Faithlessness and Faithfulness

I've been thinking a lot during this quarantine about faithfulness...

What faithfulness means and what it looks like. The faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of friends.

I think faithfulness and loyalty often get muddled up together. Someone can be disloyal with a single action or careless word, but it takes time to determine if they are no longer faithful. (I'm referring to friendship and not marriage - I can be disloyal to Chris without being unfaithful.) We all have broken, fallen moments of unkindness, of turning away from someone's pain for whatever reason, of saying something thoughtlessly. But those moments do not have to define the relationship. Not necessarily. The true test is if you ever go back, ever re-enter into the mess, whether it's of your own making or not.

Some of the synonyms for faithful are: dependable, devoted, loving, constant, resolute, steadfast, true...

The faithfulness of God is mixed up with loyalty as well. But God is never going to be loyal to me. He is loyal to himself and his own glory. It's the only thing in the universe worth being loyal to. BUT he is always, always, always faithful to me. He will always love me and resolutely, steadfastly lead me onto a path that leads me to himself.

What this looks like most of the time is that my heart gets broken, my knuckles get bruised, my faith gets shaken... because I think I know what is going to happen and then it doesn't. Or I think I'm trusting God, but then he takes something away that feels vital and I don't know what to do. I recognize his disloyalty to my desires and it's so confusing. Until I realize that his disloyalty IS his faithfulness.

Confusing, right?

I still don't understand why people I love and respect are the ones to break my heart. Maybe it's their sin, or just their weakness. Maybe they weren't intentionally trying to be evil. But God uses evil for my good and his glory. So what have I to fear, really? As God wounds, he also heals.

More than ever before I do not understand the Father. I don't understand his path or his means. I don't understand why it hurts SO MUCH, but I suspect I was trusting in the wrong thing all along. I also don't understand where my own fault may lie. Evil whispers in my ear through the harsh words of others, and sometimes by their silence and averted eyes, that I am useless and I've brought it on myself. But the words of Scripture, and faithful friends, and a wise therapist say otherwise. Christ bore the brunt. Their reproaches have fallen on Christ (PS 69:9). There is no condemnation for me (Rom 8:1). When others, people, friends, treat me faithlessly He will never forsake me (Heb 13:5). Others will fail me, my own strength will betray me, but I have a faithful High Priest who never cease advocating for me (Heb 2:17).

One thing I do understand as never before: my weakness. My faithlessness and unbelief. My fear. I am afflicted. I am perplexed. I am struck down. But I am not, and will never be, crushed, despairing, forsaken, or destroyed (2 Cor 4:8). I have never felt more unsure of myself, except maybe when I was about eleven and my whole world had fallen apart. I don't know how to talk. What to say. What to do. How to relate. How to return to a normal that no longer exists.

But one thing I do know: Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2-3).

He took my sins and pride and unbelief and failings on himself on the cross. And there, my sins died with him (Rom 6:11). I am no longer identified by them. I have a new spiritual DNA. No matter the condemnation and accusations thrown at me, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). It doesn't matter who tells me otherwise, Paul says "whether angel from heaven", they're wrong. 

The Father is steadfast in the midst of the storm. He is my hiding place (Ps 32:7). My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Ps 73:26). And even though I am faithless, to him and to others, He is always faithful.

"if we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself." 2 Timothy 2:13 - that's beautiful.

It is because of this that "we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed" (Heb 10:39). Immediately following that verse is a chapter on faith, more specifically, the faith of our forefathers. It is because of God's great love, loving-kindness, faithfulness, that we are not afraid or destroyed or put down. We see only his kind face, only his approval, only his delight in us (Zeph 3:17). No matter what is happening around us or to us.

In the end, my prayer is that I can more quickly distinguish between God's faithfulness and loyalty. And that I will accept whatever comes from his hand. And that I will forgive others faithlessness to me as He forgives my faithlessness to him. I pray that my heart will be tender for the right reasons and not for selfish ones. I am so glad he never gives up on me and that he pursues me relentlessly. What a mercy.

So Much Sorrow, but With Hope

My Nanny is dying. I call my mother's mother "Nanny". I was twelve before I knew that a full time, paid childcare employee was called the same thing.

My oldest daughter is named after her. Margaret Sarah. Nanny's name is Sarah Lou. She had red hair most of my life and was the most competent woman who ever lived.

My grandfather made a habit of starting businesses, getting them stable, then moving on to the next thing. Nanny would run them and do the books until they sold the business. In this manner my grandfather made plenty of money, but he couldn't have done it without Nanny.

At one point when I was a kid, Nanny had my sister and I for the summer, took care of her elderly mother, taught Sunday School, grew a garden and ran a used car lot, a gas station and an electrical supply company.  She graduated from Samford when I was ten.

