019 (25 days after his first email):

Thank you for words of life. They are truly helping me. I read them and peace just “happens,” and for that, I am most grateful.

The past few days have been interesting. I have convinced myself at times that the reason she is “lingering” is that God is healing her. I realize that He can heal her in a millisecond, but it helps me to think that He is putting her back into a state of complete health.

I do wonder what in the world is going on? But, as you said, God is doing something. Maybe someday He will make it all clear, or maybe not.

I guess one just has to decide whether or not they truly believe that God is good. While all the pain, frustration, and lack of explanations are real, they do not knock us off the rock upon which we are standing that is labeled, “God is good.”

I think I mentioned to you that I struggle with all the affirmative Scriptures – “If any two of you agree” “Anything you ask in my name” “By His stripes we are healed” that somehow wind up with caveats or disclaimers like, “If it is His will” that are not included in the particular Scripture. It’s like God gets let off the hook because we do not understand the true meaning of a verse or its context, or we have not exegeted it properly.

I’m not trying to be irreverent or ugly toward God in expressing this frustration; it’s just a real issue at this time. May I let you in on something: Years ago, I believe that while having a conversation with the Lord as I was driving, He revealed to me why Jesus was beaten. You see, neither Leviticus nor any of the other books that outline the specific instructions God Himself gave regarding the Day of Atonement—wherein the sins of God’s people were dealt with for another season—say anything about beating the sacrifice. On the contrary, the sacrifice was to be without blemish.

So why was the Lamb of God beaten? Obviously, you know the answer that is in Isaiah 53–“by His stripes, we are healed.” Peter also mentions this wonderful truth. I believe that Jesus could have said to Pilate, “You can crucify me, but you are definitely not whipping me,” and sin would still have been cleansed. It is so clear to me that He allowed Himself, the Lamb of God, to go through that horrific beating so that we can be healed. So, that we as His beloved children can know Him as “I am the God that heals you.”

I believe that the Holy Spirit said to me as I was driving, “People get healed the same way they get saved or born-again: “You have to believe.” Just as if we confess with our mouths, the Lord Jesus, and if we believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead (Romans 10), we shall be saved. I believe that this is how we receive the reality of “by His stripes, we are healed.” Not everyone is saved because not everyone believes. Not everyone is healed, because not everyone believes. (Not saying that in any condemning way whatsoever).

On my ministry website, I have an entire podcast about Isaiah 53 and all that Christ endured for us that is in addition to our salvation. I relate this to you so you can know that this is the belief that I had going into this cancer-journey with Lynn when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer three days before Christmas, 2014. To be completely transparent, now I have to re-think what I believe. Maybe it was not the Holy Spirit whispering to me what I thought was Him teaching me about healing.

Lynn has beaten the odds repeatedly. From a “2-3 month” death sentence that has turned into four years and five months and who knows how much longer, to the “She has 2-3 days to live” death sentence that the hospice folks pronounced at the beginning of February when we called them in. My sister gave me Psalm 107:20 back in January 2015 – “He sent his word and healed them, and rescued them from the grave,” as a verse to hold onto when this all began. She is a fighter, but more than that, God has allowed her to live. I am very grateful for that and don’t want to seem ungrateful because I am having a crisis in an area of my faith.

Wayne, during a Sunday morning worship time a few years ago, God showed me a cave in a vision. In that vision, death appeared and tried to walk out of the cave, and God punched him right in the face, and he fled back into the darkness of the cave. Lynn reminded me of that vision a couple of months ago, when I voiced some trepidation about the diagnosis of having tumors in one’s brain. She asked me if I really believed what I have been saying I believe for several years? (Wives are good at putting us on the spot like that).

I wanted you to know that I have invested a lot of my personal, strongly-held beliefs in His appropriating healing for us through the Lamb of God’s having been beaten for our healing. Do I stop believing that? Do I stop preaching that? I know that His ways are higher than ours and that it is dangerous to develop a theology on personal experience, but I want so much for it “to work” and to be able to say, “Yes! By His stripes, she has been healed!! It works! It’s true!”

I don’t want to have to say, “Well, I guess I was wrong,” or “God is sovereign, and He knows what is best.” Of course, He is and does.

I am determined that He is good. My life’s mission that He gave to me is to share the eternal, passionate, unconditional love of God. But, most sincerely and transparently that I can be, I confess to you that this is the hardest thing I have ever been through. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. It sucks!!!!!!!!!

I love Lynn more than I can even begin to say. Yet it jolts me that so much of my thoughts and fear of being without her is filled with selfishness. “Alan’s beliefs.” “Alan’s faith tested.” “What is Alan going to do without his Lynn?”

We have settled into the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs. It’s either God does a miracle, or she steps into Heaven. Each further decline brings a fresh tsunami of tears and waves of that selfish fear. In between those times, I hold her as best as her frail body will allow, tell her not to fear, and say, “I’ve walked you to the door of the other side. You can step through whenever you are ready. I will be ok.” (I also said, “Tell Jesus I said hey,” which made her smile a little.)

Again, as you have said, she is either not quite ready to go, or the healing is about to explode here on earth.

Before I could finish my response, Alan wrote again one day later:

I was with Lynn today as her breath became labored and then went away.

I believe the Lord let me know when she was close to crossing to the other side, so as I have before, I took her hand and said, “I’m taking you to the door, don’t be afraid, just step through.”

It took her a while after that, but then I saw in the Spirit that she was actually stepping over a stream to the other side into the loving arms of Jesus. She was so covered that I could not see her, just Him holding her, enveloping her with His love. (She has been wearing socks for weeks, and in my vision, I saw someone remove her socks, and she was so thrilled to be barefoot. Someone told her it was ok to splash in the stream, and she was having a fun time before she stepped to Jesus).

Wayne, I’m more devastated than I can say – Scripture says we became one flesh—my heart has been violently ripped in two.

