“There was a day we held our breath
And felt the sting of bitter death
When all our hopes were buried in the grave.”
As someone who has mourned the loss
of dreams, of hopes, of my ideas of the future- and even of the present- these
opening lines to the song Buried in the Grave by the band All Sons and
Daughters ring very true for me. They ring so true that just listening to these
few lines brings tears to my eyes every time I hear them. The very beginning of
my mourning process would have to be the July day in 2005 when my boyfriend of
a year and a half (now my husband) dove off of a bridge and broke his neck. Or in
the days following his accident, when we were told by doctors that, despite
what they had encouragingly told us prior to the surgery, Spencer would likely
never walk again. Still, in that time, despite the radical changes taking place
in our lives and all of the fear and pain we were experiencing, Spencer and I
both felt very strongly that God was telling us this wasn’t the end of the
journey, it was just the beginning. We both felt God tell us that He was going
to heal Spencer-that Spencer would walk again! Because we had this hope to
cling on to and were very much believing this healing would not only take place
but would take place quickly, a lot of the sadness and the mourning that people expected of us didn’t happen then.
When I think back on those days, I really don’t remember being overly sad or worried
about how different our lives would look one, five, ten years in the future. I
was certain that if God was promising to us that Spencer would walk again that
he would!
It has now been over eight and a
half years since that tragic July day that changed our life, and let me tell
you, since that time mourning has definitely taken place. I have cried out to
God many, many times asking him to take away the pain, to change our circumstances,
to resurrect buried hopes and dreams. Never in our wildest dreams, while
Spencer was in the hospital or working through hours of physical therapy, did
we consider that God’s timing was so far removed from what we expected. Never.
God told us something, and we believed it, and of course out of longing and our
human nature we imagined all the ways and times it could take place. But God,
as we’ve been reminded time and time again, does not work how we expect or
when. Although we see evidence of that truth countless times throughout the
Bible, it’s still hard to come to terms with when it involves our own lives.
But that shouldn’t change our trust in Him or our belief that He is faithful to
do as He promises. That He is good always, that He does not make mistakes, and
that He is still working in us and for our behalf. I mourn, yes, because life
gets hard and it is confusing and it hurts at times, but that doesn’t mean that
I don’t still trust that God is not done working in us!
I’ve been dwelling on these thoughts
a lot lately, as this song Buried in the Grave is on my current favorite album
and I’ve had it on repeat while I drive. The song itself is actually written
about Easter, so I felt it fitting to write about it this week. The authors
were inspired by the thought of that Saturday, between the Friday when Jesus
was crucified and the Sunday when He rose again. What was that Saturday like
for all those who had been following and trusting that Jesus was their Messiah
and had come to reign? Jesus had asked them to leave their homes, their jobs,
their families, to change their lives, their thinking, and follow Him and now
He was dead. How much more bleak can a situation get? I can only imagine the disappointment
and confusion that the disciples must have felt on that day. Even though they
had Jesus’ words and promises, this wasn’t what they expected and they must
have thought “What now? Were we mistaken in trusting Him?” They didn’t know
that it would be the next day when Jesus rose from the dead. How bleak and discouraging
that Saturday must have felt.
In an interview about the
inspiration for the song the authors say that the message is about waiting,
saying that “there are going to be seasons in our life where we feel we have
answered the call of God…or something has happened and the call has changed the
course, the direction, for us and we find ourselves sitting and waiting and we
go ‘God, I know this is what you’ve called me to do but I don’t see you right
now.’” We all, at one point or another will go through this time of waiting. It
won’t be the same for everyone, obviously, but there will still come a time in
your life when you trust God in something and find yourself questioning that
trust due to time or circumstances or fear. Maybe your waiting is not for a
healing miracle, and maybe it’s not a wait that lasts for over eight years (I
mean, Jesus came back to life on the third day!), but it’s still a lesson in
waiting. So what do we do when we are standing there, with our hopes and dreams
buried in a grave, waiting on the Lord to act? The song’s chorus goes:
“All we had, all we
had
Was a promise like a thread
Holding us, keeping us
Oh from fraying at the edge
All we knew, all we knew
Was you said you’d come again
You’d rise up from the dead.”
So what do you do when all you are
holding onto is a word, a promise? In the interview, the song writers continue
with, “I think He just calls us to be faithful to wait and to remember His
words. That He was going to (and did!) come again and that He will come again.
The obedience is sometimes more, and the waiting is sometimes more important,
than what it is He calls us to do. What we learn in the waiting is sometimes a
greater message.” I know for me, when I start questioning my trust in Him, the
best thing I can do is to dive into the Word of God and remind myself Who God
is. God is loving, God is all powerful, He is faithful, He is conqueror, He is
mighty, He is in control...the list goes on and on. I remind myself of His
promises to me about Who He is and who I am to Him. About what He has done and
what He will do. The same God who spared Spencer’s life in that river and
throughout his recovery is the same God who raised His son from the dead, and
He is the same God who can and will heal Spencer one day. He does not make
mistakes, He does not go back on His word, and He is always faithful. Always.
So in this time of waiting I chose to lean into Him and remember that just like
the disciples on that dark Saturday before the resurrection, just because we
don’t understand what is happening doesn’t mean we have been abandoned or that
we should give up hope. If all we have to go off of is a word, a promise, we
can still cling to that because we know the One who spoke it and we can trust
that He is faithful to the end.
I know many friends and family who
are waiting on the Lord, trusting in Him in various aspects of their lives, and
I pray that this is at least some encouragement to you that you have not been
forgotten, that you are not alone, and that amazing, miraculous things happen
after the darkest, bleakest Saturdays of waiting. He rose up from the grave!
Hallelujah!
"It is won
It is done!"
Here is a YouTube link to this awesome song:
Here is a YouTube link to the interview with the songwriters:
(Note: All quotes were taken directly from this video interview with Leslie Anne Jordan & David Alan Leonard, or quoted from the song lyrics.)
