Lemons on Friday: Trusting God Through My Greatest Heartbreak

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, John 16:33, 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Lemons on Friday

When Ben and I got married, it was ultimately the most life-changing choice we would ever make. As we exchanged vows and rings my mind raced with pictures and hopes and dreams of what those words might mean. Sure, they would mean hardship, as every marriage experiences, but I expected to love and to cherish with death far, far off in the future. I didn’t expect the second half of these promises to come true until much later in life.

And then on a vacation in Palm Beach, Florida, Ben slipped while stepping up onto a fishing boat and crashed back onto a concrete dock. At the ER Ben’s CT scan revealed the need for surgery to alleviate pressure from his brain swelling. I had almost 24-hours with him before he went into surgery. Looking back, I’m incredibly thankful that during that first day, Ben was awake, able to see me and tell me he loved me. After the surgery, Ben remained in a medically induced coma for eleven days. These were longest days of my life, each one haunted by the possibility that death really could “do us part”. When trauma strikes, love goes from being a feeling to being a choice in huge, physical, real ways. 

I knew I had to keep choosing love. Choosing to love Ben not knowing whether he’d survive this and choosing to love a God who, though I trusted him, still allowed Ben’s body to suffer multiple strokes that rendered him brain dead. Even after hearing those devasting words, I still felt determined God would fix Ben. But when the final MRI came back with even more neurological damage than the previous ones, and as Ben’s heart started to fail, I signed the papers to take him off life support. 

I didn’t know that love could physically hurt until I watched mine slip away. I didn’t know you could feel supernaturally surrounded by God and feel abandoned by him in the same moment. What about God’s promises and his faithfulness and his power to heal? Where was my miracle?  Then, the next morning Ben’s cousin called and before hanging up reminded me that Ben had just won the greatest victory anyone could imagine. In his quick phone call, he turned my eyes off all I’d just lost and refocused them on all Ben had just gained. On my darkest days, I strain to refocus on Ben’s elation in eternity—now forever in the presence of his beloved Savior—more than on my pain here without him. 

Scripture assures us that in this world we will have trouble. We will suffer. Yet, many of us overlook that God promises we will inevitably experience suffering just as we will blessing. Jesus endured the agony of crucifixion on Friday with the glory of resurrection Sunday in mind. In trying to pacify our doubts and bolster our broken hearts, we often hold tight to the promises’ victorious endings but hush their assurance of painful beginnings. When life gives us lemons on Friday, we rightly long for Sunday just as we long for lemonade.

My hope, and our greatest hope as humans who will all face loss, is that just as Christ promises believers bitter lemons and sorrowful Fridays, so, too, does he promise us lemonade on Sunday. He has already gifted us eternal victory. He has conquered all the sin, sorrow, and death we face. He is the healer and redeemer of all things.

Respond

What does it look like to actively choose to love God and others? How do difficult experiences impact these choices?

In your relationship with God, how do you naturally respond when life gives you lemons? Is that reaction in line with how you’d like to respond?

How does the joy God promises to those who love him help you navigate the suffering and pain you may be exieriencing today?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I don’t understand why life can be so painful even when I trust in your love for me. Help me to keep my eyes on you as I walk through difficult times and see the joy that can be found even in the midst of suffering. Thank you that in you I can experience a joy and peace beyond my understanding. Amen.

Scriptures: Romans 5:3-5, Psalms 34:8, Romans 8:26-28

Where Is God?

When fundamental parts of our lives are lost, when people and things we thought we’d never lose are suddenly gone, it’s natural to want answers. Why did this happen? Who’s to blame? What could I have done differently? And for many of us in the aftermath of traumatic change, we also want to know, Where is God? Wherever we are in our faith—secure, skeptical, or somewhere in between—suffering has a way of pulling us out of our comfort zones with God and forcing us to face how real and how reliable we believe he is in our day-to-day lives.

In my mind I know God is good and that he promises always, in every moment, to be with me. But when my vision seemed clouded with pain and questions, my eyes had a hard time seeing what my mind said was true. Even when you have a strong desire to find God and feel God, grief is a complete attack on your mental and physical faculties. If you’re honest with yourself, you may not feel ready to go to Scripture, to sing or pray or do anything active to pursue God. There is still hope. He is still with you, and you can still find him in places far outside the spiritual box. We can deny it, but we all desperately need to know God and we desperately need his comfort.

Even though I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Ben had been saved, I longed for assurances that he was home—confidence that he was peaceful, perfect, and so overwhelmed with the joy of Jesus that he wouldn’t come back here even if he had the option. Sometimes the most honest way to seek God is by coming to him bluntly and telling him exactly what your broken heart needs. And in some way, God will meet that need, just as He did time and time again for me. 