But I am also happy she is no longer in pain, and that she is in Heaven, cancer-free. I asked her to wait for me, to look for me, and to tell Jesus I said, “Hey.”

Now, what do I do?

My response:

I have some things that might help in response to your past two emails, but now there is nothing to say except I am so, so sorry that you did not get the miracle you wanted and have lost your Lynn. This news was a stab in my heart, even though I didn’t know Lynn. I feel like I’ve gotten to know you both over the last few weeks. My heart breaks for you and your pain in this, albeit temporary, separation from Lynn. I can’t imagine losing Sara at this stage of our journey, but even if I did, I know nothing takes our Father by surprise.

And, the strange thing about the death of a loved one is that she’s in such a space of unfathomable love in the presence of Jesus and his Father without all the distractions of flesh and distrust. You, however, are left here without her. A part of your heart has been ripped out, most certainly though it is best to have her safely home if the miracle you wanted wasn’t to be.

Somehow his purpose in this life was fulfilled in Lynn, even as Father still has things in mind for you. The loss is part of it, but God has a purpose for you in still being here. You don’t have to figure out what it is now or in any future time; it will unfold. Now is the time to grieve, to embrace God in the pain of your loss, to let him over time fill the space your wife vacated. That happens with loads of tears, and they are not proof of your lack of faith. Hold your heart before the Father. I will be praying for you, too.

From Alan on May 25, 2019 (29 days after his first email):

I am broken like a smashed vase. The reality that Lynn will never, ever be in our home again, will never be there waiting when I get home is unbearable. I realized that I have had someone to talk to every day for over 30 years, and now I am all alone. Nothing that mattered to us as a couple matters now. She’s gone. Forever. I don’t even really know what promise I have of being reunited with her in Heaven.

Lynn said she’d look for me, but now that she is in the other realm, is she finding out that is not the way it will work? I’m so overwhelmed by the permanence of death and even the suddenness of her being gone. We had a five-month runway before she was flying into eternity, and I knew her death was possible, even probable in spite of my attempt to have faith and believe for her healing here on earth. But, it feels so sudden. She’s gone. Forever. Gone. And I am feeling without hope.

My response:

I’m sorry, so sorry that you lost Lynn, and all the pain you’re going through now is a normal part of the fog grief. Invite God into this season. This is where faith really has to count, not when we get what we want, but when we don’t. I’ve known many to stand where you now stand, with all the pain and disillusionment you’re feeling, and God got them through it, and they found their way to the heights of joy even here in this world. You will never get over the loss of Lynn, but you will get on to other experiences with God, your children, and your friends.

Joy will come in the morning. It will take some time, though. Don’t despise the hurt, because it only marks the depth of your love. But don’t get stuck there either, or her memory will only bring pain and despair, and you’ll lose the ability to celebrate what you had for as long as you had her.

I have no doubt you will see her again, that the separation here is temporary and that we will see and know those we have loved in this life, most especially the one with whom we have been united in body and spirit. Fear not, my friend; she is not gone forever. She isn’t even gone now. Every treasured experience you had with her, every bit of wisdom she added to your life, every place where you were loved, lives on inside of you. You’re a different person because of her. You will always be.

Given the last email you wrote to me before her death, I knew this would be really difficult for you because it isn’t just the death of your wife, but the destruction of a theological conviction you had, that if you could “have faith and believe for healing here on earth,” she would be healed. If that is true (and I am confident it is not), then either God failed you, or you failed Lynn by not having enough faith. Either will only cause you unreconcilable pain because they are built on a false theological premise. We will talk about healing, prayers, and faith later. I had hoped to write you back about it all before Lynn died but did not get a chance to do so. I will someday, but that certainly is what’s most important now.

Just hold in your heart the possibility that your doctrine of healing may not be complete, and that God didn’t fail you, nor did you fail Lynn. This was obviously her time, and that time is coming for all of us. Her death is not the failure of your faith, but the culmination of it. God with us, even in the darkest moments of human existence, where we face full-on the futility of this age. Death is still our enemy. It is God’s enemy, too. He didn’t create us to be torn away from those we love, but that is the price of redemption. Sin had to die so that we could embrace the fullness of eternal life. It’s so rarely true that couples die together.

You will survive this and even thrive in the life Father still has ahead for you. Trust that the Jesus you’ve known all your life will fulfill your heart in ways you cannot conceive. Don’t focus too much on the questions that plague you. Just wait until his glory comes. Grieve with the Father whose heart even hurts more than youea at the toll this fallen world has taken from you. Find him there and what he does in you will become a great comfort to others. Even Paul despaired of life in a crushing experience he speaks of in II Corinthians 1. He could only make sense of it knowing the comfort they would receive in it would make them more comforting to others who traverse the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

You have my prayers and love. I’m happy to do whatever I can to hold your heart in the presence of the Father. He’s big enough to get you through this. But for now, it just hurts. I get it. Let it hurt. Don’t run from the pain; run to him in it.

To be continued…

We’ll switch the headline here, but the story continues. Read part 6 here:

Part 6:  When You Don’t Get The Miracle You Want…

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In the Shadow of Death, Part 4

4 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This is a continuing email exchange between Wayne and a man who is struggling with healing, faith, love, trust, and mortality as his wife appears to be dying from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both held in their hearts for her healing.

You can read from the beginning starting here.

From Alan on May 8, 2019 (12 days after the first email):

I wanted to share an amazing thing that I realized this morning: I’m not freaking out. God has taken the words you have shared with me and used them as living water that is flowing peacefully in my soul. It is as if the raging waves of emotion have heeded His command “Peace, Be still.”

Don’t get me wrong, I have wept, and prayed with all of my might. But the sense of sheer abandonment I was abiding in is slowly being replaced by His being made more real to me. I actually sense Him in a different way than I ever have before.

