hardship

You Were Called To This: encouragement for when God is doing something…but I’m confused

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It’s officially December. Are you taking in the lights and the music and breathing easy? Are you soothed and energized by all the gatherings and baking and letters and gift lists? Are you soaking up all that comes with Christmas? Does it feel like all is well, all is calm, all is bright?

Or are you feeling the stress? Are you under some pressure? If your answer is yes, I’m right there with you.

Looking back on this year, has it gone to plan for you? Have you faced a plot twist at some point? Have you been bowled over by something you didn’t plan for?

Many of you know that my story has taken a couple weird turns over the last 2 years. Cody and I finished up language study in Papua New Guinea in June of 2021 and everything was in place for us to transition into the flight ministry we had been training so long and hard for. We found out in July that we were expecting our second baby, and THEN the plot twists started rolling in.

I got sicker and sicker until the doctors in Papua New Guinea sent us back to the USA for a higher level medical care to manage the pregnancy. My OB set me up with IV therapy and an ongoing pump for nausea medicine, but then I was in and out of the hospital for abnormal heart rhythms. I delivered the baby safely only to find out two weeks later he had swelling, bleeding, cysts, and missing tissue in his brain. We tried to prepare ourselves for brain surgery and then the Lord answered prayer and the swelling stabilized with just medicine. Then he weaned from medicine and started meeting his milestones!

I thought “Maybe we’re going to be okay after all. Maybe, we’re finally headed back!” but his neuro team wanted to watch him for another 6 months. During that 6 months, Benaiah did fine, but my heart rhythms worsened and we discovered a tumor in my neck.  Benaiah was cleared by neuro in October and we got a surgical plan in place with Mayo Clinic for my tumor. Then my surgeon got better imaging and decided it was too dangerous to remove the tumor after all. He cancelled surgery, but reassured me that it will “probably” stay benign. I took a week or two to absorb that, thought I was ready to rally, and then Cody had an abnormal stress test and was referred for imaging of his heart.

Wave after wave after wave. I feel like I am a type A personality being crushed into a type B. You know how people choose life verses? For a while there, mine was Proverbs 20:24:

“The LORD directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?”

For a long time here, my life theme has been: “God’s doing something, but I’m confused.”

After Benaiah was born, I went through a Bible Study on Hebrews by Jen Wilkin with my sisters and there were two ideas she discussed in that study that changed that perspective for me.

The first was the challenge to dwell in the “I don’t know.” Jen Wilkin prefaced the study by explaining the being confused is PART OF the learning process, and if we try to rush to understanding, we miss things. So it was a timely reminder for me to settle in and get comfortable with the tension of what is unresolved and unclear to me – it’s an indicator that God is teaching me something – and it may take time.

The second was a statement that has been so life-giving to me over this past year and a half: “For the believer, trials and difficulty aren’t punishment, they’re training.”

She brought up the simple fact that because our sins are paid for, the challenges we go through here on earth are not God’s punishment. We dwell in the unchanging, unwavering favor and approval of God that was secured for us by Christ’s perfect and satisfactory sacrifice on the cross. So, we don’t have to look at the hardships we’re facing and scratch our heads trying to figure out “What was that for?” We can just buckle up for what the Lord is going to TEACH us through it.

Last month, I spent some time in 1 Peter and I came across these verses:

“When you do good and suffer, if you endure it, this brings favor with God. For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps…when He suffered He did not threaten, but entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly.”

–1 Peter 2:20, 23

Peter was writing to some stressed out people. He wrote to encourage them to stand firm in the midst of persecution. These guys were feeling the pressure. They were dealing with loss and threat and grief. Their lives were not looking like this beautiful example of God’s favor and blessing and provision. It would be easy to look around and say “Hold on! I’m just trying to do what’s right here, and it’s all falling apart! What am I getting wrong?”

When it comes to that mess and that pain and that confusion, Peter reassures them with these 5 words:

“You were called to this.”

Those words floored me. It was like the Lord took this blurry, confusing, “why try to understand?” section of my life and brought it into focus.

The hard things He allows in my life and yours aren’t just disruptions. They’re a calling.

