Encouragement for Parents When Life Mutes Us

When my son was about four years old, he had to have what was then considered a risky surgery for his age. We drove two hours to a university hospital where a doctor that specialized in the treatment he required performed the surgery. I still remember the doctor describing how the surgery would take place and all the potential harmful things that could happen. I remember sitting in the hospital waiting room for it to be completed, tears streaming, as I simply prayed, “Please, God.”

I was all out of words. I could only plead for God’s care for my son.

When Life Mutes Us

As Christian parents, we know our children need our prayers. God uses those prayers—not because he needs them—but because in his mysterious providence chooses to use them as a means to carry out his will. 

And so we pray. We pray for our sick child to be made well. We pray for wisdom when we encounter a parenting dilemma. We pray for our child’s protection from evil. We pray for God to open the blind eyes of our child’s heart so that he might see his need for Jesus and come to a saving faith.

Yet we know there are times in our lives as parents when we are so overcome by emotions that it’s hard to put words to what is happening. The challenges and heartaches we encounter with our children can leave us unable to voice what is going on in our hearts. We feel so distraught, so fearful, so brokenhearted that we can hardly utter a word, much less pray to the Lord all that needs to be said. We are left muted.

There are also times when our own sin gets in the way of our prayers. We are stubborn in that way, refusing to see the truth of our idolatrous hearts. In those times, we may look for ways to solve our parenting troubles on our own, rather than seek God and his will. We may trust in false hopes to lead and guide us. Rather than stopping to pray, we may even insist that we had every right to respond the way we did when our teen showed up past curfew and we failed to model the gospel by seeking forgiveness for what we said. 

Whatever keeps us muted, God is ever gracious still.

To read the rest of this post, visit Rooted Ministry where I am writing today.

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God's Comfort for a Mother's Cares

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Ps. 94:19).

A mother has many cares for her children. No matter her children’s age or stage, their needs are never far from her mind. Many of her worries come naturally as the result of living in a fallen world where children catch illnesses, face bullies on the playground, and struggle with academics. In a broken, sin-stained world, she can’t help but have concern for their safety from those who might do them harm. She can’t help but worry about the temptations they face online and with friends. She can’t help but worry about their future.

Indeed, the cares of a mother's heart are many.

While the ESV translates the Hebrew here as “cares,” other translations use the word “anxiety.” “When the anxieties of my heart are many…” The word literally means “disquieting thoughts.” Consider the anxious thoughts you’ve had about your children. Those thoughts that keep you up at night and follow you throughout the day. Thoughts that never seem to let you alone. Thoughts like: What if this illness worsens? What if she gets behind in school? What if he doesn’t make friends? What if we can’t find the help she needs? What if we can’t afford…? What if…?

David Powlison once wrote, “anxiety presumes a great distance between God and my present concern.” But the psalmist reminds us that God does known about our anxieties and cares. This verse is a reminder that God isn’t far away. Our circumstances are not beyond his knowledge and care for us. In fact, the psalmist then tells us that God’s consolations cheer the soul. “Consolation” is another word for comfort. It’s the same word used in Isaiah 66:10-14 where the prophet compares a mother comforting her baby to God’s comfort and care for his people. The word for “cheer” or in other translations, “delight” is to soothe or stroke, just as mother does to calm her baby.

And that’s what the Lord does for us in our anxieties.

Psalm 94 is a psalm about God’s people experiencing injustice at the hand of their enemies. It calls them to wait for the Lord to enact justice on their behalf. And as they wait, to remember who God is for them. He is a covenant keeping God who “will not abandon his heritage” (v.14), whose steadfast love holds them (v.18), and who is their stronghold, a rock of refuge (v.22). In the midst of the fears and anxieties of this life, our God is with us. He comforts us with his presence. Even more, he is our helper and provider. He is our strength and our place of safety. Like a child with his mother, we can run to our Father and find the comfort and help we need.

Calvin comments: “The heavier our calamities grow, we should hope that Divine grace will only be the more powerfully manifested in comforting us under them, but should we through weakness of the flesh be vexed and tormented by anxious cares, we must be satisfied with the remedy which the Psalmist here speaks of in such high terms. Believers are conscious of two very different states of mind. On the one hand, they are afflicted and distressed with various fears and anxieties; on the other, there is a secret joy communicated to them from above, and this in accommodation to their necessity, so as to preserve them from being swallowed up by any complication or force of calamity which may assail them.”

