Greetings Everyone!

We have moved into a new season of sorts. One where we aren’t around family as much and both Benaiah and I have felt the reality of Douglas’s absence in new and deeper ways. Yet, as hard as it has been, it hasn’t been a total shock. I could see it coming…I just didn’t know what it would be like. And as I sensed the challenging shift ahead, my flesh tried to bargain with God several times, God, can we please just skip this part?! I felt like running, but I knew this leg of the journey was necessary. So I decided to willingly submit and not look for the way of escape. So we are passing through another valley by faith. 

I came to a realization recently that I had an unrealistic hope hidden deep in my heart that has come to the surface. I started having dreams about trying to find Douglas and finally, at the end of the dream, I would somehow hear from him or find him. I realized that my soul was holding onto hope of somehow to finding Douglas here on earth again. And so on of this has been one of the hard realities I am facing…Douglas is gone and I won’t find him here again. It may seem odd to some, but when you lose the other part of yourself suddenly, it takes time for the change to even begin to seem real. And so here, I have found myself back in the place of heavy waves that nearly leave me breathless. Waves that remind me of labor. A few times, the waves were so intense that I had to literally move position to be able to bear and breathe through them with deep groanings. 

Also, for the first time on our journey, our sweet Benaiah has also shown signs of deep sorrow in missing Daddy. For over a week, he was notably sad, needing to be held almost constantly, waking up in the night crying, very unusual fussing during the day, and just not his joyful self. I guess we could blame a bug or the weather, but when you know your child…you just know they are struggling with something in their soul and he too has wrestled! Holy Spirit has given me so much guidance to help him along. Lots of extra snuggling times, wearing him on my back in the carrier, only being apart from him when absolutely necessary, praying with him more during the day and also in the night, being vigilant to guard what he sees and hears, singing over him, and just trying to be more present. And praise God, he has been more and more himself these last few days! Like me, he can and will struggle. But, before you going feeling sorry for us, please know that these seasons have purpose and we know God is with us and using it for His glory! 

I have been sloooooowly working my way through 1 Peter for over a month. (There’s only 5 chapters!) Sometimes I just meditate on a verse or two a day. I wanted to just share a few verses that I have chewed on as it relates to suffering:

1:6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,

1:7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

*Whew, it reminds be of James 1:3, “...count it all joy as you fall into various trials…” Easier said than done. But the reason of rejoicing, even in the midst of suffering, is not the pain felt while passing through it, but rather the end result. Heaven knows the full list, but suffering is so fruitful if we let it! It produces holiness, deep encounters with God, death to self, reliance on God, growth, God’s power perfected in our weakness…just to name a few. In the end, it will be worth it if we just hold on and believe!

*”In a little while”:  Those words are so comforting! Suggering never lasts forever. Some seasons are longer and harder than others, but in the lens of eternity, it is all temporary. 

4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

4:2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

*Whew x2!!! A Christian is a Christ-follower and when we follow Him, it includes in His sufferings. Peter is reminding us to think soberly about life and realize that suffering will happen and as it does, God has so much purpose in it! One of the greatest is HOLINESS. The Refiner’s fire is burning away the old man and sinful ways to make us more and more like Him. Painful, but beautiful all at the same time.

And this next one I wrote about in an entry on suffering soon after Douglas’s ICU incident:

4:12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;

4:13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you also may be glad with exceeding joy.

*Further emphasizing his point from vs 1-2, Peter is b8asically saying: Expect to suffer! Don’t let the world deceive you into thinking you can have your best life now on this side of heaven. Not doom and gloom, but a heart that understands and accepts the purpose in suffering. So much purpose in fact, that we are again reminded that we can and should rejoice in our pain because we know one day we will see what it was doing in us, through us, and most importantly, for His glory! 

I also wanted to share a bit about yet another unexpected detour I took this last week from 1 Peter as I continued to read through Mark in my daily Bible reading. Perhaps detainment is a better word than detour as I felt my heart almost arrested by the story of Jesus in the garden. Mark’s account of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is only a few verses long and much like other parts of scripture, can easily be glossed over if one doesn’t take the time to really dig in. That had often been my story, but Holy Spirit wouldn’t allow for that this time around. 

Ready for another confession? I sometimes fall asleep listening to scripture! Better than TV or other things, I suppose! Get this story of how Holy Spirit met me: I had drifted off to sleep and right when it got to the garden, I woke up and it went right to my soul! Holy Spirit had something to say and He woke me up! (God’s grace for my exhausted being!) Read on to hear of the irony of this slumbering sleeper that God wanted to speak to….

14:32 Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”

*Jesus and disciples just finished up this intimate and wonderful time of fellowship (aka the Last Supper) and it was almost time. Jesus brought them to Gethsemane where they had frequented before. Gethsemane by the way, by no coincidence means oil press. Jesus was about to be pressed…to death! And as He had throughout all of His ministry on earth, Jesus invited His closest followers to be with Him. 

14:33 And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed.

*Key words: He began. This really spoke to me. Jesus knew the exact time and way His death would unfold, yet He kept it together until it was time to face what was before Him. Had He not done so, He would have missed out on all the precious moments He had just had with His disciples, giving them some last final reminders and loving on them. But now it was time; time to feel the deepest anguish of soul know to any man. (I don’t know about you, but this is something I sure can work on: Not getting to far ahead or behind with processing things, especially emotions!)

