Unless a Grain of Wheat…

~

Unless a grain of wheat

falls into the ground and dies

no harvest then can come from it.

It remains the way it’s always been.

~

What is it that I must let go?

Perhaps a dream I once held dear.

Rooted deep inside my tender heart

to offer up that sacrifice

feels like part of me will die.

~

I’ll put to rest the thought that’s left

of the dream with no more breath.

That empty shell which housed my hope

with plans for future joy

I’ll bury it and mark the grave

grieve its loss and feel the pain

until the space that it creates

makes room for something new.

~

Germinate inside of me

a vision that I could not see

until the old’s removed.

The compost of something that’s died

will be the source to fertilize

a greater good with bigger yield

perhaps a field of dreams instead of one

an unseen miracle begun

Your promise of an increase

to be realized.

~

It is Your plan to pave the way

for beauty to come from ash.

So as I lay my Isaac down

grant me courage for the task.

~

(John 12:24)

~

What’s been your heartbreak? Did you have a career goal that went up in smoke. . .  A vision for ministry that you poured your heart and soul into and it never got off the ground. . . What of the idyllic setting for your dream house that never got built. . . Perhaps you lost a child and the years you anticipated of raising that child evaporated before your eyes. . . Maybe you’ve lost a grown child whose life was cut short before his time, or one from whom you’ve been estranged. What about the spouse you lost through divorce or the soul mate that was wrenched from your heart through death. . . An accident or illness that has left you disabled. . . You fill in the blank.

What do we do with broken dreams and devastating losses? What good can come from them?

One of the deepest spiritual truths I have clung to in the face of devastating loss is the words penned in prayer to God by the Psalmist King David of Israel, “You will enlarge my heart.” Reflect for a moment on the man through whom that declaration came. David grew up in a family that placed little value on him. He spent years as a fugitive fleeing a paranoid enraged king who was committed to killing him. He lost the best friend he’d had in life while a young man. One of his children died in infancy, and another who betrayed him and conspired to steal his kingdom from him died in the process. And yet that doesn’t cover all that broke David’s heart.

“You will enlarge my heart. . .” Pain can either make you hard or increase your capacity for a deeper relationship with God and supply you with what I call “currency for the kingdom.” The very storms in life that a person has weathered and come through to the other side, buys them the authority to speak into the life of another with power. Jesus is the supreme example, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are. . .” Similarly, though to a lesser extent, the Apostle Peter exhorts us, “. . . let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood. . .” We are often the channel through which God chooses to extend His compassion to a hurting world.

God is a God of redemption. As you grieve, stake your claim on God’s promise to bring beauty from ash―place a demand on the integrity of His word—that somehow, some way, it will be made manifest in your life. . . though at the present it seems impossible.