For months our family prayed for and experienced what we have come to call God nods—quick, intimate, divine glimpses of God’s care for us and his presence in our pain. Little moments in which the Lord provides reassurance or joy or peace despite the rawness of grief. Some of them came through books or songs or scenes in nature and some through dreams. God nods may sound like naive, wishful thinking to some who haven’t experienced them, but in seasons of desperation for signs of God’s goodness, they sustained me. With them came a literal sense of stillness and relief that I know can only come from the Holy Spirit.

Much of my hope in those early days came from our God nods. They started showing up all over the place once I kept my eyes open for God’s little encouragements. When you’re brave enough to ask, God is big enough to show up. We may not get the expected outcome of what we ask, but we will always find the comfort of his presence in the process of asking and opening our eyes. If you experience these things and, in turn, feel peace and assurance that you can’t explain, I urge you not to question or dismiss them as silly. Thank your ever-present, good Father for them, and rest.

Respond

Describe what you know to be true about God or his character. How do your feelings during painful experiences lead you toward questioning or confirming those truths?

In what ways have you felt God’s presence when you are struggling to make sense of suffering? 

How can you approach God honestly when you need reassurance from him?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that you promise to walk beside me when I am suffering. Thank you that even when I am full of questions and sometimes doubt that you are present, you are there. Help me to keep my eyes open to see your reassurances, whether they come from your Word, God nods, dreams, or the majesty of your creation. I chose to trust you today, and I thank you for loving me in all circumstances. Amen.

Scriptures: 1 Peter 5:6-11, Romans 8:16-17

Who Am I Now?

We all have the human tendency to ask questions like “How long will my heart feel broken?” or “When will I be done grieving?” and “Who am I now?” We hate waiting. We long to get to a place of healing when we are hurting. And often along the way, we struggle to understand who we are in light of the changes we have grieved.

Grief is messy, and healing is in no way instant. Time is crucial to our healing. As I walked through each day, each holiday and celebration, God met me, and through the love of those around me, he began to fill up my empty places. With each of the passing years, I’ve learned how to hold the hurt and remember that time is on my side. I will heal by facing and embracing each new day without Ben as it comes. 

For the first several months, I learned so much about suffering and faith and the constant fight of living in a broken world. I’d lost huge parts of my life that I would never get back. What I hadn’t yet faced was how much of myself I’d also lost in the crossfire. I was still the same Mattie, of course, but I felt so utterly different.

I began to see I had invested much of my identity in what I did and the person I did things for. And now that person and those responsibilities were gone. I began to ask the hard question Who am I now? I hated the word widow. I did not want it to be part of who I was and how people saw me. What’s completely divine was how God, just two months before Ben’s accident, had called me to co-found an organization whose proceeds support orphans, victims of human trafficking, and widows. 

Clearly, this wasn’t a coincidence. Before anything had happened to Ben, the Lord had placed me in a position to walk out widowhood in real time, in front of all our company’s supporters, followers, and community. He gave me a platform and a voice to speak of real hurt, real struggle, and real hope before women of all ages who’d lost their spouses, and I did, to the best of my brokenhearted ability.

I’m still working through the label of widow with the Lord, and I still want it to be untrue. I want to be seen as more than a young widow. Being a widow will always be part of my story, but the Lord has reminded me that it won’t always be the biggest part of who I am. I could and would be just Mattie again; it just might take me a little while to find her. 

It’s good to grapple with who we are and be honest about the parts that hurt—the things we’ve lost or feel like we’re missing out on. Bring your losses and scars and stolen dreams to the Lord, and he will show up to soothe and repair the deepest wounds of your soul. 

Who I am looks different than it did before Ben’s death, but I’m learning to keep the label of whose I am above all the others. We are each first and foremost children of God, chosen, beloved, adopted, and given an everlasting name. It’s that name, and that name alone, that can never be lost.

Respond

How does your grief tend to define who you are?

What labels or parts of your identity are you struggling to bring to the Lord for healing? What is holding you back from addressing and surrendering these?

How has God met you in your grief and given you a glimpse of hope for the future?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that you understand my grief and pain. Thank you that you have a future for me that includes healing and hope. Help me to honestly face my fears, bring my hurts to you, and allow you to define who I am as your child above all else. Amen.

Scriptures: John 15:1-2, John 15:5, 1 Peter 1:6-7

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

When I was twenty-three, I spent fall working the harvest with a prestigious winery in Napa Valley. Glamorous, right? Wrong. Grape growing is agriculture. It’s farming. Wine making requires long days, early hours, and labor-intensive, dirty work—not just for those making the wine but for the poor grapes themselves. Often, the more the grapes “suffer” during development, the more opulent the finished product turns out to be. You see, in cultivating premium wine grapes, stress is everything: rocky, barren topsoil creates deep sturdy roots; pruning eliminates weak fruit and foilage that can block necessary sunlight.

