Healing Journey ~ Trading Pain for Peace

When the news broke about Timothy's plane crash, and as the night wore on, all we could do was ricochet between shock and horror, screaming and crying, denial and begging God to bring him back. The only thing worse than my own pain was seeing the pain of my children trying to navigate the effects of something akin to a bomb destroying our world. Our lives exploded. I gathered the ones who were staying at our house and prayed over them and for them. I had just completed a course in trauma and grief ministry called “Set Free Prayer Ministry,” so I had some tools to work with. Since they couldn’t articulate a prayer for themselves, I voiced the prayer for them.

As I held one distraught daughter who couldn't stop sobbing, I prayed, “Lord, we will miss Timothy’s sweet smile, his jokes, his laughter, his big hugs, his stopping by for food (etc.), ... But Lord, this grief is too heavy for us to bear. We can’t live this way. We give the grief to You, we ask You to carry it for us, and give us Your peace instead. And Lord, tell us what you want us to know. What is the truth we need to understand?”

My daughter grew calm and quiet. She later shared with me, “I remembered something you told us years ago when we were little kids. You were telling us about eternity, and how it never ends, and it hurt my head to think about it! You told us, ‘That is because our brains were created for the time we live in, and it isn’t possible to understand eternity yet. When we get there, we will have a new body and new capabilities, and we will be able to understand a world without time and without an end.’ Well, I had been beating myself up because I couldn’t understand this (Timothy's passing). I couldn’t process it. I kept telling myself, ‘Come on, you’re intelligent! You have a college degree! You can understand this if you just try hard enough!’ It was driving me crazy! But now I know – I can’t understand it! It isn’t physically possible! We aren’t equipped to understand this! But I will be able to later – when I get there!”

I didn’t even realize that was what she was struggling with. I wouldn’t have addressed that issue if I had tried to comfort her. I just knew that there were no words any human could say to me that would even touch my grief and pain, and I knew I was likewise handicapped to use any words of my own to minister to the others in my family. Only God, through the Holy Spirt, knew what each one needed to hear and could bring peace and healing.

The next evening, I prayed the same prayer over another daughter who couldn’t go to sleep because of her uncontrollable crying. After praying basically the same prayer as I had prayed for my other daughter (listing the things we would miss about Timothy, asking God to take them, carry them, and give us His peace instead, then asking what we needed to know or understand), she grew quiet. She leaned her head on me and said, “I thought of something. About 5 years ago, [a relative] told me about the birth of her first child. She said during labor, it felt like she was being crushed. She panicked and kept saying, ‘I can’t do this!’ But at some point, she decided, ‘I HAVE to do this! I can’t get out of it. I have to go through it!’” My daughter continued, “I had been thinking, ‘I can’t do this (deal with Timothy's passing)! I can’t live through this - it’s too hard! I can’t!’ But God is telling me that I have to. I can’t get out of it. I have no choice.”

Months later, she told me this "insight" was the moment she moved from denial to acceptance of what had happened. Also months later, the Lord enlarged her analogy to reveal that on the other side of that horrendous labor experience was a beautiful baby. We have yet to see the “other side” of our horrific experience, and we don’t see how God will work this for our good, but we know He will because He said he would (Romans 8:28), and He cannot lie (1 Samuel 15:29).

Again, I was amazed at the God we serve. I didn’t even know about that conversation she had had with the relative about childbirth and wouldn’t have been able to reference it to minister to her. God knows exactly what we need if we just ask.

The evening of the funeral service, my 5-year-old grandson wanted to spend the night. As I was getting him ready for bed, I went to take a phone call. When I returned, he asked slowly, with a troubled face, “Did you tell them that Uncle Tim died?”

I could tell he wanted to talk about it, so I asked if he was sad. He answered with a croaky voice, “Mimi, it hurts.”

I replied, “Does it hurt your heart? That’s where it hurts me.”

He choked back tears as he pointed all over his body, “Mimi, it hurts all over.”

I asked if he wanted to pray about it, and he said he did, but wanted to wait till we were in bed. So, after we were snuggled in, I asked him to tell me the things he was going to miss about his Uncle Tim. This kid has an extremely advanced vocabulary, so he tearfully described each thing he would miss: “I’ll miss his encouraging words. He would say, ‘C’mon, Buddy! You’ve got this! I know you can do it!’ even when I knew I couldn’t. I’ll miss him running around outside with me on his shoulders. I’ll miss him playing games with me…”

So I began the prayer, “Lord, Brantley is sad because Uncle Tim is gone. He will miss …” and I listed the things he had told me. As I prayed, he added a few more things he would miss. Then I said, “But Lord, this sadness is too heavy for him. So we gather up all this sadness about Uncle Tim and hand it to you. We ask you to take it and carry it for him. In its place, we ask for your peace. And Lord, would you tell Brantley anything you want him to know about this?”

As soon as I said Amen, Brantley began talking excitedly and happily: “Mimi! One time ... Uncle Tim and I were carrying some boards. Mine were heavier than his, and I kept dropping them. He told me, ‘You can do it Brantley! Keep going! You’re almost there!’ So I picked the boards back up and took one more step, and Bam! I was there!”

I said, “That’s a great story! When did that happen? Was it when you were working on your barn?”

He breathlessly replied, “It never happened, Mimi. It didn’t happen.”

“It never happened?”

Brantley was still very excited and happy and answered, “No, Mimi. It never happened!”

I replied, “Brantley, you remember when I prayed, I asked God to show you what you needed to know? I think God gave you that picture story about Timothy because it means something. I think it means that it is very hard right now to live without Uncle Tim, but if we just keep going a little further, Bam! We will be with Uncle Tim where he is!”

Brantley was so tickled; he almost shouted back, “That’s what it means, Mimi! That’s what it means!”

It was amazing to see his transformation from overwhelming sadness to giddy joy in just a few minutes. We both were able to go to sleep with hopeful hearts that it won’t be long until we are all back together. Just one more step!

These “grief prayers” are not a one-and-done event. Grief and loss (in my experience) come in waves and layers, spaced out over time. As a new aspect of sadness appears, we take each one to the Lord. Sometimes the sorrow will be for ourselves and what we will miss about that person. Sometimes, the grief will be for the one who is gone and what we think they will miss: a wedding, a birth, a trip. If our loved one passed after a prolonged illness, we may be sad that they had to suffer so much.

In any case, we need to verbalize in prayer what is making us sad. Then voice the desire to give it to God to carry. You might say something like this: “All these things make me sad, but I can’t carry it; it’s too heavy,” or “… I am tired of being sad,” or “… I don’t want to live this way.” Then, do the exchange: “Lord, I give You this sadness, I ask You to carry it for me, and I ask for Your peace to come in its place.” Then ask the Lord if there is anything you need to know about this loss while you sit quietly for a few minutes and listen. Sometimes, there is no profound thought, but just a feeling of peace regarding that particular area of grief.

The reality is: we are not designed to carry our own grief. Isaiah 53:4 states, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” In the same way that Jesus took our sins on the cross, he also carried our sorrows. All we have to do is present them to Him, release them, and let Him take them. It’s part of why He came to this planet. He wants to heal us - we just have to ask.

Luke 4:18 "He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted..."

1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your care upon him, for he cares for you."

for more information regarding set free ministry, go to setfreeprayerministry.com