The Gap

I know that my husband, my children, and I are just about to enter another “gap.”  That time from when “something” happens to when you see how it’s going to turn out.  The gap can be quite the scary place at times.  The “what ifs” can seem enough to paralyze.  But it’s in “the gap” that I know that this little sinful, redeemed husband and wife team can please the Lord.  Because it’s in the gap that faith can shine.  And as most seasoned Christians have memorized . . . Without faith, it is impossible to please the Lord.  Outside the gap – no faith required.  Outside the gap, we think we have it all together.  Everything is calm.  We think we know what the next minute will bring and we often find great comfort in that.  But in the gap – oh my goodness, faith is required!  The gap is the time between what “may be” to when we know “what is.”  The gap is from when you find the lump to when the biopsy results are back.  The gap is from when God saves you, but not your husband . . . and so the years ensue, the years of praying and trying not to nag and waiting and seeing and then waiting some more . . . will God use you – will God save him too?  The gap is from when Noah, a preacher of righteousness, starts building the boat to when the flood starts – that gap when he wondered, “will anyone listen?  Will anyone obey the word of God with my family?  Will they truly all perish?”  The gap from when Esther entered the King’s presence uninvited to when he held out his scepter, saving her life.  The gap from when Daniel chose to disobey his earthly authorities and bow and pray to his Ultimate Authority – would he be found out?  Would he be punished?  The gap for you may be when your child is diagnosed with Kawasaki disease and you hear the doctor saying those daunting words, “yes, he does have heart complications from it but we don’t know where these complications will lead” – and so the gap begins – and the what ifs enter in full force – will Jesus take my little boy?  Or will He heal him?  Will this be something we deal with for years upon years upon years?”  The gap from when you get the call reporting your son’s car accident and you hear the words, “it doesn’t look good.”  The gap from when you don’t know whether God is going to do a miracle and cause your son to wake up and give you that smile that makes his eyes disappear or is God going to take him.  Will the giver and taker of life – will He give or will He take.  The point from when you hear that your mother’s lung condition is terminal – but how soon?  How long will she be able to live a semi-normal life?  How long will she be able to remain one of your son’s safest places?  How long will she be able to still give you parenting encouragement?  And that ever-hopeful thought and prayer, “Will He heal her? . . . . Oh, God, won’t you heal her?  For your glory?  And all of our good?  Won’t you God?” 

The gap.  The faith realm.  The scary, most often heart-wrenching realm. 

How we tend to hate the gap and try everything to avoid it.  We want to know.  Not in a week what the biopsy results will be.  Not in a month, not in a year, we want to know NOW.  Will this beautiful baby girl still be with us in a year or is it God’s will to crush our hearts and send her back to her biological parents?  We want to know now.  We often think we NEED to know now. 

 So what are the truths we need to know in order to embrace and do well in these God-ordained gaps.  From when the “something” happens to when we see how the “something” will turn out, Lord – how do I glorify You when I just feel so desperate for it to end my way.  Two pillars.  Two pillars that I want to cling to as I enter my next gap.  Two pillars that I may have had a head-knowledge of before, but I’m pretty sure I did not have a heart-knowledge of in my last major gap. 