When they decided to plant a church,  before it was fashionable, Nanny kept the nursery every Sunday for years. Paw Paw would preach the sermon to her on the way.

Nanny always had a kiss for us, even if they were the wettest kisses on the planet. She always licked her lips first. She always kissed Paw paw the most though. She adored him until the Alzheimers stole him from her. They did everything together. Their rv saw almost every state in the continental United States. I can still picture her scratching his head and kissing his cheek. Or making him a sandwich that was half wrapped in a paper towel.

Nanny taught me how to be a wife. Never did a husband have a better, more dedicated help mate. He valued her opinion and sought it out. He recognized that his ministry to the poor was possible because of the dedication and servant's heart of his bride. He knew how to tease her to laughter when she took things too seriously.

I remember a million things about her. The way she would wash my feet before I went to sleep on clean sheets. The way she would keep calling my name until I remembered to say, "ma'am?" The crunch of her homemade pickles and the gag factor of her sweet n low tea. The funny noise her nose made when she sniffed and the sound of her voice singing while she worked. The smile on her face when she saw me. Her favorite flowers planted in the front garden.

I will miss my Nanny. I'm sad that my children never experienced her the way I did. But I know that she's ready. She is ready for heaven and to see her Savior. She's ready to see her husband and her daughter and her parents. She's ready, but I am not.

I will miss her terribly.

HE CAME!

As I sit here in my bed at 6am, after a completely inadequate 6 hours of sleep, my mind is working hard. I just dosed Maggie within an inch of her life. She has a terrible cold. As I was gathering her medicine, Gracie came strolling in, followed by my Dad. When I peeked in Maggie's door, she was awake and watching a movie.

I'm not sure where to start this post. I have so much in my mind. Christmas, depression, grief, death, parenting...

Bill died just one short month ago. His loss is terribly fresh. So fresh, in fact, that it still seems a little unreal. I wonder if other people feel exactly as I do this morning. There is a fierce desire for Christmas to be uninterrupted, for it to continue on exactly as it has been. But that is impossible. One of us is not here. His loss is a tear in the very fabric of our existence. It has changed us.

I have four children. One is experiencing depression for the first time. One, who is normally stoic, is weepy and emotional. One is feeling bouts of protectiveness that give rise to sleepless nights and restlessness. One is fixated and terrified of every other person they love dying.

Merry Christmas to us.

Well, we can find comfort in our traditions, right? No, those aren't happening. I won't go into it, but the change puts a spotlight directly on the loss. Every one of my kids has felt a fresh wave of loss in the last twelve hours. My gut reaction to the ones causing the change is hurt, layered with anger. But everyone grieves differently and I am called to forgive and blah blah blah.

...

On the other side of my heart, it feels like, is the realization that Christmas has never really captured my heart. Sure, I've always said the right thing. I've read Luke 2 on the morning of, always with a little impatience if I'm going to be completely honest. Why has it never captured me? Why is my heart hard? I have prayed for God to reveal this to me.

...

I woke up to the Holy Spirit at work. It feels like he's taken a big whisk and begun stirring my heart with hard, beating strokes. Or like when I had second and third degree burns on my legs and the treatment required scrubbing them with a rough cloth and peeling the damaged skin away. The skin underneath is raw and inflamed and longs to scab over and be left alone. But for them to heal, they had to be disturbed and then soothed with the cooling antibiotic ointment.

The Gospel is my ointment this morning.

For me, the beauty of Christmas has always been in the comfort, smiles and joy, but this year, God brought me death. I want the ease and comfort, but God brought me the uncomfortable Truth of the Incarnation. Christ came, in the form of man, to accomplish salvation for a needy, fearful, weepy, depressed, depraved people... my family.

That sweet, innocent baby.. who I always pictured as in a nativity scene, maybe sucking on his fist and looking wide-eyed up at the shepherds... came to be tortured, tested, beaten and bruised, for me. He came. HE CAME. He was God, he was perfectly content, but he came. For me. For Bill. For my family. He came.

My heart aches for a different reason. Tears roll down my cheeks for a different reason.

HE CAME. He showed up. He entered in.

Death and sin abounded. But he came. He would go on to conquer death and pay for sin.

Christmas is not about this tiny baby who looked so cute in his feeding trough. The shepherds got it. The wise men understood.

There is no hope apart from Him. There is no comfort. There is no beauty. There is no eternal smile. There is no joy. This baby was The WORD. He was God. He was very God of very God. He was... the sacrifice.

My heart is captured. Dazzled. Devastated in a totally new and blinding way. I weep in gratitude. I weep in sorrow for my loss. I long for heaven and for my faith to be sight.

