His Encouragement #65
Good morning, and welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.
Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!
Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:
Isaiah 40:29 (ESV)
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength.
If one more person tells me that God doesn’t give anymore than what we can handle, I may scream. Currently, I feel like God has given me way more than I can handle. Today I feel useless and helpless and powerless and small, and this makes me angry. Today I am hurt in a way I’ve not hurt before. Today I want to yell at God to STOP allowing so much pain.
One week ago, my dad was killed in a car accident. He was months away from retirement. He and my mom had so many fun plans, and I was so excited for their new chapter in life. My mom and dad are BEST friends, so I knew that my dad’s retirement was going to be a blast for them. But in one second last Wednesday, a driver made a choice to drive how he wanted — not paying attention to anyone else on the freeway — and killed my dad.
My dad is gone. My mom’s best friend is gone. My brothers and sister have lost their father. My daughter, nieces, and nephews have lost their grandpa. In the blink of an eye, my family’s lives have been irrevocably changed whether we like it or not. We don’t get a say, we don’t get a vote, we don’t even get to confront the man who took our dad’s life. We just have to keep on keeping on, but now without my dad. I’m sorry, but sitting here typing this post today I can’t help but feel like this is too much. The pain, grief, shock, and anger are too much.
I didn’t know what verse to use in today’s post. But my brother has been going on and on about God not giving us more than we can handle. So, I looked up that phrase. Is it anywhere in the Bible? The answer is, “NO!” Nowhere in the Bible does it say God doesn’t give more than we can handle where grief and pain are concerned. It does say that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can handle, and in that temptation He gives us a way out, which is going to Him. But there is NO single moment in the Bible where God says He will not give us more than we can handle. So then I started to panic. What do I do in immense grief? How do I tame the fear? I know I can lean on God. That’s a given. But how do I make it through something so hard I feel I will never recover?
God is cool. In the midst of freaking out, He led me to a random article that had Isaiah 40:29 referenced. So I looked up the verse in my Bible and almost burst into tears.
My dad is a highly respected Fire Captain. Tuesday was my dad’s procession. This means that the firemen drove me and my family down to the morgue. We picked up my dad’s broken body and drove it to the crematorium. It is the final good-bye time. It’s an honor because firemen from all over Southern California who worked with my dad in some way came to stand guard as we took the body from one location to the next. It was incredibly overwhelming and highly emotional. It hurt SO badly. I felt sick to my stomach. My mom was barely able to stand. My brothers and sister and uncle and aunt broke down. And all of our children — my daughter, nieces, and nephew — broke into horrific sobs. It was a bad day. We all felt faint. BUT GOD. My family believes in God hard just like my dad did. I truly believe that God was with us Tuesday holding us up. I think God increased our strength so we could get through the day together. Once we got home, we all fell down in exhaustion. But I think God supernaturally held us so we could honor my father. God did exactly what He says He will in Isaiah 40:29 — He gave power to us who were faint and He increased our strength even if it was just for a short time. God did what He said He would do.
I don’t have a profound, happy way to end today’s post. I am hurting more than I’ve ever hurt before. But I know God is here. God will help me get through each day. God will help my precious mother each day. God will help my brothers, sister, aunt, uncle, daughter, nieces, and nephews each day. And, if you are hurting today, know that God will help you each day, too.
NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!
WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?
Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:
Trisha @ Joy of Reading
Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home
Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective
Becca @ The Becca Files
Jenny @ Author Jenny Lynn
Gina @ Stories by Gina
Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes
If you would like to join us: please contact Trisha or Nicole
