Last week, we reflected on our walk with God and the journey that we are on. Part of the preparation for this session involved creating a timeline of our life flagging up key moments on our walk with God. We then picked a couple of these to discuss during the session.
I talked about finding out about our eldest daughter’s complex heart condition and how we put our faith in God in those early days following her diagnosis and how he gave us strength for the journey and the wonderful blessing of the years we did have with her. I talked about how very far away God seemed at times following her death. How for two years afterwards, I felt that I was mostly going through the motions as far as church was concerned and by the time the pandemic hit, I was ready to give up on church and really couldn’t have cared less about the future of my own church. And yet, God did not give up on me. In the run-up to that first Easter in lockdown, God prompted me to offer to live-stream some Easter hymns played on my piano and then all of a sudden, I found myself leading weekly services and caring deeply about helping my church stay connected.
It was a very difficult session for me. I have spoken before at church of the impact of my daughter’s life and death on my faith and yet I found it a huge struggle to do so this time. I think it is partly because this is such a very difficult time of year for me, with the emotional rollercoaster of grief that hits harder as we approach the anniversary of my daughter’s death.
Following on from the session, we’ve been given some questions to reflect on:
Looking back at the timeline – does any of what has been discussed in this session resonate with points on your timeline?
There were other stories of tragedy and horrific experiences where God saved the person involved and/or helped them through the darkness. I had an email following the session from someone sharing her thoughts that while she doesn’t believe that God punishes us or creates the traumatic things that happen to us, she does believe that he can use the aftermath in many ways and I would say I probably agree with that. I once read a similar thing about grief which stated the following:
“Just in case you needed a reminder:
It isn’t your job to learn and grow from grief. It isn’t grief’s job to teach you lessons. Lessons, for better or worse, often happen along the way. But if you’re putting pressure on yourself to grow from your loss, breathe in deeply and then let that pressure go. Your only ‘job’ while grieving is to grieve. And hopefully to show yourself some self-compassion while you do so.
@whats yourgrief”
So yes, while God can use the aftermath, I don’t believe that we are put through trauma in order to grow, more than our experiences shape us and our faith and God helps encourage us on, if that makes sense.
What brought you to this point – who has had an input?
Those sharing their stories in the session plus also the talk from a guest speaker who shared how God has nudged her places that she never expected to go. I could relate to her experience of saying “no, I don’t think I’m the right person for this, God” but then God prompting her to go for it anyway and seeing God at work through her as a result.
Has God been calling you to anything?
I do believe that God called me and my husband to use our skills during the pandemic to help keep our church connected. I’m sensing promptings through this course and the Lent course that we’re currently doing at church but I have to admit that I’m being a little hesitant right now with those promptings!
Here’s my spider web at the end of session 5.
A Kintsugi Faith 