In order to eventually be healthy, I knew that I’d have to be honest with my grief. That didn’t make everyone around me comfortable; but to be truthful, the crushing heaviness of grief doesn’t allow much room for patience with those who are ignorant because they haven’t yet walked the path.

 

Huge life-changing loss isn’t something you ever get over—but it is something you can eventually get past. In the beginning it’s measured by less of the bad, but in time can be measured by more of the good.

 

It’s been four years now; and I’ve thought some about people I’ve known who’ve hanged on to grief and worn it as their life’s cloak. That would be easy enough to do, but it’s sure not appealing. So in the same deliberate way that I made myself be honest with grief, I’m making myself be honest about finding joy in living again.

 

Someone brand new on the path-nobody-wants-to-walk asked me the other day, “So…how is it after four years”?

 

My answer: it’s better; and this year I can honestly say that I feel happy again. I smile more and laugh; and my best friend, who has known me since we were 12 years old, says the lilt is back in my voice.

 

I’m unabashedly aware that I’ve not gotten here under my own strength. I won’t have a clue until I get to heaven, and can ask my Abba Father, just how many people have prayed for me; but I know it’s an enormous number. And I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you.

 

Job 8:21 was one of my Scripture on the go verses years ago, for the Sunday school class I taught and loved; and the tiny little slip of paper has been in my Bible for a long time. I’d read it periodically and trust it would eventually be true for me; and now, for today, it is.

 

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter

 

and your lips with shouts of joy.

Job 8:21

 

Prayer shaming: a newly minted phrase igniting sparks while it illuminates different opinions. While the phrase itself might be new, it really just illustrates that questioning the effectiveness of prayer, and the power of the one true God, isn’t new at all.

 

Prayer, as well as any other words, can be useless platitudes or a methodology of force that rearranges the very essence of created beings.

 

 

Whoever is a believer in Christ

is a new creation.

The old way of living

has disappeared.

A new way of living

has come into existence.

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

 

Violence is evidence of a heart that needs change; and true change is always going to be an issue between two hearts—God’s and mine. People will be forever divided in opinion, but God is never confused by current events or surprised by our blustering words.

 

 

“Surely you must realize what I

and the other kings of Assyria

before me have done

to all the people of the earth!

Were any of the gods

of those nations

able to rescue their people

from my power?

 

Which of their gods

was able to rescue its people

from the destructive power

of my predecessors?

What makes you think your God

can rescue you from me?

 

Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you!

Don’t let him fool you like this!

I say it again—

no god of any nation or kingdom

has ever yet been able

to rescue his people

from me or my ancestors.

How much less

will your God rescue you

from my power!”

 

And Sennacherib’s officers further mocked

the Lord God and his servant Hezekiah,

heaping insult upon insult.

 

The king also sent letters scorning the Lord,

the God of Israel.

He wrote, “Just as the gods

of all the other nations

failed to rescue their people from my power,

so the God of Hezekiah will also fail.”

2 Chronicles 32:13-17

I won’t spoil the story by giving away the ending, but will say that it didn’t turn out well for King Sennacherib.