This is a story of strength and faith, how God’s hand is seen from grief to restoration. A restoration far beyond what I could have ever imagined, a journey I could not have dreamed I would have made, yet through it all good, bad and crazy the Lord’s faithfulness shines like a beacon in the darkness.  It has been 25 years since my brother passed. I have had quite the journey since those days. My heart’s desire to know God’s will for my life. I would torture myself over this and make it so complicated. There is a verse that really helped boil it down, Psalm 37:4, “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  He speaks to us through His Word and the Holy Spirit. Every aspect of life needs this connection! We want to know what direction to go, what job to take, who to marry, what to study in college, the list is endless. He drops desires in your heart through gifts you possess, passions and desires you have so you know the way to go. For example, if you have certain skills and but decide to do something you are not gifted to do just so you make more money you are going to struggle and probably never be fulfilled. I love how Dave Ramsey talks about working smarter and doing what we have inclinations towards, as he puts it, when you do so your “vocation will feel like a vacation”. There is a peace and an ease about it when God is involved. You will work hard but you will enjoy your life. God wants that for us! He wants us to live in peace and thrive not just survive! In seeking the Lord for His plan for my life, I would press into Him and strive to hear His voice. I was so afraid I would miss Him. As I grew in Christ I realized it doesn’t quite work like that. The enemy sure wants you to think so, that way you get so caught up in figuring, you are distracted from hearing. Simply trust that you will hear and listen.  The Lord is so faithful to grow us up in Christ when our heart seeks Him. When I was learning how to hear the Holy Spirit. I would get little lessons like; you left the lights on or where my keys were. Yes, God cares about even the small things!
He wants us to live in peace in every area, it’s not that we won’t see struggles but we have a peace that passes understanding that governs our hearts during tough times. A week before my brother passed, it was about two weeks since Charley and I last spoke, life had busied us both. I had been home all day with my two babies, all day I was uneasy like something was just not right. I can look back now and see clearly it was the Holy Spirit. The Lord communicates with us and makes us sensitive to things, often beyond our awareness. I was doing laundry and watching TV when something popped up on TV that was unsettling and with the uneasiness of the day it did not help. I started to pray over my family not certain what this feeling was. In prayer I was given the thought; If you knew you knew it would be the last time you could ever talk to your brother what would you say to him? It was a feeling too strong to ignore, so I called him. I told him I loved him and sorry for being such a pain as a big sister, we talked for a while, it was the best conversation we ever had, I never felt closer to him, it was also our last conversation we would ever have. That was a gift from God! The Holy Spirit will direct us, it is so vital to listen and follow those leadings even if they do not make sense. I have a peace I can take through the rest of my life, I would not have this if I had not called him. Many times I did not listen to the Holy Spirit and boy I wish I had!
As you seek the Lord in this crazy life, He will direct you through the Holy Spirit and His Word. Romans 10:17, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message , and the message is heard through the Word of Christ.” The Spirit and the Word will always agree (I John 5:6-12). When you tune into the Holy Spirit and read the Word of God, you will hear Him loud and clear. It’s like tuning in a radio, if the receiver is lined up to the proper frequency you hear the program clearly. You are the recipient and the voice of the Holy Spirit will be clear as you are tuning your inner man to the Word of God. If you are lined up with the worlds way of thinking and doing, the noise and distractions of the world will drown out the voice of the Lord. There is an enemy out there that wants to kill, steal and destroy we must be on guard and equipped to stand against him. He does not want to see people walking in the life God has intended for them. The enemy uses distractions to draw you away from the Word and God’s plan for your life. Reading God’s word keeps that tuner fixed on Him! As a mother I have had my fill of full days, way more than I could handle sometimes. Thank God I did not have to handle things on my own, He was always there empowering me to do what was before me. The past 25 years since my brother’s death have had its fair share of trials, I had been through divorce, a single mom with a house full, I went back to college, experienced job loss, death of a parent, loss of animals, had other struggles yet restoration found me. I have a beautiful love, remarried (a beautiful story of its own) moved across the country, started a blended family and we were blessed with a son at our mature age! 46 and expecting, sound like another book of its own!
