My life has been filled with some deep griefs in recent years. As a family we are walking through an intensely difficult time right now. It is hard for us to plan anything and often we aren’t able to do things that we used to take for granted.
So when it came to my husband’s recent 50th birthday I was concerned whether we would be able to celebrate it well. Although, in all honesty, I felt too exhausted to try and do more than get through each day. The idea of organising anything that might need to be cancelled filled me with dread.
Then we decided to utilise a voucher some friends had given us to do something for just the two of us. We downed tools very early one day, and went out for a slap-up brunch while the kids were at school. While it was stressful to get out, we were so pleased we had made the effort.
LEARNING HOW TO REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE WELL
The arrangements then kept falling into place. We were blessed to be able to see friends as well as family to celebrate my husband and what he means to us all. It truly was a special time for him. However, it was constantly punctuated with the sadness of life’s obstacles yet to be overcome.
As we were in the midst of our busy weekend, I kept being reminded of the Israelites in the wilderness. While God provided for their needs their day-to-day experiences must have been tough. A nomadic lifestyle, no modern-day facilities or medicines, and having to bury their dead before moving on… What harsh realities they must have faced. And yet God taught them the importance of remembering and celebrating through the many festival days that were a part of the law shared with Moses on Mt Sinai.
I am thrilled to welcome Lauren H. Brandenburg to my blog today. Her latest book, The Marriage of Innis Wilkinson, has recently been published by Lion Hudson and I am part of the blog tour she is doing. Here she shares very honestly about the difficulties she has faced with her family over the years – and what she has learned about the importance of remembering God’s faithfulness.
It amazes me how, when a new hardship arises in my life, I suddenly forget the multitude of answered prayers that blanket my days. Maybe it’s because the answered prayers have become my new normal, a part of my routine. Maybe it’s because I’ve settled into that peace of God’s that surpasses all comprehension.
‘And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’ Philippians 4:7 (NASB)
Or maybe it’s because remembering the source of that answered prayer brings back memories of pain, frustration, anger, and loss…instead of the blessings, the victories, and the string of joys that came out of it all. It seems a difficult balance for me not to dwell on the hardships of my past, exchanging it for the faithfulness of God. When people ask me to share my ‘story’ – those defining hardships that have brought me to where I am – I suddenly delve back into the darkness, the culmination of three separate events that fight to define me.
THE PAIN THAT BROUGHT A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE
We have been through a lot as a family. This section of my ‘story’ begins in 2008 when the US economy was leaving people unemployed and homeless. As my husband’s career had him heavily invested in real estate, we became a quick but temporary causality – losing our car, home, and way of life. Within a few months our life of ease was replaced by donated clothes and free food from our church, while I retreated to my closet and cried out to the Lord – “We need a miracle! Please don’t let us lose our home!”
I prayed for my husband’s broken spirit. I prayed for money. I prayed life would return to normal. I prayed the Lord would take us far away onto the mission field – Nicaragua would work, maybe Mexico – so we could start over away from those who were watching our fall.
Months went by and our normal began to emerge into something new. Instead of shipping ourselves off to a third world country to hide in the name of service to the Lord, we served locally, establishing community dinners for those less fortunate than us, eating alongside them, praying with and for them. We were able to see true poverty, both physical and spiritual.
We began to change, to see the world a bit differently. It was our miracle, our answered prayer, our return to a new normal that not only changed us socially but spiritually.
And then we moved. Not out of the country, but out of state. It was unexpected but necessary. A chance for what we felt like was the fresh start we had prayed for. But that following spring my father was killed in a bicycling accident on his way home from work. And in my new life, my prayers shifted to prayers for my mother’s pain, for what life would be like now that she was on her own and three hours from our new life.
The following fall [autumn], my daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor on the base of her cerebellum. Spinal fluid had been backing up on her brain causing excruciating headaches that had been falsely diagnosed by others in the medical profession. They said she may never walk. They said she may never feed herself. They said it could be cancer. I began to cry out: “God heal my girl! God please don’t take her from me!”
REMEMBERING TO DWELL ON THE RIGHT THINGS
Those are the sections of my life I so often seem to tell when people ask about my ‘story’, adding in the parts about how we served others during our time of need, how provision was provided over and over, how I watched my mother grow and devote herself to teaching the Bible in her home, and how people all over the world prayed for our girlie, and now she’s 17, drives, is on the volleyball team, and is currently trying to decide where she wants to go to university.
But when that new hardship arises, as it did last fall when I found myself in the darkness of a depression I could not justify or seem to find my way out of, I couldn’t see the truth or the loveliness in all that was going on around me. Instead, I was allowing comparison and lies to distract me from a life of fullness.
‘Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.’ Philippians 4:8
One word brought me out of my darkness and placed me back in the confidence of his care: Remember. I had to remember what was true about myself and the string of answered prayers that had led me to the life I was living. I had to remember to dwell on what was lovely – those things that brought me rest, joy, and allowed me to tap into the whimsical person I was created to be.
And I had to remember that he’s here, in the dark moments, the little moments, the ordinary moments, and in the new moments of my life that are writing the ‘story’ of the now. Every single one of my prayers were answered, not all in the way or in the timeliness that I would have liked. But God heard. And he answered. They were impactful times – the times where my faith was strongest. Yet, life gets mundane and sometimes the biggest concern I have for the day is finishing the laundry or turning in edits.
When I am outside a season of hardship, it is easy to forget what it was like to be in full dependence. Then, I remember – not my ‘story’ but his victory in both the difficult times in my life and the simple. I remember his story – a story of forgiveness, love, and his promise to go ahead of me. A promise to never fail me or forsake me – even when I forget, he remembers.
‘The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’ Deuteronomy 31:8
Lauren H. Brandenburg is a mentor, speaker, and author who happily blurs the lines between traditional genres. She is the author of The Death of Mungo Blackwell and The Marriage of Innis Wilkinson. As a former English teacher, and now homeschooling mum, Lauren combines her love of ‘the what if’ with her spirit of adventure and faith to delight and encourage readers young and old. She lives with her husband, Jamie, and two children in a lovely little town just south of Nashville, Tennessee where they laugh a lot.