And He left us an example for how to face hard callings. Again, Verse 20 and 23 say,

“For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps…when He suffered He did not threaten, but entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly.”

How do I face hard callings? I entrust myself to the One who judges justly and I endure it.

You know what trust looks like? It’s quiet. It waits. It offers itself up as a slave and as a sacrifice to the One who will never waste what I offer.

Christ’s example did not have eyes fixed downward, despairing at the difficulty and loss, or behind, trying to make sense of the story, but upward, declaring “Yet I want your will.” And forward, to the joy set before Him.

That’s the only way I will be able to follow his example of entrusting and enduring:

To gaze, that is, to take a long look:

At the joy, not the loss.

At the Father, not the trouble.

At what’s ahead, not at what’s right in front of me, and not at all I still have to trudge through.

To look past the labor pains, to the new baby

Past the hardest leg of the race, to the rest and satisfaction of the finish line,

Past this body, to the new one,

Past the suffering, to the glory that outweighs it.

To be in it and yet look past it.

When I’m losing heart, When I am twisted into knots of grief and confusion; trying to make sense of what God has allowed into my life, what if I surrendered the need to understand? What if I entrusted myself to Him?

What if I looked at the most difficult and painful parts of my story as a calling? A calling where He promises to strengthen me with such endurance that my hope in Him survives it? A calling that Immanuel, God WITH us, has promised to walk WITH me through and that He has marched out in front of me, entrusting and enduring, looking up and looking forward, so that I would know the steps to get through it, too?

“…Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race

God has set

Before us.”

–Hebrews 12:1

You and I did not set the race that is before us right now. We did not choose the course. Believe me, I would have picked a smoother one. But we were called to this.

“So, if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for He will never fail you.”

–1 Peter 4:19

Oh Lord,

As the pace of life accelerates, may I hold up for just a minute to take a long look at you, in all your perfection, and adore you.

Thank you for your faithfulness to me, your compassion for me, and the example you’ve given me of entrusting yourself to the One who will never fail me. Help me to lay aside the burdens so my hands are free to reach for you and my heart is light to hope in you and my voice is steady to sing your praises. In my suffering, you are working, you are worthy. Lord, help me not to lose sight of that.

Sufficient: grace that holds up in our hardship

/ bekaburnsblog / 3 Comments

“…We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.”

–2 Corinthians 4:8

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It’s been weeks of processing, crying, need-meeting, trying to adjust my expectations, feeling how up-in-the-air our lives are, and wondering when we will ever feel settled again. I feel absolutely spent. I have been thrust into a plot line I would never, ever choose. 

Our church had a parent commissioning for families with new babies a few weeks ago, and I sat in a room full of beaming couples with their healthy, beautiful babies – safe and sound and whole…and my broken one. My precious, tiny son with his brain cysts and spina bifida and swollen ventricles and cerebellum gaps and a shaky future full of scary possibilities. I was heartbroken for him.

For weeks, I have been crying out to the Lord for joy that overflows and peace that passes understanding and strength that overcomes this awful situation. I’ve been searching his word for guidance for how to walk through this. I’ve been reaching for a hope that touches my grief. I know there’s nowhere else to turn. I know that the Bible is precious and life-giving. But this is painful at a level that its promises don’t seem to touch. I look at them and I repeat them and I remember that God is working things for good and that, in eternity, everything will be healed and whole, but my baby hadn’t even made it 20 days from his first breath and he was back in the hospital. We’d had just 5 weeks of newborn snuggles when we started discussions on which brain surgery would be best for him. We had held on with all our might through this pregnancy. Little did we know how we would struggle on the other side of it. 

I climb into bed each night so relieved that I’ll be unconscious soon and I lay in bed each morning, trying to rally for another day in a story I don’t want to be living. I have no control here. Not over this. This is not something I can study for or work hard enough to fix. In a moment, it didn’t matter what I had wanted my life to look like. It rearranged itself around a new priority, and I watched, helpless as the pieces fell into place for a role where my training didn’t apply and my desires didn’t matter.

This is do-what-needs-to-be-done territory. This is a hold-our-whole-lives-before-the-Lord season, because we are helpless here, and all we can do is look to Him. We are discouraged, and fighting to cling to our hope. We are weary, and we are learning what hard work it is to do the good God has set before us and not lose heart – to be content with the good He has set before us in place of the good we had in mind. To trust in our disappointment that He is our helper and that He has not abandoned us. We are fighting a battle with our own hearts to entrust our baby and our story to Him.