Pillar number One:  I believe part of embracing is coming to the ability to say, “Thy will be done” . . . “whether I get my way or not.”  Whether it turns out well or not – I’m going to obey.  I’m going to trust you Lord.  Period.  I truly believe now, being on this side of a particular gap, that it is so important to prepare early on in my heart and my mind that God may have totally different plans than what we have.  In fact – exact opposite plans may be His plans. And for this control freak mother, that just often makes me literally want to scream. It is hard for this stubborn heart to bow.  To bow to His will.  And so Lord, before my next gap, I’m begging you to help me bow even now – before I’ve fully entered the gap and that you’ll keep me bowed to your will, not mine.  I must decide now before it even starts . . . it’s probably easier to do it beforehand than for it to be a forced bowing during it.  Because it will happen – whether we are open to it or not.  We will bow.  God will get His way.  I’ve had a forced bowing before.  It’s got to be better to do it willingly beforehand if possible.  And so, to help me prepare, I look to God’s word and at the great cloud of witnesses that God has placed in my own life.  Those who have bowed faithfully in the past and those who are bowing faithfully even now.  Noah had to decide, whether God was going to cause anyone beside his family to listen to him about the coming judgment or not – he was going to obey.  He was going to preach.  Our dear friends the Emery’s had to decide whether or not God healed their little Titus from Kawasaki disease, they would have faith in the gap.  Faith that God was able to heal him and faith knowing that God would hold them if He chose not to.  Our friends the Bennetts, who are completely in love with their little foster daughter, – they have chosen to have great faith during this gap – the gap from when the case worker first transferred her into their arms until . . . until we don’t know.  They may get to be this little girls’ parents until they die.  Or it may be God’s plan to tear their hearts in two when they transfer that little beauty back into the arms of the case worker who will take her back to her biological parents.  My dear friend Katie and her father Dave – they made a choice our local body has all been privileged to witness – to raise their hands in worship when God took Katie’s beautiful mother and Dave’s precious wife.  And it was in the raising of their hands that the onlookers saw the bowing of their hearts to God’s will over their own.  And as anyone who has ever witnessed such beauty would attest, it encourages and strengthens and helps us all prepare for . . . the gap.  For our own gaps that are assuredly coming.  It can be so very painful.  But whether it ends painfully or joyfully for any of us, it is during this gap that we can please the Lord and it is in the gap that God can write in His book – “pleased.  Very pleased with my son.  Very pleased with my daughter.”  And no better accolade in all of life can ever be said of us – that we have pleased the Lord. 

Pillar Number Two:  Part of embracing the Gap is believing – truly believing that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways.  And to accept that we may not understand now, but to cling to the truth that someday all will be revealed. It’s one thing to read those verses, and to think, “wow, that’s so true.”  But to actually BOW to those truths – to BOW to His ways and His thoughts over our own and to bow to His decision not to reveal the “whys” that we think we so desperately need to know – it’s a whole other level of grace.  To make the decision to believe that God’s current will is better when it goes against everything and all that you ever wanted and ever thought would be God’s will for your life or for your children’s lives.  To be the Gauley’s and to make the decision to take their precious, God-loving son Sean off the ventilator.  To not just have a head knowledge that because Heaven is real, death has lost its sting.  But to actually FEEL the sting and yet let death come. . . knowing that the sting is going to remain for the rest of the Gap – the gap from when the doctor carefully removes the breathing tube and your son takes his last breath to when you take your last breath and see the Promise.  The promise that this life is not the end.  The faith during that gap – knowing, knowing, knowing that the Promise is coming.  That death will actually lose its sting.  That the pain in your heart will be gone.  The faith the Gauleys have that yes, indeed – someday, they will get to see their son again.  But again, it’s in the gap – the gap that must be endured, the gap that we hate but in which we are capable of pleasing our Savior.  The gap in which we know it is possible to please him because of Him. 

One of the worst gaps I can imagine ever experiencing is that gap from when Pontius Pilot declared Jesus’ sentence to when Jesus took his last breath.  So thankful to be living on this side of the Resurrection and to have the full Word of God.  But let’s take a moment to put ourselves in that gap.  The gap that His disciples found themselves in on that most infamous Friday. Did the disciples not watch and wonder and wait for God to DO IT.  To show His power.  To get down off that cross and show everyone that they had no grip on Him. And what must have they felt when that short gap ended with His last breath?  What must have they thought?  Were they mistaken?  Could they have had it all wrong?  Was He not able? Could He save others, but not Himself?  Was His power somehow limited?  And so now – He was gone.  And they entered a new gap.  The gap from when they knew it was over to when they found out it wasn’t.  The gap from Friday to Sunday morning.  Were they faithful during the gap?  They didn’t know the gap was going to be over in just a few short days – so did they enter the gap with faith?  Would have I entered that particular gap with faith?  Probably not – not unless the Old Testament truths – which they had available to them – were not just head knowledge but were actually believed to the point that it was accounted to them as faith and righteousness.  True heart-changing truth to them.  His ways are higher than ours.  His thoughts are higher than ours. And we have to accept the fact that we don’t have to know the whys and then whens and the hows.  We are just called to faith.  Simple, childlike faith. 