There is no way to sugar-coat what facing the possible death of the woman I have loved most of my life feels like. It’s a nightmare, a horror story. What’s different is that now I am a little less scared.

Lynn is smiling at me more these past couple of days. Yesterday evening she thanked me for serving her. I told her it was my honor and pleasure to do so. She grabbed me as I was leaning over the bed to better hear what she was saying and planted a big kiss on my cheek. It was awesome!

She is wanting to get up again and to try and walk. Who knows how this will play out but God? I do know that I still believe for her healing, but in a calmer way than before. His peace has invaded my faith.  We’re thankful for another day and are even more thankful for His presence that is walking with us.

Wayne’s Response:

I love this.  Evidently, she’s doing better, if she wants to try to get up.  I wish at times like this we knew what God was doing, but we almost never do. Abiding in his love and living in the uncertainty of the present is how so much of my journey has gone. This is the best place, regardless of what happens, to be “in the Spirit”. If Father brings healing your joy will be overwhelming. If she lingers awhile in the twilight of her cancer, you’ll have words to say and love to share, and if (and I pray not), this is her home going, then you’ll have the bittersweet days of watching your love be stronger than the tragedy that has beset you.

I am thankful as well for each day you have. I, too, am praying for the miracle of miracles that heals her body and gives you years and years together. And I am so grateful that Father has led you to this point in the midst of it all.

From Alan on May 11, 2019 (15 days after the first email):

Wayne, as always, thank you. Perhaps I spoke too soon about not being freaked out. I am so sad to think of her not being here. Even though she is bed-bound now, at least she is still here. We can still hold hands and talk to each other even though it’s hard for her. Of course, I hate that she has been stuck in that bed for weeks, but selfishly there is a peace in knowing she will be there to smile at me and say “Good morning.”

I have been weeping more and more because my love for her is pleading please get better, please don’t go! But, Heaven is silent, no miracles on the horizon that I can see. The emptiness and gloom that I see in my life without her are too much to consider. Everywhere I turn in this house I see something to do with her, some touch she added to make it our home. Maybe I am too emotional, but this is just so hard.

Wayne’s Response:

I know that it is, Alan. Someone once told me the reason we have so much fear and anxiety in our imagined futures (life without Lynn), is that we cannot imagine grace. Therefore, we are always in our future alone, having to survive by our own skills and we just can’t see a way through it. But when we actually get there, God is there too, with resources we can’t contemplate until we’re there.

I am confident he will be with you each day, in this crisis and through it. Heaven is not silent; it only seems so to you.

I don’t know how many years you’ve had with Lynn, but I have watched many people go through this. They do survive, and even thrive in a future God still has for them. You can’t imagine it now; I get that. But you will go on and all the memories and experiences you have had with her will live on in you too. Grief takes the sting of the memories we have about someone we love and turns them into the joy of having known and experienced them. You’re not there yet, so I don’t think you need to rush it. Just know you won’t be alone, not for one day, not for one second.

Right now, you’re loving her in the uncertainty of whether this is her time or not.  That is the most difficult place I know of, and though you are not sufficient to that task, he is. And I do trust him in all that’s unfolding both for you and Lynn. You don’t control the outcome here. She doesn’t either. It just means you have to put everything on his lap every day and roll with whatever comes—joy or pain.  I’m so sorry, brother. I wish I could save you from this.

Though I don’t think God is causing any of this, he will cause it to work for good. It’s what he does—triumph out of tragedy.

From Alan on May 17, 2019 (21 days after his first email):

Every night as I tuck her into the hospice bed, we bump fists and say, “Another day!” Lately I have had to help her make a fist, but that is ok. She even instigates it if I should forget.

I have wept more in the past couple of days than I wanted to. Your words have so strengthened me and I thought I was making great progress in being “ready.” I have a ways to go.

Yesterday was the worst day in the recent nightmare and probably in four years. She woke up with her big brown eyes shining at me and we talked some and I helped her exercise her legs in the bed. The CNA comes on Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday to give her a bath (in the bed) and I was getting her stuff together for that as I always do. Out of the blue, Lynn began to I guess hallucinate or become paranoid – she started telling me to “make sure the cameras are off.” I tried to reassure her but it only got worse. Eventually, she was so agitated that she was crying out, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die. Take me to the hospital.” I called the hospice folks and they said to go ahead and give her some of the medication they have provided for pain and agitation. I did and eventually she settled and fell asleep.

Hospice wants me to keep her medicated “around the clock.” It’s driving me crazy not to be able to talk to her at all. I mean I can talk but to not have her respond even with a fist bump is creating a new level of sorrow. It’s like a new vein of tears has been tapped.

I am still praying for her to be miraculously healed. But, Wayne, for the first time I asked God to take her as opposed to letting her suffer like that. I really do not want Him to take her, I want Him to heal her and be like Jesus to Mary and Martha – “Did I not say if you believe you will see the glory of God?” I’ve felt like the Holy Spirit at one time was prompting me to think about what we would do with a miraculously healed Lynn. I prayed, “Lord, help us to handle your glory the way you want us to, to give you the glory in the way that pleases you.”

She is sleeping soundly and has been for over 24 hours. I will help her make a fist in a little while and say, “Guess what? Another day!” I can barely see the screen to type this so I will stop. I love Lynn so much.

From Wayne

I’m not sure why you worry about how many tears you cry. Tears are not a sign of defeat or lack of faith. The sorrow you feel is directly tied to the depth of love you two have shared. Cry all you want. Embrace God in the tears. He understands your pain better than you do. He often, “with loud cries and tears” offered himself to God.

As I’ve said previous, this is the worst of all times with someone we love, when they linger in the throes of death. Once they pass, we are freer to grieve to healing. Now we’re just caught in the ongoing nightmare as you call it.  It’s hard. I’ve been there, not with Sara thankfully, but with others I love. Would that they get healed, or pass on quicker, but her lingering has to do with her desire to survive and some work God is yet doing in her heart and soul. Death doesn’t come easily very often, but what a gift to have you in her pocket at this season. She is not alone. She has someone sharing her pain and uncertainty with her.

