It's been one month since Dad went to be with Jesus....

Sorrow is such a great teacher. I can only think that the reason is because our Jesus was called “the man of Sorrow” So how can you not learn from a thing that so marked the life of the greatest lover, the greatest man of all time? You can’t help but learn when you walk through what Jesus walked through, pain, grief, death. Suffering is the greatest teacher of love, humility, grace, peace and confidence in Christ ….if you let it. So what seems strange to me was that He had grief at all when He knew better than anyone of the victory ahead. In fact since God is outside of time, He has already experienced it! He knows that death has no victory like no one else knows. He has been the rider of the white horse with the flaming eyes and sword for a tongue ringing in triumph and victory over evil and death. He knows! But still the name “man of sorrows”. This is not something that I feel I have sorted out or can hand you an explanation for. I guess it’s just something to think about and what we can get from it is that sorrow is so righteous and holy. Even God himself was not quieted in His grief at the sight of death and sickness. So it’s ok if the promise of the coming victory does not dry your eyes right away. But let grief have it’s way. When your heart begins to fight and swell with the physical pain of “this is not right!!!, This is not how it should be!” When every ounce of you screams at God and says “Not this way! Not this plan!!!” Muster all your strength and self discipline and let your heart and your mouth continue to scream “But not my will Jesus!!!! But yours be done! Not my way, but your way God!!”. It will hurt even more than the first words, because your telling God that He can continue hurting you if He wants. He can continue in His plan that you have no control over and no way of knowing if your going to hurt again and maybe hurt even worse. But in these dark places of sorrow you have a valuable opportunity. If you chose to take it, what you are doing in that moment is literally giving the deepest part of yourself, your comfort, well being of you, of your children, of your spouse, everything precious in your life to the King of Love, the King of good, of righteousness. You can trust Him. He knows better than you. He knows like a veterinarian knows when he is desperately trying to make the pain of an animal go away but all the animal sees and feels is the pain in the moment that the doctor is causing in order to heal. We have to trust the Doctor of our souls. In your moments of pain and grief, double down. Give Jesus the keys to your soul, the most protected, the most precious things in your life. I promise you wont regret it. Another thing I can promise is you will learn how to pray. In my moments of sorrow when I am grieving the death of my dad who we lost unexpectedly at only 53 years old I have no more prayers of petition, I have no great plan of my own to offer up to God for approval. My prayers continue like they did on the floor of the hospital room the night he died “Not my way Jesus but your way. Have your way King Jesus.” And then I just insert whatever area “in Abs life, in my moms life, in Kenya, in the lives of the orphans of the world. Lord be sovereign, be holy, be King” And it’s worth it! “The trials of this life are producing in you an eternal weight of glory”-John Piper . And that weight is heavier than all the gold, diamonds and silver in this world. It creates a gravity within you, your mass is increased so that all the people in your life start revolving and are magnetized to the Jesus in you. And you can’t help but experience joy when the Jesus in you weighs more than a planet. You can’t help but experience great peace when that solid rock has made His home in your heart. You are owned when you give up, you are called son you are called daughter when you say “yes” to Jesus in your dark places of great sorrow and that’s the best place to call home. In the arms of Jesus, in the will of our great God.