Here is what I’m working to remember:

I have no control, but the One who has all the control is very good, and He loves Benaiah very much. He is for us. He has planned good things for us since long ago. Our lives are his masterpiece, not the jumbled, broken wreck it feels like at the moment. We are confused, but He is faithfully ordering our steps. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Benaiah has some things that didn’t form well, but who he is was formed with great care. God not only created the temporary body, He crafted the precious, eternal soul living in it. Benaiah is more than just his body and his brokenness. With all that needs treatment, yet he is wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)

Peace that guards my heart and mind comes in proportion to my choice to fix my thoughts on the Lord, cast my cares on Him, and refuse to worry. His peace doesn’t fall short, but I do fall short of stepping into it. I am begging Him to help me here. To help me to fight the temptation to back away from Him in my disappointment, confusion, frustration and fear. He is ready to hold me, guard me, comfort me, and walk me through this if I will throw myself and my troubles onto Him, whole-heartedly trusting his faithfulness and his care for me. (Isaiah 26:3-4) 

Oh Lord, 

We are looking at this unexpected season before us and asking you for help. We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you. 

I believe this next year can be full of your grace. Your grace for all the appointments. Your grace in the surgeons and doctors you provide to care for Benaiah. Your grace over his surgery and procedures. Your grace for parenting and marriage, even out of our brokenness. Your grace in orchestrating a way for us to serve that is a good fit, here and now. Your grace at work in our hearts to teach us to trust you, to endure, and to be satisfied in you through the waiting. Your grace to keep hoping you will make a way for Cody to fly again. Your grace in our relationships. Your grace for all we’ve lost and left behind.

Your grace will be sufficient for us. And this year, I believe we’ll see it again and again and again. Lord, give us the eyes to recognize your grace in the hardship. Help our hearts to find your peace as we gaze at who you are. Teach us to trust you when we feel perplexed, that our hearts may face each next moment with courage. When we cling to you, we will not be driven to despair. You’re worthy of our trust. Lord, help our unbelief.

Crawl With Endurance: on victory in hardship, even when it has you on your knees

/ bekaburnsblog / 1 Comment

“We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father…”

–Colossians 1:11-12

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The first time I faced this, I was completely thrown. All I could see was a debilitating, life-consuming sickness that disrupted our plans and caused cracks in my faith. The nausea left the day I delivered my baby. But it took an entire year to recover my footing.

Now I see that every day I am sick is a battle for my heart – a choice to say “yet I will trust you” or to allow discouragement and unbelief to take root. Every difficulty I will ever face offers that same choice. And I have learned that I cannot afford to make the wrong one.

Hardship is an opportunity to build endurance – to wait with confidence, pushing through the discomfort for a little bit longer than ever before. Or, if we are driven by the wrong expectations, it will become the hurdle we collapse over. God’s Word has never glossed over what kind of race this is. May he shore up our hearts to run (or in my case crawl) with endurance.

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Oh Lord Almighty,

You can do no wrong. Help me to prepare my mind for this ongoing battle. Teach me to strip away the entangling attitude that demands comfort and lives for my own desires. Give me a mind to suffer hardship in a way that honors your name. Shape my expectations by your Word so that I am strengthened to endure what is difficult, and I am content with where you have placed me and how you have provided for me. Help me to cling to the truth that you are trustworthy and good, whatever becomes of me.

I have pleaded with you for a different kind of pregnancy. Now I ask that you would make me different through this pregnancy.

Please help my heart to find you near and believe you sufficient. Transform the way I think about ministry and service. When I feel I have so little to offer, make my heart humble to see all you are capable of. When I struggle to see the big picture, make me willing to trust you and stay the course. Give my heart courage for the task, and use every hardship and discomfort as a precise tool in your hand to hone and shape me.

Carve away the pieces of me that resist you, that exalt myself, and that stand in the way of people seeing Christ alone. Me, the frail container, and He, the only one with the strength to strengthen me; the only source of all the endurance and patience I need.