*The second part of what really struck me here was just the simple reality that Jesus felt these things. The same One who said, “My yolk is easy and whose burden is light”, felt deep trouble and a heaviness that brought Him to His knees. Other accounts of these moments say that His sweat was like drops of blood! Was He weak? Absolutely not! He was still fully God, but He was also, willingly, fully man. And the man, Jesus, was feeling the weight of the pressing and from it would come oil (Not literal, but figurative oil: symbolic of Holy Spirit who was about to be given to all who believe.), so He endured it anyway!

14:34 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.” 

*Jesus didn't hide from His friends what He was passing through. This was the Wave of waves of grief. Those words exceedingly sorrowful may also be read as perilous, grieved all around, or intensely sad. It was all of those things and maybe more?! No wound was given Him yet, but just the shadow of the cross that He would willingly bear, felt like a deadly, crushing blow. That moment that He came for; when the Father would place on Him the guilt of all sin for all men for all time, was near. No man could ever relate to the agony of that moment. But, glory to God, Jesus can surely relate to ours! 

*And what did Jesus ask of His friends? To be there and watch; to be present and awake.

14:35 He went a little further, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him.

14:36 And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.”

*Notice that Jesus was alone, but He was close enough for the disciples to still hear His cry to the Father. And what was His request? Similar to my heart in this season: Jesus, If there is a way to skip this, that would be great! But I surrender to what your plan and your purposes are instead of my own. Jesus’s flesh was crying out to let the cup pass over Him, but that wasn’t God’s will. There was a redemption plan set in place before time and this was it! There was no other way; He was the WAY! There is so much freedom to know that even Christ had the freedom to ask for the easier way, yet He also gave us the example of submission to God’s plan. His ways are always better, even when there is suffering!

14:37 Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour?”

*Note how Jesus didn’t speak directly to James or John. He spoke to the one he had appointed to lead His flock: Peter. (This is the same Peter who wrote the verses I shared earlier!) He still had a lot to learn at this point. He, like me, was falling asleep, but Jesus woke him up and gave him another chance…and another…and another…

In Peter’s prior blunders, Jesus rebuked him as a lesson, but I wonder if this rebuke was more personal. He was one of His best friends and He couldn’t even stay awake with Him in His darkest hour. It hurt. 

14:38 “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

*Amen to this statement! We need to be vigilant. Peter failed Jesus in this moment, but because of grace, I know he eventually figured it out. How else could he write, in 1 Peter 4:7, “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.” Time is short and we do need to be a step ahead of the sleepy flesh that wants to melt into the world’s deadly slumber. We have work to do! No warrior in a battle lays down to nap when combat is going on. The same is true for us today!

14:39 Again He went away and prayed, and spoke the same words.

14:40 And when He returned, He found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy, and they did not know what to answer Him.

*The burden Jesus was bearing didn’t go away. He went back again to plea that the Father’s plan may change, but still stayed in surrender to His will. And there He found them sleeping again. God’s grace for them! They had no words, no excuses. There they were: falling short again…\

14:41 Then He came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough! The hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

14:42 Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”

*As is God’s custom and trend, doing things in threes, Jesus went again to submit His plea before the Lord and He came back to the reality: this was His cup and no one else could drink it! He was alone. Maybe if they had stayed awake He would have felt some form of comfort? It seems the abandonment of His sleepy friends was also part of His sufferings. Was it God’s way to cover all the bases for Jesus to be aquiainted with all of our sufferings, including loneliness?

Jesus would continue alone all the way up to Calvary to die a sinner’s death though He knew no sin. He invited others to follow after Him, but in the end He had to go it alone. That Narrow Way back to God was indeed narrow! Up until this point in history, it was impassible to any man. There was no way for man to be in communion with God, but through our Pioneer and Perfect Sacrifice. Jesus would willingly take that lonely road that started in the garden and go before us and for us. 

And though there is purpose and beauty in the comfort of others, we too can only go on the journey with God alone. Just as God has purpose in suffering, so too is there purpose in loneliness. Douglas often remarked about how being a follower of Jesus can and often is lonely. In the end, only you can walk the road with Him. I think that’s why Douglas was so fascinated with men like Moses. The murderer who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before he was called by God to re-entered Egypt and face hard hearted Pharoah. He who climbed the mountain as an old withered man and spent 40 days alone with God. He was a lonely man, but He encountered God; he met with Him face to face!!! Douglas was unusually introverted, especially for a Kenyan. He wasn’t into going with the crowd on anything. He wasn’t afraid to not fit in and sometimes to even deliver a word of truth even if it hurt. He was lonely…willingly because he knew there was purpose in it. And it was on his lonely and narrow road, that Douglas met and walked with Jesus….and eventually that lonely road, led him Home. 

So even in these days of intense waves of grief and loneliness for Douglas, my heart is encouraged to know that though I am lonely, I am actually never alone. My family and friends are not far, but I am facing some realities I need to face alone with God. My Savior has gone before me and He is with me in this valley. And I am confident that just as He overcame death itself on that cross, so too will He bring His victory in my life and use all of this for His glory, honor, and fame. 

Lord, I know you can make another way for us, but not my will, but yours be done!  Don’t take me out of the fire Lord, just walk me through it. Be ye glorified!

Thanks for following along and for your continued prayers!!!

Blessings,

Becky