I have seen a glimpse of His glory this morning.

"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin..."

At this moment, I don't even care about all the pretty gifts under the tree or the food in the crock pot. I want to sit and bask in the transcendent beauty that is my merciful and loving God... He came. For me. For you.

He came.

I pray that this truth, this hope, this cataclysmic event with capture your heart as it has mine. If it never has, ask him to show you His glory as Moses did, as I did last night. Beg for it until He does.

My Grief Letter

Well, he's gone. We were there with him at the end of all things, but that doesn't change the fact that he's gone.

My heart is broken. Simply aching with grief.

I know, I KNOW that he is heaven with Jesus. I know that he is healed. I know that he is whole and happy. I know God has a plan. I KNOW!

But what people don't seem to comprehend is that he. is. gone. He's not here anymore. He can't read his paper every morning and do his Sudoku. He's not here to cut out interesting and well-timed articles and the leave them on the corner of the kitchen table for me. He's not here to share a tidbit of wisdom about vikings or the civil rights movement or the scripture that says not to get tattoos. He's not here. He can't argue with me or turn his cheek up for me to kiss or tell me that I'm doing a good job. He's not here. And my heart is broken.

So, when someone tries to comfort me by telling me about Bill's present reality, they miss the point. I'm not grieving on Bill's behalf; I grieve for me. For my husband and my children and my wonderful mom-in-law and my brother-in-law. I grieve for all the people who knew him and will feel his loss.

I don't know how to accept the absence of his presence.

So...

Tell me you love me. Or that you loved him (if you knew him). Tell me you're sad for me or that you wish you could make it better. Or just hug me.

But don't tell me things that mistake my grief for unbelief. Don't tell me that he wouldn't want me to cry or that he's in a better place. Don't tell me how happy he is... in this moment, my heart is too tender and too raw.

 



I love you guys. I know people love with cakes, pies, meat trays and croissants. I eat them and am grateful. I know you hurt with us. I feel your prayers. And I am so, so, so thankful.

This season will pass. God will bring healing and my heart will not be so raw. God is very good that way. His mercy is new every morning.

Come, Lord Jesus

Ten Things on My Mind Today:

1. Just when my faith is low, God sends His love to me in a tangible way through His people.

2. Grief makes me feel like no one really understands how important Bill is to me. He has been a true second father to me. He has raised my husband with such love and faithfulness. He has always been so solidly present, foundational. How can my heart accept his absence? I cannot force my mind to imagine it.

3. Joy and sorrow can co-exist. My life is living proof.

4. Proverbs 27:6 says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend..." This is how I think of my friend Amber. God always gives her the words to say. She says them even though they cut me to the quick, but they come from such a loving place inside her that I can't be offended. I could give so many examples of this, but I'll just give one. I was mad about something one time, a long time ago. I was mouthing off about it and she finally looked at me and said, "Are you listening to yourself? Wow." In that moment, the Holy Spirit showed me my sin and boom, I was humbled unto repentance. I am thankful for her friendship.

5. Living in the house with someone who is waiting to die is a horrible and humbling thing. Every noise, every interaction, every smile is profound. Every moment is significant.

6. Comforting my husband is something only I can truly do. Others can hug him or speak the same words, but when I do it, he sorta melts into it.  And vice versa.

7. I am not good at sharing the gospel with selfish people when I am in the depths of grief. At all. I think I need to apologize to someone.

8. I am so thankful for my sister. She's got my kids and I know that they're being loved and taken care of the way I would do it. She's homeschooling them and feeding them and making sure all the rest is done. I am thankful she lives so close and loves so well.

9. I am thankful for my Christian family. All of them. Our home church in Moody and our congregation in Springville, plus my believing friends who don't go to my church. They are loving us well, bringing meals and sending prayers up to the Father. They are sending me verses of encouragement. They are feeding my cat and dog and cleaning out my nasty fridge to make room for the food that is coming. They are comforting my children. They are setting up my booth at By Hand Boutique and selling all the things the girls and I have worked so hard to make. I am blessed in a thousand ways.

10. I talked to Brad tonight. He reminded me of eternity. Ecclesiastes 3:10 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." God has put eternity into our hearts but that doesn't mean he explains everything to us fully. I am reminded that this life I live is not all there is. There is more, a much bigger "more" that is unending. This eternity is WHY I lay down my life. It is why I follow Christ. It is why I do everything I do. There is more... it is a "more" with no tears, no pain, no goodbyes, no sorrow, no death. It is where Christ will be the very light by which we walk. It is where we will hold hands with our favorite person for ten thousand years and sing in harmony, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come."

Come, Lord Jesus.

A Week in the Life...

This week has been a bit crazy. My emotions are all over the place.

