Christian Living
I know that my grammar is weak and would like you to be honest and clear.
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Grief, Greater than Death
Although death offers much pain because of separation, there are greater ways to feel grief.
As a mother of five,the ups and downs of each individual brought many experiences.
Daily lives hold a bonding that brings laughter, tears, pride, and heartache.
You thrill at each new event shared with your small child. When they utter that first word, or take their first step.
The time they fall from a tree or the slide.
Overwhelming pride radiates as they recite that peace at school in front of an audience.
You recruit all of your friends and neighbors to watch them as they march in the band for the home coming parade.
Brag for months about how they hit a home run for the best team in town.
You also feel the pain when that first crush breaks their heart. And you have to assure them they will live through it.
Through those stormy teen years, there is doubt that you will even let them live to reach adults or that you will live long enough either. Each day is different experience.
However as hard as that control has been there is A time you give each one back to the Lord. A reminder that they are only loaned to you for a little while. Now you must let them make their own decisions and mistakes just as you do.
That final release and separation can stings like death.
Not because you can not see that child, or have a part in their life, but because the kind of daily fellowship you are use to changes.
No matter how old that child gets, he is stilling part of your heart.
Knowing, from experience, they will endure many temptations and hardships in life, that you can not prevent or fix leaves you feeling so helpless
What we do not consider at this time in their life, is that it is only Gods mercy you do not have to be around to watch most of those Him continue to perfect them.
I believe it was easier for Abraham to think Joseph dead, than to watch his brothers sell him into slavery, or see him thrown into prison for no crime committed.
With the abilities you’ve given, most parents strive a lifetime to teach and train their child.
Encourage and prayer precedes your hope that A God given self-control enables them to face life. If, Having taught them, that by leaning on Gods guidance they will be successful.
One hopes that they have enough self-control, As they become young adult, they can make right decisions.
We are still part of their life through advice," when they ask."
The main job we will be allowed to do for them is pray.
At this time howeve,r the breath we have poured into them at birth, the millions of hands we have washed, tears we have dried, or hurts we have kissed away are not needed anymore.
It seems they now always find a solution with out much help from a parent.
The wound of emotional surgery still hurts when a catastrophe, you can not kiss away or fix with a Band-Aid, tares them apart.
When the enemy attacks and they are totally oblivious until at least some destruction occurs.
We cry buckets of tears and feel totally helpless, when they make wrong decisions.
Quietly God tells us, he knows the way that they taken. He is the one who is still in control. He is all knowing, He is all-powerful, He loves them more than we can ever possibly love them.
Our first son joined the air force on a delayed entry, meaning you sign up but do not leave for six months. When the time came to leave, he was sorry he had signed up and did not want to leave.
That was hard, because I was the one that had to take him downtown St. Louis and leave him at the pick up point.
It was in a part of town that was so scary; no mother wanted to leave her child there alone, I cried all the way home. Knowing that God loved him, knowing that God was in control, didn’t take away the pain in my heart, It was an emptiness and grief just as if he had died.
Tears have a healing affect. Along with time, and God’s comfort we made it.
Today he is retiring with honors; I can look back with “Hindsight” praising God for his watch and care.
Each child was a new experience. Each one cost some tears, when my heartstrings had to be cut.
The youngest was the hardest. She was sixteen years younger than my first son, and when we found out about her conception, I was mentally, physically and spiritually ready to have that baby. She was my joy, my companion, and a child I had time to enjoy. We grew very close.
She was strong willed but full of joy. Her spiritual gift was mercy, which gave her the ability to laugh to the fullest with you, and hurt to the profundity, we were inseparable.
She loved people, loved to sing and loved the Lord. As she entered preteen years, she was one of the leaders in her youth department at church.
At seventeen, she met Tom; he was two years older in collage and had a good job.
He went to church but did not always agree with the doctrine of her church.
As we talked, I told her that I had no peace about her going with him, but I was not dogmatic about it. (perhaps I should have been?)
She was infatuated; he was “different”. So, I watched Satan began to deceive her using that young man, I couldn’t believe it.
For the first time in my life, I truly learned to pray. Oh there had been many prayers for all of my children but none that had preeminence over sleep, food, and soul searching to the depth of my heart.
As I watched, the enemy began to destroy both of their testimonies.
The young man became a very controlling person, then verbally abusive. She became increasingly blinded to the deception bound by his control.
The day she told me they were sexually active, I felt like Ipersonally had been raped.
Suffering more than death, again with many tears, I continued to pray.
I was resolute, Satan was not going to destroy her!
God reminded me of his word, “Greater is he that is within you, than he that is in the world.”
The Holy Spirit also reminded me that God is no respecter of persons. The boy needed prayer just as much as my daughter did. Although I wrestled with God about it, I began the petition of prayer for him also.
For one year, I lived on my knees before the throne of God. While I felt weak and out of control, God was working on her heart, drawing her back to him. He was also purifying both of us!
One morning I began to praise God, for the little things in the situation I had been overlooking.
She had not become pregnant, she was alive, they were not on drugs, she still spoke to me and allowed me to spend time with her.
A reminder that even though she was not living a Christian life, she had not turned away from her beliefs in God.
For the next few months, as they planed a wedding. I prayed there would be none.
He tried to convince her that she was old enough to make her own decisions, and that she did not always have to agree with her church, her parents, or her friends.
One by one, she had no one else but Tom, he saw to that.
The previous counsel I received was to tell her to obey our rules, or get out. That did not make since to me so I always left a door open just in case she wanted to return.
I finally reached the point I didn’t even know how to pray so I ask, “ God how do I pray for her?”
He taught me to pray scriptures, placing her name within the verse.
An example would be to pray Verses like Acts 26:18; “I pray You, God will open [my daughter’s] eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to You, that
{ She} may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus.”
There were dozens of verses, using different subjects, pertaining to her situation. When the power of Gods word began to defeat Satan, I began to see small changes. First, she started getting discouraged with his control. Next she saw how much she missed her family, the interaction with her older siblings. She saw that the fear she felt, was not her own.
Satan was using a spirit of fear within her as a controlling force. She was afraid to be with Tom and afraid to leave him.
For each step of deliverance, there was a verse. Not to share with her, not meant for anyone to “preach” at her, but to claim from God.
He answered ever prayer by honoring his word. My greatest lesson through all of this was knowing first hand , God is faithful.
Today she is married and has a family, to a husband who loves her. (It is not to Tom ).
He also has a family. Learning that their affair was lust, not love changed him also.
My daughter and I are still close. The greatest blessing is that God and I have a much closer relationship also.
I have suffered the death of my parents, they are spending eternity in heaven, but while physical separation is hard, death is a joy compared to loosing a spiritual battle.
Those tears must be the most precious to God. He knows the grief of death's separation can not compare to the separation sin can bring.
My Heavenly Father understood when my sin separated him and me.
Our sin caused him to cry out in grief. “My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
With all my heart, I believe tears are a language, God understands.
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