Somehow, I think we’ll see at the end of all things, what a valuable time this is for you and for her. Pain is not our enemy. Embrace it and the tears, as well as God in them, for he is surely there and someday you’ll see this all as a gift that’s so hard to see now.

And trust the hospice people about medication. They have been through this a hundred times or more. I know you want to keep her ‘aware’, but that serves you more than her. I don’t write that easily. I know those are hard words, but the fears and pain that overwhelm her aren’t worth it for either of you.

Loving in the chaos of this fallen world is not easy. My heart breaks that this has gone on so long for you, but you or your prayers are not the determining factors here. Would that they were. There are just greater realities here than either of us can fathom. We don’t control events; we just do our part and entrust the rest to our loving Father.

You’re in our prayers, Alan.  I only have words of honor for you and what you’re going through and how you’re responding. I can’t imagine God saying anything at the moment than, “That’s Alan, my beloved son and in whom I’m well pleased with how he’s loving my Lynn.”

To be continued…

Read Part 5 here. 

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Water, Water, Everywhere

3 Comments / Kenya /

Before I get to some great news from Kenya, I want to catch you up on a few things around here.  Last week I was asked to appear with Vince Coakley on his Charlotte-based radio show and discuss the crisis of confidence people are having with the clergy.  You can listen to that here.

Additionally, Sara and I will be taking some vacation over the next couple of weeks, spending some time at Shaver Lake with my dad and later my daughter’s family. We are looking forward to the break and will return to the office here on August 20. If you can keep the emails to a minimum during this time, that would be great.

And while we’re gone, I’ll continue posting the email exchange I’ve had with Alan that I began in the post, In the Shadow of Death. I’ve done three parts already and probably have ten more to go as we talked about hope for healing, faith, reality, grief, and mortality in the throes of metastasized breast cancer. There’s a lot in this exchange that we rarely talk about. I also pre-recorded some fascinating podcasts for you throughout August at TheGodJourney.com.

Now on to Kenya. Many of you followed our saga in Kenya this winter after floodwaters polluted the water system for a school we have helped support in an impoverished area near Bungoma. Their sewage had comingled with their water supply, and the children were all getting sick, as were other residents in the area who also use that water. If they didn’t drill a new well, the government was going to close the school.

Many of you stepped up and gave over $30,000 to drill a new well. Amazingly, it hit an aquifer deep underground that had hit some of the purest water in Kenya and at such a huge pressure that it would not only serve the school but could be given away to the community around them. When the government tested the water, they said it was some of the purest in all of Kenya and encouraged them to bottle and sell it. The need for bottled water is vast in that region.

So, you stepped up again with another $42,000 to build a water-bottling enterprise, whose profits will help provide for the school and other projects in Kenya that we have been supporting. They just had their inspection for the new water plant, and this is what they sent me yesterday:

On behalf of the Forkland community and also IGEM ministry at large, we would like to send our gratitude for you and the entire team for the great and awesome support towards this project.

In addition to the school, this water is serving more than 16,000 consumers and the number will still increase. This is amazing. Typhoid and Diarrhea have been reduced by a large margin in this region. People are asking, especially mainstream churches who are surrounding this community, whether anything good come from Forkland? But the answer is yes; Jesus is able. We don’t have anything which this community can offer to you but just prayers.

About our bottled mineral water, we now have full confidence towards our target. Our premises have already been approved by Ministry of Health, Water Services Board, National Environmental Department, Ministry of Housing  and Rural Development, and Kenya Bureau of Standards.

We were surprised to hear that our water, Springs Garden Mineral Water, is pure and recommended to the World Health Organization.  We have been receiving congratulations  from the different departments. Everything is working out great and we have many customers—hence more orders. Wow!

Here are some pictures they sent along:

The filling station for the water bottles.

 

Each bottle is hand-filled at the water-station.

 

This new enterprise came as such a surprise and will be a future source of revenue for them in years to come. What an unanticipated blessing in the long saga of our connection to these dear people. Your compassion for them and your godly generosity toward them continues to amaze me, and I suspect delights the Father.

Your help is appreciated more than you know. All contributions are tax-deductible in the US. And, as always, every dollar you send goes to the need in Kenya. We do not (nor do they) take out any administrative or money transfer fees. Please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

 

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In the Shadow of Death, Part 3

5 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This is a continuing email exchange between Wayne and a man who is struggling with healing, faith, love, trust, and mortality as his wife appears to be dying from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both held in their hearts for her healing.

You can read from the beginning starting here.

From Alan on May 3, 2019 (seven days after first email)

Lynn is treading water, and I am treading with her. I continue to pray and believe for a miraculous intervention and healing in this realm but have also started praying, “May your will be done, Father.”

It occurred to me that most of my life I have equated asking the Father for “His will to be done” with something negative. Almost as if that is a prayer option guaranteed to disappoint.

He has done amazing things already – Lynn has lived four years and four months longer than the original prognosis of two to three months rendered in January 2015. She has lived three months longer than hospice thought when they were called in early February. They said two to three days.

What Alan wants is a Lynn completely well on this earth, totally cancer-free and full of renewed health and vitality. What God wants may be the same, or it may be different and may include her being cancer-free and full of renewed health and vitality in the eternal realm.

I see a need in my life to trust Him entirely and be comfortable with praying, “Your will be done” in all situations. I think you would call it learning to “live loved.” It’s funny, I preach His love as limitless, unending and without condition, yet I am finding that I have much to learn myself about believing the very thing I share with others.

So we wait. I feel terrible for Lynn to be confined to an uncomfortable hospice bed, totally reliant on me for juice or water, unable to go outside and enjoy the warm weather she loves so much. She isn’t complaining. She’s never complained. She’s the same strong, peaceful woman I have been privileged to know and love all these years.

