Home church has been one of the biggest blessings of my lifetime. The connection with the Holy Spirit so pure… and raw… learning with people that yearned to love God deeply and to follow Jesus Christ with a disciple’s heart… sharing our homes and our lives as we grew together in His Name… all strengthened our relationship with Him and with each other.
We patterned our home church after Jesus’ church… prayer, food, Biblical teaching, and fellowship. Part of our fellowship involved an honest and open discussion about the highs and lows of our week. It helped to increase our awareness of each other’s lives and to know how we could best pray for our brothers and sisters. Since our children were an integral part of our church, it increased our awareness of the challenge and the joy in their young lives too. We referred to this sharing portion as “Bummers & Blessings”.
Throughout the years, bummers and blessings included times of distress as the pendulum would swing back and forth through big things like financial hardships & relationship challenges & health issues & unsaved family members, and smaller things like a series of broken down appliances or indecision or impatience. We have seen God work in miraculous ways throughout these bummers… we’ve seen healed relationships, improved health, patience kindled, pride extinguished, and family members that have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. In each, God was glorified.
Time after time, it happened… our bummers became blessings. Time after time, God showed us He is faithful to His Word. He is faithful to His Love for us, and He provides for us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it… right on time… in His Time. And we trust Him, as we witness throughout the Bible and within our own lives how Awesome our God really is. Week after week, we would pray… week after week, we witnessed miracles.
And then at 5:30 p.m. on March 25, 2007, the world as I knew it was transformed when Grace’s jaw shattered as she was thrown from her horse. All the pieces that were so perfectly held together… her perfect little face… the control that I held over my life… was… gone… evaporated… the foundation… crumbling… oh, God, where are you…. where are you now….
I staggered through the next 3 days… bits and pieces still so vivid… pacing as I waited, waited, waited at Children’s for the ambulance to arrive… phone calls to my parents knowing that they would be there with us… and to the Ostendorfs, knowing that they would stand guard, that they would be our prayer warriors… searching Grace’s piercing blue eyes for fear or pain as they rolled her through the hospital doors… steadying myself on the rails of the gurney as the nurse pulled back the covering over her face revealing the extent of the blood, and her exposed chin, the damage… the calmness that was all around her… thankfulness that her friend was unharmed physically… Matt, the youth pastor, arriving and praying with Grace… Terry holding the surgeon’s hands in his as he prayed over this man’s life before he began Grace’s reconstruction process… leaving her with the anesthesiologist as my father and I walked away… so many tears then… so many tears… 1 hour… 2 hours… 3 hours… 4 hours… 5 hours… 6 hours… 7 hours… then at 3:30 a.m. on March 26, a kind and gentle nurse brought us to the empty recovery room, one lone bed in the dimmed lights… to see our baby daughter… stitched back together, pieced back together, wired together… alive… more alive than she had ever been…
The next few days were filled with blessings and the prayers of our brothers and sisters in Christ, but my heart was heavy with the pain that I felt for Grace who couldn’t speak to share her story… to share her thoughts… to process this traumatic experience. When her fear began to consume her she would fold her hands in prayer… and look to us to pray aloud… and peacefulness would instantaneously replace the fear as we prayed over her watching her oxygen levels improve as every word was lifted to our Heavenly Father… her face so swollen barely recognizable… her eyes still my Gracie’s eyes… looking straight up to Heaven…
I remember screaming at God in my head… while laying next to my precious child in her hospital bed… I remember demanding to understand why… why did He let this happen to her… why would He ever give her such a love of horses, a desire to spend her life with them and then allow her very passion to cause her this much pain, this much trauma, and I demanded that He make this up to her… that He make it right… I couldn’t understand and I wanted so so much to understand… my brother called and I remember hysterically asking him the very same questions, why, why, why, why did He let this happen to this sweet and precious child, why did He create them with these desires and then allow them to be injured by the very thing that they love… WHY… my brother arrived within the hour… he knew I was struggling in one of the hugest battles of my lifetime… he knew I was struggling for control over this battle in my mind…he knew that this was not a time to turn and run away, it was a time to run straight into my Creator’s arms… it was a time to trust and be faithful to His Word, and to be strong through His Strength. And he knew he needed to help guide me back, to rest in the peace that the Holy Spirit gives to us, freely as a gift. To be there for Grace.
But I had underestimated the impact that all those weeks, and months and years that we spent together as a family with other families, worshipping and loving our Heavenly Father and learning about His Son, Jesus Christ, and our purpose on this earth, had formed and filled this young child’s mind, her very soul, with everything she needed to adapt to this dramatic event in her life. He had given her every truth that she needed to understand that she was loved, wholly and completely, by Him. And that through this accident, she would claim her voice for Him, and He would use her to spread His Love and His Word to many others. He showed her things that were reserved for the blessed few… angels, hundreds of them, that were guarding the very room that she slept in… fanning their wings, steadily, constantly, to keep the darkness, the fog, that she could see in the distance… away. She knew what it felt like to be held by Him, to receive the comfort and the peace that only He could provide. To be healed in a way that was inconceivable to the human mind, as He healed the nerve that had been severed in her fall, to the disbelief and astonishment of the doctor who said it was impossible. And He allowed her to see the accident as He saw it… something the adversary meant to harm her, God turned into something good, and right, and true. Something that He would use through Grace to glorify His Kingdom.
Over the past 5 years, Grace has grown ever stronger in her faith and God has continued to use her in miraculous ways just like He promised He would, but I’ve struggled with the grief that I felt from Grace’s accident. I struggled with the anger that I felt towards God for allowing it to happen, and my spirit had become lifeless. These emotions, these thoughts were creating physical illness within me. Recently, I have begun a journey to restore my emotional well-being through a form of theophostic ministry to address the underlying causes of my body’s weaknesses. I have learned to see events the way God sees them, through His Eyes, being thankful and grateful for everything that has happened in my life. To know that because God is Who He says He is, has been and always will be, I can trust that His Love for me, His complete unconditional love for me, will always be enough. That faith in Him means that I won’t know the answers to my questions, that my “why?” is answered with His words, “because I know best.” And even when, and especially when, our world suddenly shifts direction, and we feel completely abandoned, desperate and filled with despair, He is there. Waiting for us to run to Him…
As I resolve to trust and not control, have faith without understanding, and love with acceptance as Jesus would, my spirit has grown from its place of stagnation to a place of graciousness. This growth allows God to use me in ways that He has planned for me, to fulfill the purpose for which I was created… to love Him and be loved by Him. Without the removal of anger and bitterness and grief… the adversary would perpetuate separation from my Creator, and I will not have it… he has used every method to stir up my doubt, my anger, and my sin-nature, and has succeeded for a time, but I have taken back what has been given to me and I am rejoicing in the love of my Heavenly Father, Jehovah God, the loving sacrifice of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and I have given the Holy Spirit free reign in my life once again. It feels good to be home.
Bummers to blessings.
Live Well.
Loves Doves 