If I Really Loved Them

I had a conversation with my 14-year-old the other day about the reality that sometimes things don't go the way we think they should in this life. Sometimes God closes doors we desperately wanted Him to open for us, because He knows there's another door just down the hall that leads to something far more wonderful, and that's the door He wants to open for us. "When that happens," I said, "ask yourself what God is trying to teach you."

The thing is, when you say something like that to your kid, you have to do it yourself. Because your children are shaped more by the way they see you live your life than by your words. Oh, the words are good, for sure, but only if they're backed up by action.

Over the past few weeks I have felt like I am under attack. Like Satan is coming at me with arrow after arrow. My Shield of Faith is seeing a lot of action on the battle lines right now. In my previous post, I shared about mom's recent diagnosis of Frontotemporal Dementia with ALS. It's difficult to watch her struggle, not only physically, but emotionally as the disease progresses. At the same time, my husband had to deal with a large kidney stone that took a two-day hospital stay, a surgical procedure, and two separate occasions of shock-wave lithotripsy to break the stone up into small enough pieces that he could pass them. I came down with a cold and fever that kept me from going with him to the second procedure. And then our son got the stomach flu. Not a big deal to some people, but stomach bugs freak me out. And in light of everything else that's been going on, it was an arrow that almost got through my shield.

Almost.

I have begun the practice of speaking out loud, "Satan does not win" when these things happen. I do this because of the example of Christ in Matthew 16:23, where he said, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." The power of the Holy Spirit in me gives me the authority to rebuke Satan when he attacks. And it's a good reminder to me that Satan only wins if I let him. What's more, he does not know the heart and mind of God. He would love nothing more than to distract me from the concerns of God by getting me to focus solely on human concerns. How awesome to not only extinguish the arrows of the enemy with my shield of faith, but also to allow God to use those very arrows in my life to accomplish His purpose and bring glory to Him!

So as I prayed, "Lord, it's so hard to watch the people I love suffer," I had to be open to what He wants to teach me through all of this. And He responded with this question: "Why just them?"

Why does it grieve me to watch my mom suffer the effects of dementia and ALS, but I am relatively unconcerned for the people in Africa who are losing their loved ones to Ebola every day? Why does seeing my husband in physical distress make me so distraught, but I have become almost numb to the distress I see on the Nightly News? Why would I do anything in my power to make my son well, but I drive right past the homeless man on the corner begging for a little bit of food? More importantly, why am I not more burdened for souls that are lost, bound to spend eternity separated from God?

Oh, sure, I feel sorry for those people. But that's not the same thing. It's not enough.

If I really loved them, the way Christ wants me to love them, my heart would be broken by their suffering. I would grieve over their lost souls.

I'm sure this isn't the only lesson God has for me through all of this, but it's a big one. I want my heart to be broken over the things that break His heart. I want to love the people around me enough to care, truly and deeply, when they hurt. I want to care not just about human concerns, but about the concerns of God. And I want it to motivate me to do something - anything - to help.