I am getting impatient I guess – what a selfish way to think. I pray, “God, please either heal her or take her to be with you.” I wonder if that prayer stems more from my discomfort than hers.

Nevertheless, we wait upon the Lord. Thankful that He has brought folks like yourself along for the journey. I am not overstating when I say that your emails have helped sustain me. Thank you for caring and allowing God to use you in our lives.

My Response:

I hate your pain but love your note and your heart in the midst of this. In the face of great need, the lie that haunts us is that there must be one more thing we can do that will turn the tide as if all we’ve done to date while well-intentioned just wasn’t enough to move the Creator. He’s waiting for someone to do just the right thing, or say the right words. It’s just not true. Who knows how God works, how he determines the days of our lives, how he intervenes or doesn’t? We don’t.

But I trust this. If there’s more he needs or wants you to say or do here, he will make it known to you. He has had plenty of time to heal Lynn, so we might consider at this point that healing may not happen.  Love her and say your good-byes as best you can in trust that all of this is in his hands. And God making it clear won’t come through the anguished advice of well-intentioned though misguided friends.

If this is her homecoming, he is still preparing things in her, even though you can’t see them from the outside. He’s making ready her part of his bride and will liberate her into the next life at the right time. It may not look that way to you or me, but he knows what he is doing. I love how you’re loving her and how you are learning to live loved even in the most difficult and painful of circumstances. It will bear fruit in your heart until the end of your days.

From Alan on May 6, 2019 (ten days after first email):

Have I said “thank you” yet? You are doing the absolute work of God Himself in my life. In the darkest of hours, your words are His light cutting through to my heart. I am dumbfounded at the power and anointing that jumps off of the screen as I read over and over what God has given you for me.

I was imagining sitting with you at a coffee bar and getting gut-level honest. The words from Heaven that you sent to me about loving Lynn well had two effects:

First, they encouraged me beyond my ability to articulate. As I mentioned at that time, they came from the Holy Spirit directly.

Second, they cut like a hot knife into the recesses of the past, exposing the truth that many times I have not “loved Lynn well.” I’ve had wandering eyes, incredibly ungodly thoughts and imaginations, and a list of regrets that would fill pages.

I have begged God while sitting at her bedside, hot tears streaming down my face for “another chance, Father!” I want a do-over, an opportunity to love her every day with the knowledge of the pain that I have now. I want another chance to ‘love her as Christ loves the church, giving himself for her.” Thank you for sharing with me that God sees me doing that now.

I feel so special in all of this, as if you are penning a personal book little by little to me. I am confident that you have touched millions of folks and changed their lives.

Please know that your words are like a spiritual solution in an IV bottle that God is sending into my veins. I literally feel His presence when we communicate, and that is  comfort for which I am desperately grateful.

My Response:

Alan, your gratefulness is well noted, and appreciated. But this exchange is about you and God’s grace and love in the midst of such horrible experience…

And I would say this, “loving a woman well” is not a standard of perfection by which we judge the past; it is the trajectory of our growth. You’ve grown into this ability to love Lynn the way God wants Lynn loved in her passing if this is her time. Of course, none of us know that, so it makes it difficult to say the good-byes with people we love.  Entrust whatever healing might come into the hands of your gracious Father and spend this time as if it is her passing. It may not be, and if it’s not you’ll have no regrets. If it is, you’ll be grateful for the closure you’ve had in the midst of it.

All is in Father’s hands. This moment is all we have, not what could or might be. We just have the moment and his grace inhabits it with us. We are not alone in any of it, and we are not abandoned to our own wisdom or resources.

“Father, hold Alan and Lynn in the palm of your hands today. Cover them with life and light and grace and comfort. As you are seemingly drawing Lynn into your eternity, may she be totally lost in you and your love. The same for Alan, Father. Overwhelm him with your love, quiet his anxious thoughts and let yours spell the day in his heart and mind.  Jesus, may your grace be clear as you stand alongside Alan, feeling everything that he feels and knowing how best to soothe his soul and bear his pain. Spirit of the Most High, do your work for “those who mourn” until grief of this difficult passing be swallowed up in all the joys their relationship contained, and all it will contain for ages to come.”

To be continued…

Read Part 4 here. 

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In the Shadow of Death, Part 2

2 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

This post is a continuing story begun in a previous blog, about Alan’s struggle with love, trust, and healing as his wife appeared to be dying from metastasized breast cancer in the face of a promise they both hold in their hearts for her healing.

This second email came a few days after our first exchange.

From Alan on April 28, 2019 (two days after first email):

Lynn is still suspended between heaven and earth. She told me a few days ago she was ready to “leave” and I asked her why. (Just a few days prior and all along the journey she has said she is believing God will miraculously heal her). She answered my “Why?” with, “Because it’s God’s plan.”

I later took her by the hand and walked her to the door and said, “It’s okay, Lynn. You can go now. I’ll be along sometime.”

I thought she’d pass to the other side, but she is still in limbo. I think her body is not at the place of shutting down yet, even though she is ready.

So, I’m giving her water and juice as she needs, fluffing her pillows and staying with her. A lot of folks have dropped off as the journey has gotten more difficult, which is why your encouragement means more than I can articulate.

I still believe for a miracle in this realm, I feel as long as she is breathing, there is a chance. But, if she wants to go, I want her to go in peace. I will be devastated but will thank God she is with Him.

My Response:

I don’t’ know where I got this line in my head, but it has been a personal mission since I heard it—“I’ve done one thing in my life—I’ve loved a woman well.” Regardless of what else happens in and through my life, at its end, I want to be able to say I loved the woman God gave me well.  And even more importantly, I want to hear her say that I have.

