Disclaimer: Many of you know my story. Many of you don’t. I have been quiet about the darkness I am walking through, abandoning this blog for years. Mostly because this blog, at one time, had several thousand followers, and part of me was embarrassed, the other half was afraid to share because I don’t want to hurt people nor anyone to question my motives. But God has been all over me to write. Whether it is just for my own personal healing because I suck at journaling other than in this form, or because someone else out there needs to read my struggles to help their own journey of faith, I do not know. But I have decided to do whatever it takes to seek Him during this time and do what He is asking, and let God handle the rest…. (About the author- https://abitofsoapandwater.com/disclaimer/)
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days…many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” (John 11:17-22)
Lord, If you would have been here, my brother would not have died….
It had been 4 days since her brother’s death. But it had been 2 days before that since Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick. “So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was”. (John 11:8) So at least 2 days….likely more, as it would have taken time to get the message to Jesus, waiting on the One to come whom she KNEW had the power to stop death.
Lord, if you would have just been here.
Is that where you are? It’s where I am. And have been here for a really, really long time. I have been in the “2 days” of waiting a lot longer than the ”4 days” post death. Standing with my heart, and what feels like my very soul, shattered in a million pieces, holding them up to God, saying, “Lord, I know you have the power in just your breath to breathe the world into existence, why didn’t you come help me?” There were glimmers of hope, “days” where I thought He had, only to have it come crashing down on me harder than before. “Days” so full of hope and forward future thinking that I just knew I was seeing the power of restoration first hand and had a front row seat to resurrection…..but it wasn’t. It wasn’t real. How incredibly disappointing….how frustrating…..how faith stripping…..hope deferring. Yet I hung on and on.
But now I am in the “4 days” post death wondering where was God in all this? Maybe you are too. In these “4 days”, I am trying to let God piece back together the fragments of my broken heart and trying to figure out what was ever truth in the first place. This period of time has been marked with a lot of crying out to God for answers and reasons that I haven’t gotten yet. Martha had those same questions. Why didn’t You come? Surely Lazarus dying wasn’t in Your will? Why would you let this happen?
I have the same questions. Do you? I believed, as Martha did, that God could and would intervene, because I had seen Him do it before, several times in fact, as she had. I had way more faith than a mustard seed. Mine could move mountains. And yet, it did not move this one.
How do you trust a God who doesn’t answer a basic prayer that seems to align with His word? Martha was asking for life for her brother, whom Jesus LOVED, and he was His friend. Jesus IS life! How do you trust a God who allows a child to die that you prayed so hard to conceive in the first place? How do you trust a God who doesn’t restore a covenant of marriage, that was His gift to begin with, when He is a covenant? How do you trust a God who allows you to lose the job that was an answered prayer?
I don’t know these answers yet. But I know, that I know, that I know, He is taking me on a journey in 2025 about TRUST. It started in late 2024 with some peculiar things that I would like to share with you. Would you go on this journey with me? I can’t promise answers we like, or even to find all the answers this year, but I do know one thing that I can trust. God has never let me go down a bible rabbit hole of seeking Him that He didn’t show me something! I am going to pray like crazy for all of us, even if you aren’t on a trust journey, for God to show up in unimaginable ways. I am still holding out hope that He knows what He’s doing. Would you come along side me? He has promised if we seek Him, we will find Him. (Jer 29:13).