A few years ago I experienced a marked moment where the Lord revealed something deep and very personal to me. Immediately, I experienced a radical shift in perspective that impacted the way I live my life.
In my forty-six years of life, I have experienced great loss.
To give you a glimpse of what this looks like…
…I am the only person still living who is pictured in photos with my immediate family. My mom, dad, and younger sister have all left this earth and rest in the presence of our Lord and Savior. My younger sister battled health issues throughout her thirty years of life. Needless to say, I spent much of my childhood in and out of hospitals, while carrying a burden that my parents were also navigating themselves.
And then there is the moment when I was twelve years old and my parents told my sister and me that they had decided to divorce.
Later, in 2017, I was blindsided by betrayal in my marriage, which resulted in a divorce, leaving me a single mom to a five-year-old and one-year-old. As I navigated divorce, I was forced to become well acquainted with legal terms such as co-parenting, custody, parenting plan, and mediation. Living my adult years under the ruling of a court system was not the dream I had for myself.
Despite the numerous heartbreaks, I maintained a joyful disposition. Underneath this, lay a burden I had not recognized, but one I’d gotten used to carrying on my own.
Back to the marked moment in my life. I was at a women’s retreat, where we were asked not to access our cell phones. The first evening there included a night of silence. This meant no talking to anyone. I took advantage of the quiet time to reflect on my life and hear from the Lord.
I have always taken my role as a mother seriously. I consider my role as a parent to be in partnership with the Lord. I hold that my son and daughter were entrusted and gifted to me by God—to steward and raise up for kingdom purposes. And since my divorce, I’ve seen this partnership as co-parenting with the Lord.
In the silence, I heard the Lord whisper so very kindly to me…words that would change my life. “I don’t need you to co-parent yourself with Me. I am your Father and Provider.” Immediately my eyes were opened to the reality that out of fear and self-preservation, I had taken on the role of parenting myself for decades.
This invitation from the Lord was spoken in a way I could personally relate to. He knows us so well, we shouldn’t be surprised when He speaks in a way our hearts can truly understand. It made perfect sense to me. I could clearly see that I had adopted the role of parenting and taking care of myself…and have done so for longer than I’d like to admit. I was afraid to be left uncovered. I was afraid to be an orphan. I was afraid to let go and let God be God—particularly in the parenting and providing part of my life. This kind of surrender seemed radical compared to the way of the world—glamorizing hustle and independence. I had settled for counterfeit security and counterfeit love in my desperate attempt to be my own protector and provider.
In order to pinpoint where this unbiblical thinking crept its way into my life, I thought back to my childhood to the role I had played in my family. I was always the life of the party, the one keeping everyone happy. As I shared this with my mentor, she challenged me to think about what it would look like for me to “fast from being seen.” To be hidden in the Lord. To live for an audience of One. To lay down the pressure of performance. To abandon the orphan spirit. To let the Lord love and lead me.
As I followed the Lord to the backside of the mountain, I experienced a sweet season of surrender. I learned that simple obedience to the Lord’s prompting has revealed what no amount of striving can ever achieve: I am God’s daughter, and I can trust Him to be my Father.
In the stripping of much life and love my faith has been tested. It’s in the fire where mixture and compromise gets exposed and we see what we are truly made of. Treasure is not found on the outside, but hidden on the inside (2 Cor 4:7–9).
Suffering and yielding takes faith.
I’ve heard it said that if obedience is evidence of our faith, then suffering is how God intends to strengthen our faith.
As hard as we try to keep it all together—to keep from falling apart, the real beauty is in the yielding of our lives and allowing our own Suffering Savior to handle our pain. He knows how to handle our brokenness because He has allowed Himself to be broken first.
“He is a father to the fatherless
and an advocate for widows.
God rules from his holy dwelling place.”
—Psalm 68:5
Oh, what a good, good Father!