I like how Calvin describes God’s comfort as a “secret joy” that God gives to us. He sees our needs and meets us where we are with his presence. He sooths our hearts with the truths of who he is. He helps us see that he is greater than our fears. And if we have any doubt of his provisions of grace for us, we need look no further than the cross of Christ. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

The reality is, we will experience hard and fearful and troubling things in this fallen world. As moms, we will feel anxious for our children. We’ll worry about their health, their growth, their friendships, their safety. We’ll worry about their future. We’ll think all those “what if?” thoughts. But God’s comfort keeps and preserves us from being consumed by our troubles. His consolations soothe our soul. We find him to be our refuge in all our troubles.

Father, I come to you with many concerns and cares for my children. My mind is often filled with questions of “What if this or that happens?” Forgive me for when my anxieties turn my gaze from you and onto my circumstances and I forget that you are greater. I know you love my children far more than I can, for you love with a perfect love. Be with them now. Shower them with your love and grace. Intervene in our circumstances and be our refuge. Comfort my heart. Sooth my soul. Give me that “secret joy” in the midst of worrying circumstances. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Honest Prayer

Many years ago, I read C. S. Lewis’s work on prayer: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. This unique book takes a look at the role of prayer in our lives and how it impacts our faith. One thing that stood out to me then and continues to shape my prayers to this day, is Lewis’s teaching that we ought to be honest with the Lord when we come to him in prayer.

At first glance, we might think that goes without saying. Of course, we are to be honest with the Lord. Why would anyone want to be dishonest when praying to the God of the universe? When it comes to honesty, I mean less about whether we are speaking truth or a lie, but more about being honest with who we are and what is in our hearts.

It’s tempting to want to put ourselves together when we come before the Lord in prayer, rather than come to him exactly as we are: tears streaming in grief, heart pounding in fear, shoulders drooped in exhaustion. Yet Lewis wrote, “we want to know not how we should pray if we were perfect but how we should pray being as we are now.” Where are we right now? What is happening in our life in this moment? What is weighing down our heart? What temptations are we battling? What is the state of our faith? These are the things we bring with us when we pray. We come to the Lord in vulnerability. In weakness. In brokenness. In need of grace. Lewis wrote: “We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.”

That’s what the psalmist does. He comes to the Lord exactly as he is. “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long?” (Ps. 6:2-3). The psalmist is not ashamed to express the true depths of his struggles. He describes his pain with vivid descriptions. He asks God all those questions our own hearts ask: Why? How long? When? He cries out to God expecting that he hears and that he will respond.

The Puritan preacher, John Bunyan, describes honest prayer this way: “Sincerity opens its heart to God and tells him the case plainly. True prayer feels, sighs, groans, and bubbles out of the heart as some heavy burden lies upon it or some sweet sense of mercy received is appreciated. O the heat, strength, life, vigour and affection that is in true prayer.”

God already knows the content of our hearts. As the psalmist wrote, “before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (Ps. 139:4). He knows all the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. So there’s no need to pretend with God. We can be honest about the depths of our sin, sorrow, and suffering.

In my own prayer life, I often begin my prayers with something like “I come before you today with…” I then immediately voice the troubling thoughts I’ve had, or the painful emotions I feel, or the difficult circumstances I am going through—those things that are pressing on my heart that I need to get out in the open. Because until I express them to the Lord, my mind will not focus on other aspects of prayer. This level of honesty requires that I be honest with myself first. I have to be honest with the fact that I don’t have it all together. That I am needy. That I am dependent. That I need God’s rescuing grace. To the degree that I am honest with myself, the more I am honest with the Lord.

Bunyan wrote that “Prayer opens the heart of God and fills the empty soul. By prayer the Christian can open his heart to God as to a friend, and obtain fresh testimony of God’s friendship to him.” Do you know this kind of honest prayer?

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Who Prays For You?

Whenever there is some kind of tragedy, we often hear people say something like, “My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.” I’ve heard newscasters say it in response to a person’s loss of a loved one. I often wonder what they mean when they say that. Do they equate thoughts and prayers as the same thing? Do kind thoughts about someone make an impact in their lives in some way? Or is it just a nice thing to say? Also, do they really mean that they are praying for the hurting person and if so, to whom are they praying?

