Monday, May 1, 2017

Lamentations Stretch Our Souls

“My eyes are worn out from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief because of the destruction of my dear people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. They cry out to their mothers: Where is the grain and wine? as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their lives fade away in the arms of their mothers.”(Lamentations 2:11-12)

The day has come that I have dreaded and it has filled my soul with anguish and trepidation.  For this season, the Lord has called us out of South Sudan.  It has come for various reasons-many I understand and accept; others I cannot.  I am in the midst of a season of grief and mourning for the goodbyes that we have painstakingly wrought. My heart breaks for the people of South Sudan and the tremendous suffering they are enduring-while much of it may be seem self-inflicted by corrupt government officials and decades of worshipping pagan gods-much of it seems to be out of their control-famine and war.  I have been crying out to God with so many questions, holding onto the promise that He is the beginning and the end and the God of all the stuff in between (as Abby and Ella sang in a recently learned kids’ song).  

During this time I don’t want to just rush through this process or sweep my emotions under the rug as I jump into this new season and ministry God has for our family and team with another people group.  We are now beginning to settle in with the Karamajong people in the bush of Uganda and while I am hopeful and excited about our future here, I want to embrace healthy emotionally spirituality and properly mourn and reflect and wait for the Lord to speak to me.  As a team we’ve been reading through “The Emotionally Healthy Church”  by Peter Scazzero and the Lord has used this book to teach me so much. He says, “Stuffed down and denied, losses gather in our souls like heavy stones that weigh us down…loss is loss.  It is the norm of life, not the exception….What is universal is that we all experience sorrows and are invited to grieve and grow through them.”  

The Bible has so many places where we see grief and sorrow vividly displayed-raw....ugly....riveting pain that cannot help but render depths of emotion from our very own souls as we relate-from books like Lamentations to Job in his immense suffering to Psalm after Psalm where David poured out his heart before the Lord in wide open, holding nothing back emotion. Then we get to the New Testament where we see Jesus in his earthly ministry moved by emotions.  One that especially stands out to me is when Jesus is praying to His Father, the night before his brutal crucifixion and when his tears flow like blood in his agony of the expected hell-shattering suffering to come. I am learning there is a purpose for lamentations-they grow our souls-stretching us to experience Jesus in a more personal way.  Our Savior King who was moved to compassion to leave heaven and come rescue us.

As I take time to rest in the Lord and embrace my grief He is enabling me to become more like Him, my Jesus who is also called a “Man of Sorrows”.  Jesus, fully God and fully man who wept when Lazarus died, taking time to mourn with some of his closest friends, although He knew He was going to fix it and raise Him from the dead!  And the beautiful thing about mourning is that we truly learn how to relate to others in their grief.  For me right now, this means knowing how to better pray for the Sudanese as their country and daily lives are split open by war, famine, tribal wars and the threat of genocide to their people. As thousands of refugees flee the country by the day, oftentimes separated from their families, watching them be shot and killed before their very eyes, wearing nothing but the clothes on their backs. 

As I look back and search my heart for some measure of closure, I sift through hundreds of pictures of what life looked like for us in South Sudan.  Countless shared cups of chai and meals with Dinka friends, many shared Bible stories, our kids chasing goats across friends’ immaculately (African trademark) swept dirt yards, pounding out hundreds of hours of language learning with increasingly more and more humility, being the church as a team and living Jesus (by His grace)-making our Savior meet able among a people who had never seen this before.  Yes, it is indeed a heavy calling and it has been a humbling servanthood endeavor where I have never leaned on Jesus more.  And I wouldn’t trade one minute for that life; it has been an honor and despite some of the hardest days of my life I have been filled with His everlasting joy and peace.

Yet even as this future is uncertain I am clinging to my God who is not.  He is not shaken by any thing that happens in this world-He is STEADY. SURE. STEADFAST.  UNCHANGING. And by His grace, I can lean on His strength.  He has especially given me the song “Take Courage” by Lindy Conant and the Circuit Riders during this time to breath life and hope into my soul.

My King has conquered every mountaintop
With scars that prove that He cannot be stopped
And history was changed upon the cross
With victory You rescue all that’s lost

And silence will be broken with our lives
As we live out the love of Jesus Christ
What our eyes have seen our hearts cannot ignore
We’ll lead this generation to the glory of the Lord

Take Courage
The harvest is ripe
And lift up Your voice 
Because Jesus is Alive

There’s no heart too hard for Jesus,
There’s no people too far gone
He’s already won the war

There’s a yes in our hearts
And it carries through eternity
Simple obedience 
It changes history

So it is to my King that I cling to.  He has conquered every mountaintop.  He cannot be stopped!  I will take courage and praise my Jesus.  Nothing is impossible with Him.  He’s already won this war.  I pray these words of Lamentations 3:21-26, 31-33 over my life and the lives of our fellow believers scattered throughout South Sudan right now.

“Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope.
Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish,
for His mercies never end.
They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
I say: The LORD is my portion,
Therefore I will put my hope in Him.
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
to the person who seeks Him.
It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the LORD.
For the Lord will not reject us forever.
Even if He causes suffering, 
He will show compassion according to His abundant, faithful love.
For He does not enjoy bringing affliction or
suffering on mankind.”

4 comments:

  1. We know the heartbreak of leaving places and people you've grown to love. Praying that your hearts will expand to make room for the Karamojong and for Karamoja (I know they will — my prayer is that they will expand more than you think possible).

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  2. This is a great expression of how we feel as we hold on to Christ not knowing where it may lead.

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  3. Thank you for sharing. I am just so sorry for the entire situation. Love the family.

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