You, my friend, are doing that. You’re loving a woman well, giving of yourself even in your sorrow and pain without anything in return. Bless you!  Bless you!  Bless you! So many stories don’t end as well as we are led to believe. We all want painless, easy passings into the life beyond. But death is a bear for most people. They linger far longer than we think they would, even when it seems like there’s no sense in them staying.

But dying has its work too, I think. It is shaping you and her for the transition she’s about to experience. So, just keep hanging in there, Alan. This is what love means. This is grace to the fullest when you feel it the least. May God give you all the strength and courage you need to love this woman well until there’s no more to love, on this side….

I write with tears in my eyes for you, Alan. I have a sense of how hard this must be for you. I have tasted a bit of that pain, but fortunately, not yet with my beloved.  Loving her through this process is a great work, perhaps the most significant thing you’ll ever do. May you have joy and peace that is beyond the moment and may it overwhelm your heart.

Joy beyond the tears, joy greater than the pain.

From Alan on April 30, 2019:

I am without adequate words to reply. I have no idea how you feel about the present day “gifts of the Spirit,” but let me assure you the Holy Spirit gave you the words that are like an arrow to the center of my wondering–why the lingering? Why not a healing? What is going on?

I thank you so much for being sensitive to Him, to write as He leads. You have been used by God like a huge hypodermic needle full of grace and love to encourage me… to help me go farther than I could fathom. I am blown away.

I’ve got the God-is-sovereign friends fighting the take-dominion-over-the-cancer” friends, fighting-the-have-you-tried-juicing-these-11-vegetables friends all vying for my attention. God has used you to blow all of that away and let me see that I have hope in Him – regardless of how this all ends. (I cringed writing that because I want it to end with her healed and living to 80, celebrating our kids getting married, having grandchildren and all of those things).

Trust me; there is nothing noble at this point in my asserting, “His will be done.” But, in the end, that is what I want, no matter how awful the future seems to be when I imagine it without my sweet Lynn.

Wayne, God has used you beyond my ability to say. Thank you so much! When so many things are vying for your attention, that you would let yourself be used by God to help me is an amazing blessing.

My Response:

I sensed Father’s voice in both emails I sent you.  That’s actually why I sent them. I felt they were more from God than me, but happy to be some fingers a keyboard for him, if that’s what is happening here.

Sadly, Christians are notorious for giving lousy counsel in the throes of death, more interested in making them feel better than in comforting people who are going through pain. I hope someday we learn simply to weep with those who weep…

To be continued…

Read Part 3 here. 

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In the Shadow of Death, Part 1

27 Comments / In the Shadow of Death /

Last April, Alan wrote to me from what he feared would be his wife’s death bed. They were struggling because they both had a firm conviction that God was going to heal her. She had been diagnosed in late 2014 with metastasized breast cancer and given only months to live. Though she had defied those odds by years, her disease continued to progress relentlessly. Why wasn’t God healing her? What more did they need to do to make the difference?

Disease, healing, death, faith, truth, love, mortality, and eternity all converge in death’s shadow, where our emotions are rawest and where it isn’t always easy to separate reality from illusion. Do you keep praying for healing, or take advantage of those last days to have the tender moments to say good-bye to each other? If we do say good-bye, are we demonstrating a lack of faith that will nullify the healing we want? There are no easy answers here that will easily fill in the blanks. Discerning God’s purpose and resting in it can seem all but impossible given an outcome we want so desperately.

That contact began a lengthy email conversation over the intervening months as he let me into the tenderest part of his heart. I wanted to provide a safe place where faith and honesty could walk together as he navigated the uncertain days ahead. With his permission, I want to share that exchange with you, which still continues to this day. I’m going to do it in multiple posts over the next couple of weeks to let you live through the story with us and the things we’ve been learning together, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

This struggle is all the more complicated when people believe that God is still active today and that he still heals the sick and raises the dead. I believe that. God does make himself known through miracles, gifts of wisdom and discernment, and healing. I’ve seen God do outrageous miracles throughout my life. I’ve also been in many situations where healing seemed so important, but one didn’t come despite the ardent prayers and belief of those involved.

It is not always easy to understand why God doesn’t give us all the miracles we think his love would guarantee, especially when someone we love is at death’s door. We can quickly turn on him, thinking him unloving, or condemn ourselves for not doing enough for him to act. All of this comes into question during our conversation and the events that unfolded. We’ll all face it, with people we love and eventually with our own mortality. Learning how to transit the Valley of the Shadow of Death trusting a loving Father will make those days far easier.

It all began one day in April with this email:

From Alan on April 26:

I have been crying out to God for mercy as my beautiful wife, Lynn is literally at death’s door. She was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer three days before Christmas in 2014. The oncologist said it had spread all over her body and gave her 2 1/2 to 3 months to live. But she is still here, and I literally thank God for every day.

Still, I have prayed daily over these four plus years for her complete physical healing, which hasn’t come. Sadly, last December, a scan revealed that there were “places in her brain” where cancer had spread. She declined in a matter of a few weeks, and I had to call in hospice whose nurse said, “She will likely be gone in two to three days.” That was in early February.

Since then, she rebounded remarkably, going from being bedbound to walking around without assistance. We were so hopeful that the miracle of complete physical healing might be any day. It was weird, Wayne, because I could not understand why God did not just heal her all the way. Nevertheless, every night before bed, we would bump fists and say to one another, “Another day!”

Last week she plummeted medically and lost her balance. I preach on my podcast and in opportunities where I am asked to speak, Isaiah 53 and the horror Jesus endured for our healing. I genuinely believe miracles are for today and that the Word is true. I share things that I have learned through your ministry, and I do believe He loves me.

She told me a couple of days ago, “You need to let me go.” I was devastated. Up to this point, she was all-in for being healed in this realm. (I know she will be healed when she steps fully into the eternal realm, but we both were believing for her physical healing now in this body.)