In recent weeks, I’ve received countless texts, emails, and messages from brothers and sisters in Christ with the same message, “I am praying for you.” In this case, I know why these believers say this to me. I know what they mean when they do. And I know that these words actually do something. Not simply because it is a nice thing to say, which it is. Not simply because I know someone cares about me, though I know they do. But because those words refer to something powerful. When a Christian prays, things happen. God uses the prayers of believers to carry out his will.

I can’t help but think of the story of Peter when Herod put him in prison in Acts 12. “So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (v.5). Then we read what happens when the church prayed: an angel came and set him free, breaking his chains and bringing him past sentries guarding the jail. “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting” (v.11). Peter went straight to the house church where everyone was gathered, still praying for his release. James tells us “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (5:16). There are countless examples in Scripture of God’s people praying and the Lord hearing and responding to their prayers.

So, for the Christian, praying for others actually means something. It’s more than words and more than a kind thing to say. It does something. God hears and responds when we pray for one another.

When we pray for one another, we pray to the same Father on behalf of our brother or sister in Christ. It is a very practical way in which we live out our unity with one another. Our Father moves in the life of those for whom we pray. The Apostle Paul knew this and that’s why he asked the Corinthian church to pray for him, “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many” (2 Cor. 1:11).

The question is, who prays for you? Who do you turn to when you need prayer? Whether you face temptation to sin or a hard trial of life, who will bring your needs before your Father in heaven? My father passed away recently and I immediately reached out to people in my life that I knew would pray for me. And they did. Even more, they called on the phone and prayed aloud with me. They came to my home with meals and prayed for me.

In order to have someone pray for us, we need to be connected to the Body of Christ; we need to be a part of a church community. And in order for people to know we need prayer, they have to know us. We have to be engaged with others in the church, inviting them into our lives, so that they know our sins, sorrows, and needs. We can’t expect people to know us if we slink into the back row right as the sermon starts and exit before the benediction. This means we have to participate in the life of the church—in fellowship, in discipleship and learning, in service to one another. The more we do so, the more we are united to others in the church, and the more we can turn to the church body when we are in need of prayer. And as we pray for one another, we are further deepened in our unity, and glorify God together in thanksgiving for his answered prayer.

The prayers of my brothers and sisters in Christ have carried me through a lot this past year. Do you have people who pray for you?

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Strengthen What is Weak

For the past few weeks I’ve been in physical therapy. I did something to my shoulder—at my age it might have just been doing something as simple as brushing my hair— and the pain was excruciating. The therapist describes it as a shoulder impingement. Basically, my tendon is pinched every time I move my arm. As a result, my range of motion is limited and I can’t hardly reach behind me without pain radiating down my arm.

The physical therapist told me that the main treatment is strengthening the muscles all around the affected area. To that end, I have exercises I’m assigned each day. I’ve since realized how connected everything is in my body. The time I spend hunched over my computer each day affects my back, which in turns affects my shoulder and arm. Areas of weakness in one location trigger other areas of my body.

And as I’ve labored to strengthen what is weak in my arm, shoulder, and back, I can’t help but think of the parallels to my spiritual life.

When I struggle with sin or find myself slogging through a difficult trial or even find myself in an extended dry season of faith, I wonder, are there areas of weakness that are in some way contributing to it? Or keeping me mired down in the weeds? Or making it more difficult to remember what is true? And if so, what areas in my spiritual life need strengthening? And in strengthening those areas, how might that impact my bigger struggles?

Such weaknesses could be anything. From idols of my heart to plain weariness from living life in a fallen world, there are many areas of my faith that need strengthening. Whether it’s identifying temptations and finding ways to avoid them or developing spiritual habits that feed my soul, when any area of weakness is strengthened, it can only impact my heart for good.

For example, one chronic area of weakness for me is my forgetfulness. I forget the goodness and faithfulness of God. I forget what he has done in the past to deliver me. I forget who I am because of Christ. I forget that he’s given me his Spirit who is at work in me even when I don’t realize it. When I forget these things, it impacts how I face a challenge or trial. When I forget God’s character and then face a difficult struggle, I am likely to think that he has left me, is punishing me, or has forgotten me altogether. When I forget the gospel and who I am because of what Christ has done, I am quick to seek false saviors or rely upon myself. I am also slow to repent and turn from sin. So just like in my physical body, one area of weakness has a ripple effect on the rest.