I have seen heartache and I have seen beautiful restoration and blessing. In every part, God was there. He has taken all these strands of life some black with despair and some gold and brilliant and He weaves a beautiful tapestry of my life. Did you ever look at the back of a weaving? It’s an absolute mess, but when you turn it around it is a beautiful design, an intricate creation. That is our life, we don’t see the finished product often we are focused on all the knots and loops and twists and turns in the background. God knows what He is doing and He is working and creating a masterpiece with your life! The tapestry of your life is in the process don’t cut the threads or be discouraged because you cannot see how it will turn out! Trust the One who can see it all and trust the He has a plan for your life! Trust that He Loves you! It is a lie from the enemy to think otherwise. Hold on to John 14:17, “The Spirit of truth, the world cannot accept him. But you know Him for He lives with you and will be in you.”
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(Passage from Strength in Faith by Dawn Love)

The sun had set and we were wrapping things up for the evening, getting babies in bed, dishes washed, ready to call it a night. I was getting excited my brother was coming for a visit that weekend, so before I turned I called to finalize plans. Five minutes after leaving a message the phone rang, it was a call from my mother. Charley and my mom lived together so I figured she heard my message and was calling me back. I was holding our baby, in a horribly upset voice she told me put him down. “He’s dead, He’s gone, Charley is dead!” my mother cried into the phone. She was not returning my call but calling from the hospital. I honestly did not believe her when she told me. My response now looking back seemed callous, but I argued he was not. The call ended as she had to go and I ran outside with every emotion running through me at once. I was crying and beating the side of our truck like it would relive some of the pain. We lived in Indiana and as far as you could see it was flat open land; suddenly my voice seemed so small in the outdoors, it made me stop and the serenity of the night quieted me. The wonderous size of it all and the awareness of my Creator made everything seem much smaller. The Lord instilled a calm in me and spoke so clearly to my heart, “Hold on to me and do not let go.”
My dear brother took his own life, I know this grieves the Lord. He loves us and tells us, “I will not in any way fail you, nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let you down (relax My hold on you) [assuredly not!].” Hebrews 13:5.
Holding onto those words my entire being ached. Let me share a prayer I jotted down after all this happened. O Lord my heart is torn, and my breath is short, I stand amid what seems like a dream. The fog thickens and my vision is blurred. My head throbs and my tears have run dry. What do I do now? Will they tell me this is not true? That they have made a mistake? A part of my life is here no more. I must go on; I cannot leave as he did. Your presence is peaceful and strong. Your works that surround me are majestic. Fill me Father so I can walk back into this life that is waiting for me. For you are my rock and my strength, I cannot go on without you. I praise you Lord, for you surround me with your love. I straighten up and take a step. I am walking Father stay by my side.
How we all know these words all too well. Maybe not the loss through suicide, but grief and loss through death, a job that is gone, relationships that have ended, illness, a pet dear to us is gone, a time of sadness that finds us through circumstances beyond us, BUT GOD never leaves us! In Psalm 23 He says , “Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me; Your rod [to protect] and Your staff [to guide], they comfort me.” I love the word through, that means we will see the other side! The pain of grieving is normal but keeping things in perspective is vital.
 I knew Charley’s passing was not God’s plan, His plan is for good. Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you and well-being and not for disaster to give you a future and hope.” It made me angry that he was gone. The anger I felt went toward the enemy, that is a good target rather than a person. Jesus already defeated the enemy and keeping that in the forefront of my mind helped to keep the proper perspective. Victory already is ours through Christ. I just had to hang tough and believe.  Charley had struggled with anxiety and depression for years. Just because we know the Lord it does not make us immune to struggles but it does mean we have the One who cares about us and will walk with us through those times. It means we have the One who has answers and rose victorious! He has made this victorious life available to every one of us!