Through tears, I walked her to the door and told her, “Go ahead, Lynn. Enter into your rest. Listen as God says to you, “Well done.” I guess her body is not ready yet to shut down even though she is ready to leave. The last three days have been brutal, watching her decline more and more, still asking God for a miracle, and wanting her suffering to end either by that miracle or by stepping into eternity.

So here I am, an ordained minister, a veteran Christian, and a crying, broken mess. It would not be so difficult if the statements in Scripture were not so affirmative. “Speak to this mountain and believe” “Ask anything in My name, and it shall be done” “By His stripes, you are healed” “If any two of you agree it shall be done” and on and on.

I find myself having thoughts like, “Why doesn’t it work?” I ask God, and He is silent. I know He is not a genie, but I find myself thinking if we can’t trust these healing Scriptures, why even bother to ask? I know the answers I would give to someone in my position, it just seems so much more difficult to walk through personally.

Wayne, it’s incredibly hard. The Bible says, “the two will become one flesh,” and I feel like I am being ripped apart brutally.

My Response:

Your email broke my heart this afternoon. I am touched by your need, the passion you have for Lynn, your confusion at the healing Scriptures that seem to put God’s power at our disposal, and the horror of standing at death’s door with the love of your life. I can’t imagine… My heart really goes out to you and please know that I am praying for you in this most trying of circumstances.

I have no answers, as you well know. Just a compassionate heart and one that will hold you and Lynn before the Father today. I know God heals. I have witnessed some extraordinary miracles in my life, and I’ve also seen people die in the face of the most ardent, sincere, selfless prayers. As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme or reason as to why this one and not that one, at least that we can see from here. I do know God heals. I also know that healing is not at my desire or even diligent prayer. Yes, the Scriptures are confusing. I know they mean something, but am pretty sure it isn’t what we are first inclined to think.

I also know it is exhausting for people to try to get healed, or to try to get a loved one healed. Even trying can rob us of the precious moments we could have with them if indeed they are the final ones in this life. In the end, I know that all of my life, and that of my loved ones, is in his hands. Not everything he does will make sense to me in the confines of this age, but will in the age to come. There lies our hope. Whether Lynn rebounds or slips more directly into Father’s hands, is not ours to control.

It sounds like you’ve loved her well. Keep on loving her to the end. Her healing was never in your hands. You’ve had to walk a most painful journey, and my heart goes out to you. If I weren’t in Norway at the moment, I’d give you a call just to express that more personally and to let you know you are not alone at this moment. That God understands ALL your pain and disappointment in these circumstances, and his love will swallow them all up in time.

Hurt with him. Grieve with him. Hold your question before him. He will get you through this. Faith does not rest on the outcomes we want most, but a Father’s love we can trust even when don’t understand.

Please keep me posted on what unfolds here. I’ll be praying for you both, that the comfort, power, and fullness of God’s presence will be your strength and refuge every day.

To be continued…

Next post in this series

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So, Why God?

2 Comments / Encouragement /
This is a copy of our quarterly newsletter sent out earlier this month. If you didn’t get one and would like to stay in touch with what’s going on around Lifestream you can sign up here.

“Would you follow God if there was no hell?”

Someone asked me that a few years ago and my immediate reaction was, “Of course, I would.”

If they’d asked me that forty years before, however, I doubt I would have answered with such certainty. Back then, my relationship with God was more confusing. We talked about God being a loving Father, but only for those who did everything he wanted. His holiness was his most terrifying feature, and the best reason I was given to follow him was my fear of the consequences if I didn’t. Threatened with eternity in flames was all the motivation I needed to try and do everything I thought he required to stay in his good graces.

I wanted more than anything for God to like me and bless me by keeping me from harm. Looking back now, I realize I was not in an endearing relationship with my Creator as a beloved child; I was caught in the Stockholm Syndrome with God. Like the victim of a kidnapping, I sought to ingratiate myself to the one I feared more than I loved.

Even worse, I could never be sure if I’d done enough. Fear and shame were constant if unwelcome companions. I was always aware of my shortcomings and failures, and everyone else’s around me since the standard he commanded is that we would be as holy as he was. If that’s who he is, who wants to be like that?

That, however, is not the relationship God had in mind for us, and it is not the relationship that will transform us into his image.

Jesus didn’t seem to live with his Father that way, but he was perfect. And he did call his Father, “our Father,” and told us these things so that our joy might be in him and that would make his joy complete. No one I knew, however, lived that way. To us, God was a demanding deity, and we lived every day under threats, obligations, and a constant demand for perfect performance.

People who live with God this way cannot experience the fullness of life in him and cannot effectively share his love in the world. Fear cannot produce it. Jesus showed us he was not the most terrifying presence in the world, but the most endearing. Love was the capital of his kingdom, not obligation and guilt.

So, back to our original question. Would you follow God if there were no hell? Fear of hell was just about the only reason people got saved when I was young. No one wants to jump through all those religious hoops unless the consequences of not doing so are dire. Whatever hell is, I don’t doubt its existence, where finally sin devours its prey. I’m just not convinced fearing will be enough to save you.

Receiving his love is salvation from all sin wrecks in this world, and in the one to come.

We need a more compelling reason to invite our children, friends, and even strangers to consider God’s reality better than, “You’re a horrible person and God is out to get you if you don’t repent.”

God is not the executioner in the redemption story; he’s the rescuer. Sin is leading us to destruction. Our self-preferring natures pull us into the darkness. But salvation, according to the new covenant, does not come to people looking to appease an angry deity, but to those who engage an affectionate relationship with the Creator of all.

Unfortunately, many people have confused God himself with the religion we’ve created in his name, and that makes it difficult to let God into their lives. People in relative ease often keep God at a distance. They take in just enough Christianity to soothe their conscience, and to satisfy their fears of the afterlife but don’t want too much of him because he might intrude on their pleasures.