In truth, I forget all these things when I’m not immersed in the Word where it reminds me who God is and what he has done. I also forget when I’m not responding to what I’ve read through prayer—seeking forgiveness for sin, praising and thanking God for his grace, lamenting my fears and sorrows, and asking for his help and deliverance in my life.

The Word and prayer. Two means of grace whereby we receive the benefits of our salvation. And two key ways God works in us to transform us by the Spirit. Like the exercises I do in physical therapy to strengthen the areas around my injury, these means of grace are used by the Spirit to hot only strengthen our faith but to sanctify us. These means equip us to face what is hard. They help us to identify sin and turn from it. They feed and fuel and sustain us. They change and transform us. Utilizing these means helps us in the face of both temptation and trial. As the psalmist wrote, “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you…I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word” (Ps. 119:10-11, 15-16). And as our Savior said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

To be honest, the work of physical therapy hurts. Even more than it did when I first injured it! Sometimes I think it would be easier to just not use my arm anymore. After all, I don’t always need two working arms. I could get away with only using one to reach things. Or ask other people to get things for me. But as my therapist tells me, the pain is part of the process. It’s necessary to bring about healing. I need to do the hard work in order to see my arm’s abilities restored.

How true this is in our spiritual lives! The work that the Spirit does to sanctify us is painful. It’s not easy to read and study the Word and allow its probing light to shine upon our sin. It’s not easy to take an honest look at our heart and see areas where we need God’s grace to cleanse and make us new. It’s also stretching and challenging to develop new habits and rhythms to be in the Word and prayer. But whatever stretches us can only make us stronger.

Anyone who has gone through physical therapy or set an athletic goal and achieved it, knows that their labor is not in vain. On the other side of physical therapy or the athletic pursuit, the person is stronger and healthier. How much more so when we utilize the means of grace in our spiritual lives! For as Paul wrote, “for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8). So utilizing the means God has provided to minister to and strengthen our hearts, through the power of the Spirit, has value not only now, but also into eternity.

Despite the pain, I’m sticking it out with physical therapy and am thankful for the progress I’ve made. Even more, I’m thankful for the grace of God who gave me his Spirit who works in me to change me from the inside out.

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A Present Help

The area of motherhood that always seems to stretch me the most is anything related to my kid’s health. From the moment my oldest was born and required extra testing and care, I felt helpless. It then persisted throughout both my son’s childhood with chronic asthma and infections. Perhaps I feel this way because I don’t have medical training so I am clueless when it comes to understanding their medical concerns. When there is a health scare, there is nothing I can do to fix the problem; I am dependent upon health experts to tell me what to do.

I felt that way recently when my oldest fell and split open his elbow while out on a caving trip with his friends. They were two hours away, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell service. By the time I found out and got him to the urgent care, twelve hours had passed. He then got an infection which the doctor fought with an intense array of antibiotics. There was nothing I could do but follow the doctor’s orders.

Except.

Except for prayer. Except for trusting in the Lord. Except for seeking his help and asking him to deliver and provide and heal.

In helpless moments, Psalm 18 reminds me: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (v.2). And as the psalmist wrote elsewhere, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” 46:1). God is a very present help in times of trouble. Sometimes I forget that. I forget that his help is here and now. I forget that in this moment, right now, he is my rock and fortress and deliverer. Not that he was, but that he is.

He is my place of safety. He rescues me from trouble. He is my salvation.

All in the present. Right here. Right now.

So often I consider the Lord’s salvation as past tense, as something he did at Calvary over 2,000 years ago. Or even future tense, in that he has saved me for eternity and one day in the future I will meet him in glory. But in the present, in the here and now, the Bible reminds me that he is with me. He is my salvation in moments when I don’t know what to do or where to turn.

The Puritan, Richard Sibbes, wrote: “A Christian must look at the trouble with one eye, and to God with the other. See God to be your salvation. Let the trouble be what it will, if God is your deliverer. It is no matter what the disease might be, if God is your physician…God is our God. He chose us, in due time he called us, and made a covenant with us to be our God. He loves us, and preserves us…”

Life is filled with trouble. But we have a great and mighty God. He is present with us, ready to take us in as our fortress. He is our salvation—in the past, in the future, and right here, right now.

Dear friend, turn to the Lord with all your troubles and find him to be your present help.

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