This summer my identity really was stolen, but the not-so-funny thing was that in doing all the things one has to do when their identity is stolen, along with other earthly distractions, I neglected keeping and guarding my identity in Christ, and I found myself once again yoked, enslaved to works and fear of man.
I just finished reading through my last post from July 4th, 2023 – ‘Breaking up fallow ground (part II)’, and I have to say it brought me to tears to remember writing that. I’d written with such hope, with such ignorance, so oblivious the crafty schemes of the devil that I was already ensnared by.
In the past seven months I have learned about more abuse, oppression, and evil being done in a Christ-professing church to loved ones we had tried to warn; seen the pain and anguish on a mother’s face as she asked for prayer for ‘peace in the family’; found out I was pregnant with our second child - five days later almost died - a few weeks later found out our second child had indeed died after weeks of back and forth not knowing and then went through a miscarriage; had many of my dearest local friends move out of town; gone into extreme debt due to the medical bills/travel costs of my life-flight; found out I (for the seventh time) need surgery to remove polyps and fibroids from my uterus; had more migraines than I can count; had increasing blood pressure and digestive issues; packed on ten pounds of belly fat on top of the ten extra pounds so that I’m even more uncomfortable in my own skin with nothing to wear; had to resign our membership from our church; been repeatedly met by professing Christians with bitterness, unforgiveness, and hard hearts when trying to speak truth in love, confessing my sins and asking for forgiveness; been accused of not denying myself, not loving by serving as I was indeed sacrificially loving through various forms of service – just not the ones they wanted; had to forgo two of my three favorite hosting events; watch my loved ones hurt, grieved, battered by trial after trial, and threatening to lose their hope; and then four days ago I had to put down my very first pet, my dog Lucy, after she had a grand mal seizure.
My first hint that something was wrong with my heart, my sense of identity in Christ part of my heart, was when the death of our second child was confirmed and I felt nothing. I didn’t cry. I didn’t grieve. I didn’t feel the peace that surpasses understanding I’d felt when Hezekiah died. I didn’t feel overwhelmed with God’s love for me, His strength, His comfort that I’d rejoiced in so greatly after Hezekiah’s death. I didn’t feel anything. I was spiritually hard, cold, frozen. I knew something was deeply, deeply wrong with my heart, with my identity in Christ.
I knew that the part of my heart that was in danger was my identity in Christ because around the same time a friend went through her third miscarriage of the year and I wept over that loss of life, and pain of her precious mama’s soul. Around the same time I was deeply grieving broken marriages, broken fellowships, and broken families. But when it came to my own griefs, my own pains and sorrows – nothing.
The only thing, the only One who could penetrate the depths of my being to thaw, melt, and soften my heart is the Great Physician, my Wonderful Counselor.
‘Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
vast, unmeasured, boundless, free.
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me is the current of Your Love.
Leading onward, leading Homeward to Your glorious rest above.
Oh, the deep, deep Love,
all I need and trust
is the deep, deep love of Jesus.’
(Oh, the Deep, Deep Love by Samuel Trevor Francis)
Mid-October, when I found I needed my third surgery in six months, not even recovered from the near death experience and surgery in August, I texted my prayer warriors describing my state as having been drowning with wave after wave crashing over me for two months non-stop, and I’d just come up to the surface to gulp some air and was met with a crushing blow across my face, knocking me unconscious.
Water is often used in describing grief, pain, desperation – the inability to breathe under such distress, drowning.
‘When sorrows like sea billows roll’
And yet water is also often used in describing comfort, relief, peace – the ability to breathe, live with joy.
After four decades of singing, loving, and praying the hymn It Is Well by Horatio Spafford, it wasn’t until I slowed down to really notice the first line of the hymn,
‘When peace like a river attendeth my way’.
Spafford’s addresses these contrasting uses of water with his third phase,
'Whatever my lot,
Thou hast taught me to say:
It is well, it is well, with my soul.'
Like a River Glorious by Frances Ridley Havergal is another hymn I pray/sing to myself,
‘Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
over all victorious in its bright increase:
perfect, yet still flowing fuller every day;
perfect yet still growing deeper all the way.
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest,
finding as He promised, perfect peace and rest.’
One of my favorite lines that would play over and over in my head and heart during this time of praying for the LORD to restore my sense of identity in Christ is from Christ Our Hope in Life and Death by Matt Papa and the Gettys,
‘Who send the waves
That bring us nigh?
Unto the shore – the Rock of Christ’
I was praying to find rest - relief from the strivings and heavy burdens, and stillness on this ‘shore’. (Matthew 11:28-29)
I was praying to be made to lay down in green pastures (Psalm 23:2).
I was praying to be lead beside – not in - still waters/water of rest (Psalm 23:2).
As I prayed persistently and fervently and without doubt but in faith for these promises in God’s Word, I was growing weary, discouraged, disheartened as the waves and sea billows just kept rolling me around in the ocean, but never bringing me to shore.
Slowing down, pausing, reading God’s promises in the whole context of God’s Word, with His character in mind removed my tunnel vision.
'Who holds our faith when fears arise?
Who stands above the stormy trial?'
Sometimes God sends the waves to drive us to the shore, and sometimes God sends the waves to drive us to the river.
Either way, God holds my faith, God keeps and guards my identity in Christ, God is in control of it all and it is all being used by Him for my good, for making me fit to see Him His face, for His glory, for the building up of His Church, and for the furtherance of His kingdom.
Either way, whatever way, He is with me, He is in me, I am in Him, and nothing can ever separate us.
Whatever my lot He makes His presence, His protection, His strength and power, His steadfast love for me known to me, and I will fear no evil because only goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell with Him forever.
‘Underneath me, all around me is the current of Your love.
Leading onward, leading Homeward to Your glorious rest above.’
Spurgeon writes about our buoyancy in Christ.
Before November 21st, 2023 I felt like a lead rock stuck to the bottom of the ocean, in utter darkness and coldness, with no hopes of ever floating back up to the surface.
This line from Oh, the Deep, Deep Love has been the caveat for God’s truth to move from my head, where it was firmly believed and stated to myself by my self repeatedly, to my half-hardened half-broken up heart.
As the weights and sins are cast off that have hindered me submitting to my Father’s rest, I’m gradually experiencing the freedom, the relief, the rest as I float upward and onward.
He is faithful to remind me that it is not the outward, seen, and acknowledged works I do that bring me blessedness, but it is resting in, depending upon, trusting and believing in His Son’s completed work alone that provides me blessedness.
‘Oh, the deep, deep love,
all I need
and trust
is the deep, deep love
of Jesus.’
This Valentine’s Day, it is my prayer that I will grow in the knowledge of Jesus’ deep, deep love for me, and that His love is the only thing I need.
That no matter how the Accuser uses my family, my friends, my spiritual authorities, my faith family to steal, kill, and destroy my faith and hope in Him, that I will be so firmly rooted and grounded in Christ’s love for me that I will quickly discern the evil, resist him, and cast him off – ‘Get behind me, satan!’
This Valentine’s Day, it is my prayer that everyone in Christ will grow in the knowledge of Jesus’ deep, deep love for them individually, and that His love is the only thing they need.
That no matter how the Accuser attempts to steal, kill, and destroy their faith and hope in Him, that they will be so firmly rooted and grounded in Christ’s love for them that they too will immediately discern evil and stand firm commanding him, ‘Get behind me, satan. I am Christ’s, and He is mine.’
-soli Deo gloria (for glory to God alone)
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