  

My error in my faith with Michael Copley (long story – explained in the previous post) was not that I didn’t have faith that God could heal him.  I did.  I expected it.  I KNEW God could and just honestly “KNEW” that He would.  But did I have faith to believe that He may not, because His ways are higher than mine and His thoughts higher than mine.  No. . . I had the plan – I left no room in my imagination of the future that any other ending for Mike besides full redemption of his past, besides full earthly mental healing could ever give God more glory and be better for me and for all those involved.  Thus – was my faith during the Gap from when Michael moved in to when he committed suicide – was my faith actually even faith??  I had faith in my own plan.  I wasn’t having faith that God would do what He would do – when He wanted to do it and that I was going to obey no matter the outcome.  I remember telling my dear friend Tina Christman during this particular gap that “I know I won’t be able to take it.  I just know I won’t be able to. . . if God doesn’t heal him and redeem Michael’s past . . . then what would be the point of it all?”  I remember truly believing there would just be no point – so I just knew God wouldn’t let it end in his suicide.  And so now – I have moved on to another gap – the gap from Mike’s suicide to when I get to know how Mike’s suicide brought Christ glory and how God will work Michael’s suicide for my family’s good.  Because that is the promise, isn’t it?  That to all those who love Jesus and are called according to His purpose, He will “work all things together for” good.  And so now, I ask myself – have I met those requirements?  Yes, praise God, I have.  I do love Jesus and I know He has called me according to His purpose.  So now, I must fill this gap with faith that that is indeed true.  That God will work it out for my good, for my son’s and daughters’ and husband’s good. 

And what causes me to have faith in that promise.  It’s not of my own doing.  It’s not that I’ve finally mustered up enough faith to hold on to those two pillars.  It’s Sunday.  Sunday is what gives me that faith.  I remember some U-tube video that just kept repeating “Sunday’s coming.”  “Sunday’s coming.”  And just as Sunday came for the disciples when they got to see the risen Christ, Sunday is coming for all of our gaps.  Sunday is the end of every imaginable gap you could find yourself in.  The risen Christ.  The Risen Christ was their Sunday and is our Sunday.  The end of every single gap that requires our faith – they all end in a Risen, Redemptive, Conquering Savior who holds our story in His hand. 

And so . .  . Lord, as my little family enters another gap that could be filled with much fear and periods of trying to take control, I pray that our eyes would be on the known end – our Risen Savior – Christ Jesus himself and all His goodness and all His higher ways and all His higher thoughts.  That is the end to this gap we are entering.  And that is where my eyes must stay fixed.  I pray the same for all my friends I mentioned here in this post – may we all keep our eyes on the absolute, definite end to our gaps – the One who holds us eternally.  And I thank the Lord for every one of you – my great cloud of witnesses – that I have to look to. . . for encouragement, for Godly examples.  Truly, your walk through your gaps – those of you I’ve mentioned in this post and so many others that have walked gaps that I look at and cringe – I stand in awe of our Savior for how He’s held you.  I thank you for letting your sorrow and your faith, your triumphs and your stumblings, be public – so that we can learn and have such Christ-like examples to follow. 

So dear friend, when our gap ends as you and I hate – in a way from which we cannot imagine there ever being any good, may we let God hold us and lovingly, gently remind us that the greatest evil in all of history led to the greatest good and beauty in all of history.  That Friday led to Sunday.  And the ultimate end for our gap is Jesus Himself.  In all His glory.  Holding us.  That’s our end.  And it’s a beautiful, good ending.  And we ultimately do not even have to “just endure” or “just hold on” – why?  Because He’s holding on.  He’s doing the holding.  He promises to never let go. . . even when we are unfaithful in the gap.  When we just find ourselves hating the gap, hating where He has us, and have no room in our hearts for belief at the moment – He will hold us.  He will.  It’s a promise that He makes.  How I’m thankful that it’s not dependent on me.  Thank you Jesus.