On the bad side of the scales:
1. A sweet 6yo local boy died this week after a long battle with brain cancer. We sat on Highway 11 yesterday and watched his funeral procession pass. This morning on Facebook, I reviewed all the pictures from the family's long journey and wept. Little Thomas J's casket was transported to the cemetery on a fire truck.

2. Yesterday my Dad's first cousin died. Alan was injured at his birth and spent the rest of his life with the mental capacity of a one year old. His mother, my great aunt Doris, died a few months ago. I remember when I was a teenager and Alan was in his thirties, I would sit and play "This Little Piggie" with his toes. He laughed every time. Alan was being transported from his group home to a routine doctor's appointment when, for some reason, the transport van left the roadway and hit a tree head-on. Alan died instantly.

3. I haven't seen my Dad-in-law in a week. He's been in a lot of pain and hasn't wanted visitors. I miss him. I hate knowing he's hurting.

4. I've gotten emails and calls this week from several friends asking for prayer for their children. Everything from drug use to school problems to rebellion. Some of the kids I know and some I don't, but their parents' heartbreak is real and profound and easily felt. I hurt for them, for their children and then fear for my own children's hearts.

These things are from the past week; in the past month I've held a friend whose son committed suicide. I've cried with a friend whose husband is struggling at work. I've listened to my own child struggle to understand why a supposed friend would try so hard to be hurtful. This kind of pain lingers in my heart, making me tender and raw.

But...

On the beautiful side of things...
1. Gracie got to go on her first Youth trip, a truly momentous occasion. She agonized over each and every outfit, folding and unfolding, repacking and rethinking. We bought her first floppy beach hat. We discussed boys and difficult friendships, doctrine and fear. I adore seeing my kids grow up and taking their first real steps to adulthood.

2. Jevon is here. We met him in England back in 2009 when he was just sixteen. He was our unofficial tour guide and sidekick. We kept in touch a bit, then on our second trip in 2011, a full-blown family connection bloomed. We have Skyped (the best use of technology ever!) and Facebooked and kept in touch. He is currently sitting at my dining room table watching tennis on his Mac and chatting with me.

3. Our friends took us to an Atlanta Braves game after we picked Jev up from the airport. It was really, really fun. Or as Jevon says, "proper fun". He had his first corn dog and enjoyed it. We took lots of pictures and laughed a lot!

4. We've gotten to eat out several times, which if you know us is kind of a big deal. Chick-fil-a, Charlie's, Wal-Mart deli, Del Sol. Yeah, that's a big deal.

5. Chris was off this week. I got to hold his hand and sit beside him and talk to him all week. *le sigh

6. Emma has come over and that always makes me happy. She is so open about her feelings, struggles, sins, victories, etc. It can hurt to see her hurt, but she is a gift.

7. John Ponder spent most of the week with us. I love that boy.

8.Gracie came home from the beach. Oh how I missed her!!!


As you can see, this week was full of ups and downs. I have wept and laughed, cheered and grumbled, struggled and exulted. When I said that to Jevon, he said, "Well that's real life now, isn't it?" So true. God has been good this week.

The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Beauty and Sorrow

How can one life contain so much joy and pain simultaneously?

I published my first book to Kindle this weekend. Imagine! Put it out there for anyone to see. Something that is specifically mine, from my one imagination and thoughts, available for purchase. My mother would be bursting with excitement and pride. My heart is happy with unexpected contentment.

My mom-in-law called this afternoon. The biopsy results for my dad-in-law came back today. His tumors are malignant. He has multiple tumors on his pancreas and liver. His life expectancy is so short. One day, in the near future, this wonderful, amazing, stubborn man will be gone from us. I can literally feel my heart breaking.

How can these two feelings be co-existing within me? How can I bear up under them?

I think about my writing and I feel a sense of belonging and purpose. I feel joy and excitement.

I think about my father-in-law and I also feel a sense of belonging. He has always loved me like his own child and I, in turn, love him right back. He doesn't hold back. If he's mad, he yells. If he's happy, he claps and laughs. If he's amazed, his eyebrows are high and his smile is huge. If he disagrees, he argues, usually now in the form of buzzing his servox in your face until you give up.

He is the very heartbeat  of the Sharp family. He may not participate in all the activites like he used to do, but he is there, behind it all, thumping steadily along. He has a steadiness, a faithfulness to him. He kisses me on the cheek everytime I see him. He is just the loveliest man. Every day, my husband (his oldest son) becomes a little more like him: stubborn, persistant, strong, wise. I could definitely do worse.

Happiness and sadness are together in my heart. I am grateful and terrified. Eager for more and scared of what I will lose. I want to live in the moment and never look back.