People caught in tragic circumstances, or deep pain often call out to him, seeking relief by promising God they will do anything he wants if he’ll just help them. Especially when he doesn’t answer them the way they hoped, they begin to doubt his existence or doubt his love.

Neither of these leads to a satisfying connection with him. That’s why only a few people engage God regularly, making him part of the decisions they make and how they treat the people around them.

I sat on a deck in the high Sierras surrounded by pine and cedar trees with a young man who did not grow up with any spiritual influence at all. “What if there is a God who made all of this, who loves you more than anyone else you’ve ever known, and he wants to walk with you as you explore your life in his Creation?”

He looked up at me and smiled, his eyes misted with tears. “I would love that.”

Who wouldn’t?

So, why God? Why follow him instead of just living life the best we can and doing what makes us happy?

Here are five great reasons for wanting to know God that have nothing to do with fearing hell:

First, because God himself is the most engaging presence in the universe, full of life, laughter, joy, and wisdom more precious than wealth or any other friendship. If you haven’t experienced him this way, I’m sure I got a bit of an eye roll there, but honestly the things he adds to my life fill it with wonder.

Second, because this world makes no sense without him. All that is real is not visible. I have sensed his fingerprints in the Creation and his presence in the seeming coincidences of life—meeting a person at just the right time or having wisdom drop in my heart from a conversation, sentence in a book, or a song lyric. I’ve sensed his calling to me from a very young age, and inside him, I find the courage and meaning that makes my life complete.

Third, because navigating successfully through a broken creation is beyond our best resources and wisdom. Self-indulgence leads to the corruption and injustice that stains our world and harms people I love. How do you navigate circumstances you can’t control that seem unjust? How do sickness and tragedy make sense inside God’s love and his ultimate purpose to redeem the world back to himself? Without his active input in my life, I only consider how things affect me, and that’s a painful way to live in this universe. He has a way of causing the sufferings of this world to fold into a plan of our transformation and his redemption that is spectacular. I wouldn’t want to live without it.

Fourth, I am powerless to resist my unseemlier appetites and desires, if he does not give me the wisdom to untangle them, the strength to refuse them, and the fullness to disarm what they prey on in me. Without him, I’m adrift in a world of indulgence, with him I can learn to say no to those things that add more pain in the world and yes to a path that leaves more grace in it.

Fifth, because I want to be part of something bigger than myself and my own existence. God not only Created this planet but now moves it to its ultimate redemption. By showing us what it truly means to be loved and to love, I can become part of that unfolding purpose and encourage others on that path as well.

Far from being the kill-joy religion makes God out to be, or the excuse for our injustices to others, God becomes a valued companion in this journey called life. When you know who this amazing God is, “Be holy as I am holy,” is not the most fearsome command in Scripture, but the most engaging invitation. When you know him, you will want to be like him.

And if you want to be like him, it’s great to know he has provided everything for that to happen. All I have to do is learn to live in his love, and he’s the one who teaches us that, too.

Now, I know people will read this, frustrated that their relationship with God doesn’t feel like that. Despite their prayers, Bible reading, church attendance, and trying to be good, God still feels like a distant deity rarely involved in real circumstances of their daily existence. I lived a long time there myself, so I understand. The five things I’ve described above are the fruit of a long trajectory in learning how to live in his love. It doesn’t happen overnight, with a snap of the fingers or an ecstatic Jesus encounter.

Learning how to lean into his reality and recognize his fingerprints about us is a lifelong quest, perhaps the greatest adventure our humanity offers. Our appetites can betray us, our intellect often deceives us, and the world so easily distracts us with its amusements and its fears. Cultivating the inner life to become increasingly sensitive to the ways Jesus makes himself known does take some focus and participation from us.

If you don’t know how to do that, find someone who does and ask if he or she will help you. Don’t look for a miracle cure, but someone who can help you see God’s fingerprints in your own journey and the realities his Spirit is offering you to take you further down that path.

Try not to get discouraged when it doesn’t happen quickly or as easily as you might hope. Ask God to connect you to a person or two with a similar hunger. Please don’t give up, because it does take a while. This life is not like going to Disneyland; it is a real engagement with the Maker of heaven and earth.

Knowing him starts in small ways and over time grows to become the most valuable part of your life.

If you want some resources for this journey, check out He Loves Me, Transitions, and Engage.

Upcoming Travel

My planned trip to Kenya this July had to be postponed due to road construction in the areas I needed to visit. So, I’m getting extra time this summer to be home, give attention to the projects God has put before me, and to take some vacation. This fall I am contemplating trips to Atlanta, GA, Damascus, VA,  Michigan, and Florida may be on tap for this fall. You can keep checking my Travel Schedule, or if you’d like to be notified if I’m planning to visit your area, you can sign up on our email list and include your address.
In Case You Missed it…

Here are some of the podcasts and blogs that have generated the most interest over the last couple of months.

Podcasts at TheGodJourney.com:

Wayne’s blog at Lifestream.org

Water In the Desert

We are so grateful for those of you who joined us in helping out our Kenyan friends this spring. First, a school for orphans and impoverished children that we support had their water cistern compromised during a flood where their sewage spilled into their water supply. This cistern not only served the school but the nearby community that has no source of water. The government was ready to close down the school. Thanks to many of you, we were able to help them drill a new well. And even that turned out better than we hoped. During drilling, they tapped into an unknown water source with water so plentiful and pure that government inspectors recommended they bottle and sell it. So, we also helped them build a bottling plant, and soon the future needs of the school will be met by their own enterprise.

Also, our friends in Pokot suddenly were confronted with a new tribe of people that heard about their food and water and came a long way to seek help. Enough of you gave to help them bridge the four months they needed to until a future harvest. They were effusively grateful for the generosity, so many of you showed to help them at such a critical time. I’m continually amazed by the impact this website and podcast have had on a desperate corner of the world.

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