Book Club Day 10: When you just can't hang on anymore

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In Your Book: Before we begin, please turn in your copy of Faith Deployed...Again to page 136 and read "Out of the Darkness" by Alane Pearce. (If you don't have a book, don't go away! We'd love to have you join us for this discussion anyway!) Now Let's Talk: Today's discussion is led by Alane Pearce. I wrote "Out of the Darkness" about a five-year period of my life when I lost seven early pregnancies, nearly died twice from internal bleeding and lost our two-week old son when he died from a severe heart defect. So be prepared! Today we’re going to talk about some hard stuff...and some things you can do to get through it. (Even if you haven’t gone through tragedy in your life, please keep reading. Chances are there is a woman in your life who might need to hear encouragement from you.) What happens when your whole life becomes an ...Again? When challenges keep coming up or your circumstances stay the same even after you’ve pleaded with God every day for relief. When the grief remains despite trying everything you know for help. When the depression lingers on. Maybe you’ve been through too many deployments. Or another move in less than a year. Or you are struggling in your marriage. Maybe, like me, you’ve lost babies you’ve never held, or a child who died before their time. Maybe your husband didn’t come back from the war, or he’s dealing with physical/emotional injuries from his time in combat. [Tweet "What happens when you just can’t hold on anymore?"] What happens when you just can’t hold on anymore? When bad things keep happening and you lose hope? When you can’t stay positive because you’re just so tired of fighting? That happened to me when month after month, we tried to start our family and month after month we were met with tragedy--for five consecutive years. My friends said, “Wow, God sure owes you a blessing for what you’re going through!” My family said, “Keep trying! It will happen!” And I sat in the house in tears, despairing over my life and struggling to get out of bed each morning. One day was particularly rough. My husband had just deployed to Bosnia, and I was in the middle of my sixth miscarriage. I arrived at church to find out it was communion day. I sat in the back and thought about how I felt abandoned by God. How day after day I prayed for a child, and month after month he denied me or took them away. I left in the middle of the service because I no longer believed God was there for me. Here’s the thing about faith struggles: They can only be worked out between you and God. People can offer advice, Scriptures and comfort, but in the end you have to wrestle it out with God himself. That’s why its so important to continue to talk to him. Even when you’re mad. He’s big enough to handle your toughest questions and harshest anger (I’m sure in the history of time there is little he hasn’t heard). “Why didn’t you heal Andrew?” I’d yell at God. He’d reply some time in the next few days with a verse or a song that had his answer. I found that even in my anger, the more I talked to God the more he answered. The more I opened my Bible, the more I’d find comfort and peace in his word. One day I heard on the news that a teenage girl left her newborn in a trash can and a mother in the Midwest who drowned her three children in the bathtub. I railed out at God again. “Why did you give children to them but not me?” I cried. He gently answered with Proverbs 23:17-18; “Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely a future and hope for you and your hope will not be cut off.” The margins of my Bible started filling up with questions to God and his answers to me. Do you know how much I’m hurting, Lord? sits in the margin next to Psalms 56:8 “Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll--are they not in your record?” Why is there so much pain and death in my life? If you really love me, God, why do I hurt so badly? I wrote. Every time I opened my Bible in the following weeks, I saw messages of healing and hope from God. He patiently showed me that my loss was not because he doesn’t love me, but because there is sin and death in our world. The more I sought his face, the more the darkness surrounding me lifted. His answers were very personal to me, addressing my pain where it was and offering healing with his words of love. It took me seven months of wrestling with God before I could see that even in my loss, he was always there offering his love and strength so I could endure. I could finally write in the margin of my Bible; Let your purpose for me prevail!

“I know now, Lord why you utter no answer. You yourself are the answer. Before your face, questions die away. What other word would suffice?” -C.S. Lewis in Till We Have Faces

[Tweet "God doesn’t leave us when we are downtrodden."] God doesn’t leave us when we are downtrodden. We usually turn away from him because we can’t understand what he intends to accomplish through our trials. See for yourself! The Bible is filled with God telling us, I am with you...I will not leave you nor forsake you. God has not abandoned you. He is simply waiting for you to call to him...again. Seek his face, search his word, then you will find answers to your questions and the strength to face your challenges, even if they come...again. Discuss: Is there a verse, chapter or book of the Bible that helps you get through times of trial? What would you write in the margin next to that verse?