Fathering in Faith

On March 6th through the 9th, I went to a retreat specifically for Christian widowers with kids still in the home. It’s been a week since I got back and I’m still processing things that God is doing in my life through these brothers (both the guides and those who walked with me during the retreat).

One major theme arose. And it’s a question from God. “Do you trust me?”

To show you how I processed this question, I need to walk you through the last almost 5 months. From the day Christina went to the hospital, to the day she passed away, to now, I will still answer yes. But my head, my heart, and my hands all have been working out that answer the entire time.

To be straight forward, my head has always answered yes. I’m thankful for that, because I know the Lord has kept me from falling into despair. And my heart has floated back and forth this entire time. And my hands have simply stayed in my pockets.

So what do I mean by that? I KNOW God is faithful. I KNOW God has a plan. I have never doubted that God is in control. I do believe. But speaking of belief, I feel like my heart just keeps repeating this verse:

“Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭9‬:‭24‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

My view of this is that difficulty between distinguishing the head and the heart when it comes to trusting in God. I KNOW, but do I trust fully?

And that’s where my hands come in. The hands are the actions I take based on my trust. And to be honest, my actions reveal a hard truth. I struggle with fully trusting God. Now, “fully” is the key word. I do trust Him with the end goal. I know God’s plan is better than mine. I trust that He will use this immense pain for my good and His glory. But I have not trusted Him with the process.

As I began to look at my life the last 5 months, I went into fight or flight mode. My body went into a state of constant survival. And when it went into survival, I trusted in my own day to day steps to get through. At first glance, others might think I’m doing exceptionally well. Because I’m taking “positive” steps. I go to counseling, I went to this retreat, I let others invest and help me, and I seek out company and wisdom. Those things aren’t bad, but I didn’t hand any of those things to God. Even if those things are “godly” things, my heart did not hand those decisions to God.

Life decisions, parenting decisions, ministry decisions, relationship decisions. All of these things I would pray for wisdom. It wasn’t a full neglect of God, but it wasn’t a full offering to God.

Over the weekend, I heard the Lord speak to my heart, “You took the plan and goals I gave you, and you turned around and created your own steps.”

So now, I’m just starting to do this. And it’s stinking difficult because guess what? I don’t have control. I never did, but I chose to not give over that control in my heart.

The result? I’d say two things.

The first is withdrawals from having control. I’m more lonely than ever. And a large part of that is I’m fully starting to process that Christina isn’t here. I found ways to fill that void outside of God. Not horrible ways, but simply not resting in God’s presence. So I’m experiencing a lot of these withdrawals. So will you pray for me? That I stay the course? That I abide in the Vine?

The second thing is that I’m experiencing a closeness with God that I would say I’ve never felt. My prayer life is better than it’s been in years. I’m even sleeping better and I think it’s a result of trusting in God and being in REAL peace. And my worship is having me cry almost every time. Not in sadness, but in gratitude and in verbally giving over that trust to God.

The leader of the retreat, Daniel Brooker, shared with us something I’ll never forget. I’m going to share it in my own words and situation. Christina is with the Lord now and is experiencing true worship. So when I worship on earth, I’m probably in the closest position to my late bride. And I started envisioning Christina next to me with her hands raised in worship. A beautiful moment I loved to see on earth, but now it’s even more beautiful. And this morning during worship, I decided to do something sort of weird to others, but God moved in me so mightily. I held one hand to the side and closed my grasp as if I was holding Christina’s hand. And I raised my other hand open to God. I’m crying as I type this, because I just rested in God’s presence. I trusted Him with Christina. And I worshiped with my full soul.

I’m so thankful that God brought me to Refuge. Thank you again for walking with me in this journey. Keep those prayers coming.