This has been my experience through grief. In seasons of depletion and brokenness, endurance comes not through what we branches can do for ourselves but through the solidly rooted vine to which we are grafted and by careful branch pruning done by the vintner (see John 15:1–5). My prayer for all of us in our barren, rocky seasons is that we remember that we are not the vine keeper. We can hold the lament of what has passed with the hope of what is promised; the pain of what’s been pruned away for the fruit we’re hopeful will come. And ultimately, that our healing won’t be in the strength of our branches but in the strength and desperation of our roots.

Even though I grew up in Christian culture, it took experiencing real hardship for my weak, surface-level roots to reach deep and grow secure. No matter how you were raised, how long you’ve been in faith, or whether you’re still grappling with what you believe, God is ready and able to strengthen your roots. We serve a God who isn’t afraid to let us struggle or be stressed because he knows that’s how we grow into the richest version of ourselves. He knows that we not only gain spiritual strength but also get to know him, the Vinedresser, even more intimately through suffering.

I believe in a sovereign God who uses all things, even bad things, for the good of those who love him (see Romans 8:28). Suffering can not only embolden our faith but also reveal a richer, more intimate understanding of who God is. As a young woman I walked alongside my mom through cancer, and my faith became sturdier in the process. It forced me to shift my self-reliance toward God-reliance. It was an important season of root deepening. 

But it wasn’t until losing Ben that I truly got to know Jesus as my personal friend, the only one that could fill the gaping hole of grief I faced. I began to know him not just as the one who saved me but also as one who wants to sit beside me. Trust me when I say knowing Jesus more intimately is worth the tears we cry and storms we endure here on earth. He is not a consolation for what you’ve lost; he is a greater companion than you can ever imagine. Through my loss my roots have deepened. And yours can too if you rely on and abide in the Lord in your suffering.

Respond

What have you learned about why God allows suffering?

What challenges and trials have you faced that have brought you closer to God?

How does the image of the vine and the branches in John 15:1–5 help you rely on Jesus and grow in faith?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that I don’t have to walk through suffering alone or in my own strength. Thank you that I can abide in you and draw power and grow in faith from your presence. Help me to turn to you in my pain and find hope in the fruit you want to produce in my life. Amen.

Scriptures: 1 Peter 2:23-25, Isaiah 40:28-31, Galatians 3:26-28

Where Is Our Hope?

A powerful practice to help move forward in our pain is to let our mess become our message. From the first days following Ben’s death, I prayed that God would use my pain for good. Something in me knew that the only pain I could survive would be the kind that helped others survive their own. 

My purpose is to bring hope to all of us who live in a world filled with lemons on Friday. Jesus—the grace-oozing, strength-giving, soul-redeeming person of Jesus—is the ultimate place from which all hope comes. He is why we can rest, pray, and surrender. He is the one who suffered so we don’t have to suffer alone or in despair. He holds the hurts of our pasts and the blessings of our futures in his mighty hands. He is the one we trust when all hope seems lost and goodness feels hard to find. He can turn our eyes from all that pains us to all that awaits us if we will let him adjust our vision.

For a long time all I saw when I looked around was an empty bed and an untouched closet full of things that Ben had worn just a few months before. I saw closed law books and dirty boots and a work bench littered with tools that no longer had anything to fix. I saw everything about my life that was empty and everything about my future that had been snatched away. I knew there had to be goodness and beauty even in my season of grieving, but at times I struggled to see it. The ugliness of our circumstances is 100 percent real, yet the beauty of God’s redemptive promises to us in the midst of those circumstances is just as real. Accepting that both of these realities are true is the most honest and most helpful way to endure the hardships we face.

I had to learn to see the dark and the light—to admit to myself that the present is ugly but my future and the truth of what is to come is infinitely beautiful. In the hands of Jesus, lemons on Friday will turn to lemonade on Sunday; we’re just not there yet. We can keep our eyes on eternity without ignoring the now.

The Christmas after Ben died God gave me a dream, a vision of Ben in heaven. It was a gift that assured me that the man I loved was covered with Christ, justified in his image, and now glorified in his presence. This dream changed my vision. Life was not easier after this dream, but I was now able and willing to see the goodness in my circumstances, not just the darkness. Once I was able to see this magnificent end to Ben’s story, I began to see a little more hope for my own.

Speaking God’s truth to yourself will adjust your vision and enable you to see some goodness even in your heartbreak. It will sow in you an unexplainable peace in the midst of unconquerable sadness. It will bring you back to life, little by little. As you ask tough questions and prayerfully pursue resolution, don’t forget that the comfort, peace, and healing presence of the Holy Spirit is yours for the taking. Only from there will lasting hope come.

Respond

How would you describe your personal relationship with Jesus? How can he be your source of hope today?

How has the truth about God given you hope for the future? How has it changed the way you see today?

What tough questions need resolution in our life? How can you lean into the comfort and wisdom that the Holy Spirit offers as you pursue hope?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of eternity and the hope that it gives me as I walk through the hurt I feel today. Help me to see your vision for my life and find peace and reassurance in you as I pursue hope and healing. I praise you for your provision of eternal life and that my hope is secure in you. Amen.