It was far from her most important reminder, but the reality is, Sharon is always who I go to when I need encouraged, because I know she'll encourage me in Christ.
Sometimes I wish she'd feel bad for me, but she knows that's not what I ever actually need. Sometimes I hope she'll be all worried about me, but Sharon's very grounded in the reality that God's got us, and she trusts Him. When I wish someone could just come be with me, she often does. And no matter what the situation is, I have utter confidence that Sharon, today, is intimately and faithfully praying for me, the powerful intervention I need.
Even more than chocolate.
I'm trying to be Sharon in the lives of our brothers and sisters around us right now, following her godly examples of true encouragement as I seek to love well during this relentlessly difficult time in Haiti.
Here's a few of the keys to life-giving encouragement I'm clinging to:
Not pity, but mercy.
Oswald Chambers once preached this brutal little word on self-pity, and every time I read it, it resonates more with me as harsh and TRUE. I need true more than feel-good, as does this country, as do the hurting around you.
Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Ask the Lord instead to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you.
Haiti doesn't need pitied, or told that she is in a terrible place, so that she she can keep comparing herself to others, or giving Satan credit, or focusing more on all the problems. Our friends don't need our pity, drawing their perspective again and again to themselves, which is life-sucking, not giving. I don't need my pity, allowing me to wallow in all the ways it's not fair, all the ways I've been wronged, all the ways I deserve better...quickly misleading me from the joy-bearing, freeing truth: that I deserved death, and have found, instead, salvation.
Self-pity removes God from the throne, Chambers continues, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges, always absorbing, never giving, never being satisfied...then there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.
God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort, 2 Corinthians 1 promises, and Hebrews 4 tells us to draw near with boldness to God's throne of grace to receive mercy and help.
Let us have God's mercy for one another, encouraging one another with compassion and kindness, living lovely and generous, pointing to our merciful Father and who HE is. Don't allow me, don't allow your loved ones, don't allow our brothers and sisters to indulge in the luxury of misery, removing God's richness from their lives.
There is no person, there is no place, there is no circumstance that can remove us from the endless, powerful, full love of God. Our merciful Father is truly the source of all comfort. His mercy is what we have to give.
Not panic, but peace.
Like many of us, I don't have any trouble trusting God with myself and refusing to worry about me. But heavens, am I tempted to worry about those I love.
We must overcome it, friends. If God knows that worry is so toxic and pointless that He admonishes us about it again and again in His Word, how could it POSSIBLY be good for us to slather on our friends and loved ones?
What bridge has worry EVER built? What relationship has it ever mended, what door has it ever opened, what good has it ever done?
If He tells us not to fear, then we musn't. If He tells us not to worry, then we've gotta FIGHT it actively and faithfully and continually.
We will never forget the day we flew back home to Haiti with 3 week-old Lily on a missionary plane full of people heading to Haiti for missions trips.
The idea, then, was that we were alongside brothers and sisters, all who believed in taking and being the Gospel in Haiti, and there we were, 24 and holding our first precious child, saying tearful goodbyes to family and searching the Lord for all our strength.
What could you possibly be THINKING, a man said to Matt as he followed us up the ladder into the wide open DC3. What kind of parents are you, taking a tiny baby to a place like Haiti? SHAME on you.
He said nothing else, we never saw him again, he was only speaking out of "logical" worry, probably thought he was giving us wisdom.
But I can't tell you how completely and utterly he obliterated those brand-new parents' faith and boldness and courage that day. His word of worry opened the floodgates to all of the sinful mindsets of fear, worry and lack of faith we'd been fighting so faithfully against.
The encouraging word that he could have shared that would have launched us back to the missionfield with our confidence in Christ and peace in our hearts instead was a word that panicked us to the core.
We have such a safe place to take our fears and worries....to the One Who Wants Them.
We've got to give Him our fear for Him to transform, and give our friends His peace. We've got to give Him our weakness, and give each other His strength. We've got to give Him our worries and give the world His presence.
There is no where else to take panic but to Him.
Be that stable, firmly-planted friend, friend. Take Him all the shortcomings and fears and watch Him give you courage and strength, enough to share.
Not pulling away, but present.
When my mom died, it was hard for people to know what to say, what to do. Easier for people to compassionately love me from a distance than to draw close, easier for people to stay silent than to potentially say the wrong things. We've all been there, on both sides.
We all understand why visitors and teams have to keep cancelling their trips to Haiti. We all understand why, when things are extra bad, people often have to leave.
But Satan will use what he can--silence, avoidance, disappointment, space-- to speak lies of loneliness to those who are hurting.
We might not say exactly the right thing. And we might not always be able to stay close, to draw close, to BE close.
But chase away Satan's lies to the hurting by being present.
When everyone's staying away, reach out. When everyone is leaving, get in there. When you don't know what to say, say you're there. Be there when people are struggling, uncomfortable and imperfect as you may be.
I frequently don't know what to say in situations of just utter despair here in Haiti. I frequently am allowing the Holy Spirit to groan on my behalf with the hurting. But there is something very Jesus about sitting with them while I do, our Jesus who pulled the children onto his knee and touched the untouchables.
One of our friends messaged us the other day and told us that while he didn't want to discourage us, he wanted us to know that we would always have a place to stay with the body of Christ in his corner of the world.
What peace comes from simply knowing that friends are there...even when they're not here.
Not helpless, but praying.
I have to remind myself of this continually. I am not able to do 'nothing but pray'. I am not stuck with prayer because I'm totally helpless to do anything else.
I am helping in ways I could NEVER help BY praying. God is moving BY praying. I am drawing close, I am begging grace, I am standing in the great impossible gaps BY praying.
Yesterday, as our sick friends scrambled urgently to get the medical help they needed, I TRIED, darn it. All day. I left class to call missionary flights for the 20th time. I had emailed everyone I knew to email, called in all my contacts. I offered to take meds, pack bags, close books, clean house, drive the car, find cash, bake cookies, ANYTHING. And literally at 5 pm when they were heading for the airport to be emergency medically evacuated at 6 pm, I was running around my kitchen like a crazy person trying to make 6 pizzas, just in case pizza, somehow, would help them.
TOTALLY void of ANY of my interference, God opened all the doors they needed.
There was an awful lot of grace in this nightmare for them, and THAT I have prayed the midnight hours for, continually.
This morning, Paul said in 2 Corinthains 1:11 to his prayer warriors: You are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give thanks because God has graciously answered so many prayers for our safety. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us.
Haiti doesn't need our prayers because there is nothing else we can do. We can't be people who pray when we have utterly exhausted all our efforts, pizzas in the oven, too late, too little.
Stop right now and take that person He keeps bringing you and PRAY for them. Boldly, throne of grace, interceding, honestly, urgently, pray.
On Sunday I heard an expression from the preacher I've never heard before. In this desperate time, instead of urging us to be "standing on His promises", he urged us to be kneeling on His promises...literally, we are on our knees on you, Lord.
What a powerful composure for this storm, for any storm, for those in storm.
Let's encourage each other by being on Him on our knees. First...and then...and still. Let us place our confidence in him. He will continue to rescue us.
Encourage one another with His Word, family, for it ALWAYS points to the hope that we have. We will never, never, never be without Him, our peace.
It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, He has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything He has promised us.
That is why we never give up. Our present troubles are small and won't last very long...yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. We fix our gaze on the things that cannot be seen.
(2 Corinthians 1:21-22, 4:16)
❤️❤️❤️
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