The last I heard, my brother was coming for a visit and making plans for the future. He was preparing to start an internship with a Congressman’s office, hosting two radio shows and he was attending an excellent University on a scholarship. I mention all this because he had a full life, and nothing happened to him that explained why! He knew the Lord; how could this have happened?  Depression and anxiety are prevalent in our society today and a very real thing people deal with. I am not a Dr. nor prescribing medical advice but I am passionate about sharing an answer everyone needs. One that works and has stood the test of time. I do know that whatever caused my brother’s pain could have been overcome without the answer being suicide. Charley missed out on healing and God’s best for his life. He cut it short! So many of us do that without even knowing. We choose to doubt or continue seeking other things instead of believing in ourselves or that there is a God that loves us and has a plan for our lives.
We are created with a purpose and intentionally. I had struggled for years trying to figure out what God had called me to do. He is not trying to hide it from us, it is not a difficult mystery. I personally would prefer a reciepe I could follow and then BAM! I get the results! 100 steps to having Life according to Gods will! Yeah, it does not work that way! He gives us enough light for the next step. Faith is how He wired us to walk, with Him, one step at a time!  Often it is right in front of you! The problem is we want the end result in the beginning! We need to trust that God has a good plan for us and step by step He will take us down the path to the results we are longing for! 

 Passage from Strength in Faith by Dawn Love

God has a design for each of our lives, an individual and unique plan laid down since the beginning of time. He has chosen to be our companion on this rugged road we call life. I know what those pitfalls and potholes look like all too well.
Loss can be a host of things, children leaving, a house, relationships, marriage, job, money, death, pets, the list goes on. It can feel overwhelming, depression wants to lock hold, BUT we have God! I have been known to enjoy working with clay, so I identify with the illustration of being molded and shaped by the Creator’s own hand. He is referred to as the Potter and we are the clay. Isaiah 64:8, “Yet, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our Potter, and we all are the work of Your hand.” When life brings us to hard places, like loss we are not alone. We have been created to be victorious as our loving God takes our mess and makes it our message!
There is a passage in Isaiah 52 that tells us to Awake and arise, for we are a child of the mighty King! Put on your strength, shake off the dust and be loosed from what binds you! These are words of strength spoken to a woman grieving the death of a loved one who committed suicide, it speaks to the woman who went through a divorce, and to the single mom as she returns to school. I have been all these women and now it still speaks volumes to me! We are all in this together, experiencing similar things. The memories of what the Lord has done acts as a reminder He brings us through difficult times. However, we want to go forward in life and focus on what He is doing in your life now and what lies ahead. The Lord has delivers and restores and that is where we want to set our thinking rather than the difficulty we had to endure!
Even in our brokenness God has a design for each of us. Just as a master potter carefully crafts his creation molding and shaping to be what he intends, so does our loving Father. Yet, this life’s twists and turns can take us on quite a journey, so let me pose a question. Where do you get your strength?
Only the Lord can take hurt and fears and help us to find our strength in faith. The journey through difficulty can result in times of healing, joy and love.  
After my brother took his life the prayer of my heart was, “God, take this horrible circumstance and somehow turn it around for good.” The untimely death of my brother points to the mercy and grace of a loving Savior! Whether death of a young person or someone later in years, the grief can be great.
As I pen these words, I have just buried my father. It is a different sorrow, not as catastrophic as my brothers, yet still an ache in my heart. In a visit to the graves a peaceful realization swept over me, as they are in the presence of the Lord.  You gather the memories and hold tight to the Lord, when strength seems faint it is on Christ the rock that I stand. We can have peace by faith in the One who carries us!
“Now to him Who, by the power that is at work within us, is able to do superabundantly, far over and above all that we ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams].  To Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
   (Ephesians 3: 20-21).
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