An entry from a private journal on January 1, 2016:
Yesterday we spent the afternoon with John & Mary (not their true names), who were recommended to us. The man used to be a worship leader and like so many of us got burned and hurt by the church. We talked a lot about worship in general and the problems in traditional church. Brian described how we used to play together, and how the Holy Spirit would direct us. The man totally understood that, and it was the first time in a long time that we’ve talked with another musician who seems to “get” worship.
It brought up a lot of feelings in me- emotions and thoughts… Our new friend talked about the spiritual warfare that he went through 24/7 for a period of time. He was trying to lead a congregation into a place of worship in the Spirit, and they didn’t want to go there. The leadership basically shut it down. (Yep, been there done that.) It made me remember the times of significant spiritual warfare that we’ve had as worship leaders. I prayed, “Lord, I don’t want to get into that position until You want me there. I don’t know if I’m ready for that spiritual warfare right now.” However, I trust the Lord for His plan. A couple hours later at house church while I was leading worship, I got quite emotional because I just was realizing again how very, very much I miss having Brian play guitar with me. Even as I was singing, I was having a dialogue in my mind with the Lord. And I had to come to the place of saying, “Even if Brian never can lead worship again with me, I will worship You Lord because You are worthy. You’re being worthy is what is important, of primary importance.” But really for the rest of the night my heart felt rather broken. I wrestled through the night with my desires and missing my husband’s music so much. I finally came to the place of praying,”Lord Your highest purpose is what I want regardless of what that means to me here & now. I know that You love me Father, & I can pour out my heart to you.”
Of course this leads right into the fact that I believe God told me at the beginning of the stroke that Brian would be fully healed & fully restored. As time goes by and he still has deficits on his left side I wonder if that was truly a word from the Lord, or if that was what I wanted to hear. I have wrestled with God quite a bit about this obviously, because I do not want to have a spirit of doubt and unbelief. Lord, please forgive me for my doubt and unbelief. I do believe that you are completely capable of healing Brian! You created him you can heal him in a blink. I have begun praying for the faith of Anraham…as Romans 4 says, “Without wavering in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead. Yet he believed the promise of God.”
Recently the way Brian expresses it is this: “I have to believe that if God wanted me healed I would be healed right now. So the fact that I’m not totally healed right now means that God has purpose for me in this physical state. Because He’s completely capable of healing me in the blink of an eye. So, my not being fully healed has purpose to Him. And that’s ultimately what matters.”
Although of course, spiritually I agree with Brian completely, the human part of me grieves. I continue to cry out to my Abba father as He knows my heart.
We see so many ways that God has used the stroke-what the enemy intended for evil-as a way of blessing us and others. For that we are very grateful. The Lord knows that there are aspects personally and intimately that are difficult still as obviously aspects of our relationship & life together were greatly affected by the stroke. But in the span of eternity, those things are not significant. In our daily humanness however, those things are quite difficult. So as I said, I cry out “Abba Father!”