We went to church this morning at Grace Church and I came out of the services feeling really connected to God for the first time in quite awhile. The first Sunday of the month is typically communion and as we move forward in our journey without Hannah, it seems to be more impactful and mean more at least for me. It is a quiet and reflecting time alone in prayer & communication with my Father on things that matter!
In addition, today’s service was unique as it was focused on prayer and the congregation breaking up into small groups praying together. It was uncomfortable for me to do that and not sure in my opinion, if I enjoyed that element of the worship service much but the overall theme and dedicating time in a worship service to the things that matter – Praising & Worshipping God, Communion, Reading of God’s Word, Prayer and a very important Spiritual Warfare message from Pastor Joel. Matter of fact, I don’t know if any churches out there do this or not, but I would love it if it was that way every week at Grace Church! Very impactful!
I really felt the Holy Spirit talk to me today throughout the whole service. Worthy was the key word that came to me several times. God for whatever reason counted Amy & I worthy to experience a small glimpse of what God experienced with the death of His Son Jesus through the death of our precious and beautiful daughter Hannah!
It has been awful, horrific and any other word that you can think of that is terrible! The experience is like no other! I don’t see how many more experiences you can have in this life that are more painful and more raw than the death of a child. It isn’t supposed to be this way! God didn’t do this but did allow it to happen for some reason that we in our limited scope can not comprehend. His ways are higher than our ways!
Life is so short here on Earth and eternity is forever. God chose Amy & I to be worthy of the suffering we are going through currently. He who is above all things, considered us two worthy to experience something that He experienced with the death of his Son Jesus!
It really bugged me at first after the death of Hannah, when I looked at the people of this world and their arrogance, their fake assurances of security and overall attitude that this world we live in is the most important thing! Not eternity, Not a relationship with the Savior of the world Jesus – nope they worship the world and its empty promises and evil desires.
Do I at times get caught up in these pursuits, unfortunately I do – alot! But as we endure more and more hardships and sufferings, God through the Holy Spirit in us, works on us, talks to us and refines us to look to Him first and less to the evilness around us.
That’s what happened today! I received such encouragement through the Holy Spirit that He chose us worthy to suffer like God did with the death of His Son and the encouragement that this life will be over so soon, so fast in comparison to Eternity!
Due to our belief in Jesus, we will be in Eternity with God forever. The time between Hannah’s death and whatever time we meet our Savior is so, so short! Life here is so short! We will look back on our lives when in Heaven and wonder why were we so sad!
Our daughter is with Jesus! That is where we want to be! In a place that doesn’t end, a place that is without sin, a place so perfect that lasts forever! Thank You Lord for these promises! Our prayer and our focus moving forward is for God to reveal to us specifically what He wants us to do in our remaining time here to make an impact for Jesus!
The bible verse that comes to mind as I write this is 2 Corinthians 12:10- “For the sake of Christ, I am content with weaknesses, insults, harships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong”. God calls all of us to something and it is true, when we are weak and not focused on our selves and this world, we become strong in Him!
My question to whoever reads this blog is this – What has God called you to?
In Hope,
Bill
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