A million questions. A heart shattered into a thousand pieces. Anger, followed by numbness, followed by the feeling of not being able to breathe, and then a down pouring of tears. Tears that feel like they could flood an ocean. What words could comfort a heart like this? Oh my beautiful one, what words? The truth is, you don’t want words. Words to you feel cheap right now. So instead I honor you with pausing, and all of heaven holds it’s breath as we step into this most sacred place of profound pain. Your cries, your wailing, makes the Trinity stand at attention. All eyes are on you. We take a moment of silence for you.

Selah (A moment to pause).

Beautiful one, I am the God of the brokenhearted. It is no easy task seeing my beloved sons and daughters in anguish. If you think my heart is incapable of being broken, or that I somehow sit outside of your suffering, think again. I break open over and over, with you and for you. Your suffering is never just yours. Your pain is my pain. I have aways wept when you wept, and rejoiced when you rejoiced. You are a part of me.

I am closer now than ever. Right now you desperately need a Shepherd. A Father to carry you. A Hero to rescue you. A Savior to redeem this situation. You need the Christ who understands the depths of your suffering (the Christ who dragged His cross in agony to be crucified), and you need the Christ who rose from the dead three days later in triumphant victory. You need the whole Christ. And so I am here. My darling, the living Christ is here.

Selah.

I am a shield for you on all sides. When every fiber of your being feels like it is falling apart, I am a shield on all sides and I am holding you together.

Beautiful one, let the grief come. Let it be everything it needs to be. A loud uncontrollable wail, a speechless prayer, a moment of aggressive venting, I promise you, I am with you in all of it. Offer up your anger to me. Don’t try and repress it. Anger is an emotion that rises up as protection for you. It lets your body know something is not right, or that something was violated. Anger can be used to discern injustices and can be the very fuel needed to courageously jumpstart restorative correction and change. While anger is not a long-term, sustainable emotion, it is often a necessary stepping stone and it is a gift to you as one living in a broken world.

So dear child, feel all your emotions. The ones you especially don’t want to feel. Receive the healing that comes from hiding nothing in my presence. When you hide nothing, and every part of you is exposed, you are able to then also receive my love into every single part of your being. I am the one relationship you have where you don’t have to fear being misunderstood. You are fully seen and known by me. I am not surprised by or overwhelmed by you. I fully understand you. In order for you to heal, you need to know just how in-the-middle of this with you I am.

Grief is a kind of death. It’s a shedding, a surrendering, a letting go of. One of the hardest things about this part of the process is letting the right things be shed. Sometimes my kids let go of way more than is healthy. In an attempt to fully surrender the situation, they actually end up surrendering hope too. They make assumptions about my role in the matter. They allow circumstances to mean things about me and themselves that couldn’t be farther from the truth. And so not only are they grieving their pain, they are grieving a hopeful future and the reality of my boundless love for them. My beautiful one, I will never rush this part of your process, but at the right time, I will teach you how to grieve truer… to grieve with hope. Jesus wept bitterly when suffering impacted Him or the ones He loved, and yet He was fully confident in the final work of the resurrection and what this would mean for all creation. He grieved inside hope. Grieving without hope is actually grieving a lie. The truth is, if it still hurts, I’m not finished yet. The best is certainly and undeniably on it’s way. You cannot stop my goodness and mercy from running after you. My goodness is an impenetrable bubble that engulfs your whole life. You cannot escape it or exist outside of it.

I know it feels like you are in a fire. Everything about this is painful. You feel utterly and totally consumed by a violent flame and the one thing you are believing is that there is no way out.

Let me tell you a secret. To the one who is blind to my love for them, those flames will continue to feel excruciating. But to the one who dares to take hold of Me within the flame, they will find a God so close, a love so fierce that there actually isn’t anywhere safer and more alive they could possibly be. Trusting me in the greatest depths of your suffering will produce such an authority in you, that you’ll wonder why you ever settled for anything less. To the one who chooses to see my goodness, those flames will be a refinement and a purifying grace over you. On the other side of it, life will feel more and more of a gift. You will start to see others with so much more compassion and empathy. Gratitude will rise up out of your bones and will be the only filter through which you see. This is just ONE of the ways I will redeem your suffering.

My child, you are a masterpiece of my heart and imagination. You mean everything to me. Let me prove to you over and over and over that I am the Faithful One. I am more than capable of working with anything this broken world throws at you. I am for you. I am on your side and on your team. There is no sickness, sorrow, sin or death in my Kingdom. That should tell you how much I oppose all those things. When you pray for my will to be done, it’s ushering in those very things your heart aches for, and all creation groans for.

Oh sweet one… as I said before, no words can fully comfort you right now. And that’s okay. The time will come when you will start to believe me. For now, go eat something nourishing and get some rest. I love you and I’m so incredibly proud of you. We will tackle this mountain one day at a time.

Love, Papa.

Psalm 23:6 | Psalm 34:18 | Psalm 111:9 | Psalm 3:3 | 1 Peter 1: 6-7 | Isaiah 43:2 | Revelation 21: 4 |