Pink Camo- Joy comes in the mourning

Last night was particularly difficult. Our house is 95% packed up. Just the last couple of items littering the house need to be thrown into a box. Tomorrow morning I am picking up the moving truck and we are loading it up. This last week has been a time of good-byes.

We love our home. We love our church. We love our family. We love our friends- and we are saying good-bye to all of it in order to follow God’s calling for us to missionaries in Frederick MD working with Grace Community Church.

I went to tuck my 6 year old daughter in bed. She is normally bubbly and quick to welcome me to tuck her in, but this time was different. She was hiding in her pink sleeping bag. Through some tender coaxing, I was able to get her to emerge and talk with me. After some small talk she locked eyes with me and her bottom lip started quivering. “Daddy, its just that I have to say good-bye to all my friends and all my family. I’m gonna miss ‘em Daddy.”

My heart sank. It broke. My little baby was hurt. I began crying along side her. Tears streamed down my face as she confessed her difficulty. I hugged her tightly as I held her- caccooned in her little pink camoflage sleeping bag.

I realized just how much I have asked her to give up over the last three years; living in three different houses and now onto our fourth- each time giving up a future with those friends. I cried with her and II prayed with her and offered her comfort from God’s faithfulness. What else can a daddy do?

I have a brave little girl. She did something that many Christians don’t do; she was honest with her pain. She was willing to cry out to her daddy and say “it hurts!”. She was willing to mourn. She was brave enough to make herself vulnerable. She was willing to cry. She didn’t dismiss it away thinking I am a Christian and Jesus should be everything I need and I shouldn’t feel that way.

I can look back over my life and see the many times I never really let myself mourn. People that passed away, friends that betrayed me, moving and leaving people that I love. All those things hurt, but I had some illusion that I am supposed to be stronger than that so I will not mourn. I will not be honest. I will not cry.

Abba, I repent of that. I want to be emotionally healthy and be honest with God and others about my pain. I will not hide behind illusions and facades of strength. I am willing to say “I am weak and God I need you. Daddy this hurts.” I will name the hurt and ask the Spirit of God to step in and be the Counselor, Comforter and Healer that He says He is. I will be willing to tell my Daddy that it hurts, that I hurt.








Its ok to hurt because God says that sorrow last only for a minute, but His joy comes in the morning. I would be willing to say that God’s joy comes in the mourning.

Freak Out. Big lesson on goodness.

So I need to make a confession. This is something that I've been working on (or perhaps God's been working on in me) for a long time now. Its something I confess, but I'm not real proud of it. 

I freak out. I get anxious. I worry. And I have come to realization that all my stress and anxiety and my major mode of operation  revolves around a core misbelief: 

I really don't believe that God is good all the time. 

I freak out because we don't have enough money. I freak out because the van needs repairs that we can't finance. I freak out because I don't see how we can sell our house. But ultimately, that stress, that "freaking out", is because I want to control the situation with my anxiety and because I don't really believe that God 1) has the ability the fix the problem 2) will be good to me. 

At its core, I have come to believe that the Christian life is about suffering and bad things as opposed to good things. It sounds almost ridiculous to say out loud like that, but that is my major assumption when coming up against difficulties, unknowns and bad times; that difficulty and suffering is par for the course. 

I read all these passages from the apostle Paul about suffering (1 Pet 3:17, Acts 9:16, 1 Pet 4:16, 2 Tim 2;3 they abound...). Suffering is anything that is painful or irritating. I come to believe that suffering is God's intention for us. Without realizing it, I have come to believe that God is in heaven pressing His heavenly thumb against us to cause suffering. Like a cruel kid frying ants with a magnifying glass. 

Any time he chooses to relent is a deviation to the plan and is the result of His grace and mercy in action. 

I mean, I know that God wants good for us - so He sent Jesus so we could get to heaven. Heaven is the good stuff. But until then.... suffering. 

I pray for God to relent and be good to me and my family. I call out on Him for his favor and for prosperity. I try to be really good and righteous; because, as everyone knows, the righteous people are the people that God is good to. Favor, prosperity and blessings come to either the really righteous (because they have earned God's favor) or the really pagan (because they have chosen to pursue the comforts and pleasures of this world and the flesh). I read through Romans 8 where is says that God works all things out for our good. But then again... we could just die and go to heaven and that is good right? Isn't that all we should expect out of this life?

I tell you that EVERY CRISIS OF FAITH IN MY LIFE IS ROOTED IN MY CORE DISBELIEF OF GOD'S GOODNESS. At my core, I stress out because i believe that God is not trustworthy. That His promises are NOT true, that he writes bad checks. 

God has been working real hard on me trying to break me of this misbelief. He has been unleashing His providence and blessings in awesome ways in the last 4 months. TIme after time he has been blessing our socks off. I could go on and on. 

We are just about getting ready to move to our new assignment in Maryland (Grace Community Church of Frederick). God has opened door after door-- in super-huge God-sized ways. I've been in tears after watching him move. But my faith is so weak- because at my core- i have a misbelief that God is not good. We have one last obstacle which is way out of our control, but would put a wrench in the whole move. I am doing my best not to "freak out"- but to simply trust in God- and know that 1) he is able and 2) he is good. 

Then God sent me this passage- a promise for me to claim. 

JEREMIAH 32:40-4140 I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me. 41 I will rejoice over them to do them good and will [i]faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.

Did you hear that? God says he's gonna do good to us. He rejoices to do good to us. He is intent on doing good to us and will do it with all His "heart and soul". There's not a lot of ambiguity there. There's not a lot of unclarity there (and for you dispensationalists- no...that's not just for the Jews at that time. It is a prophetic statement looking forward to the church and all redeemed believers). I know that if I tell my kids that I rejoice to do something good to them and that I will do it with all my heart and soul, then I truly mean it. 

So I am choosing to renew my mind. Confess my misbelief and ask God to put the Fear of Him in my heart so that I will not turn away from Him. 

Jeremiah 32:40-41 will be my battle cry.

(P.S.-- this song is awesome for all the reasons mentioned above. )