Here’s another story from a staff woman serving in the MidSouth Region. Kitty Hurdle and her husband, Joel, serve as missionaries with Cru in the Greek System at the University of South Carolina. She has enjoyed being on staff for 7 years.
Who’s Parade is it Anyway?
Tender. Humble. Broken. Disappointed. Sad. Shocked. Frustrated. Weak.
I’ve spent the majority of my life avoiding these yucky words.
My upbringing and relationships were lovingly functional, my goals were being accomplished, I was following God and life was good.
In the back of my mind, I sometimes wondered when things would come crashing down in my happy little world…but I’d dismiss those thoughts with the remembrance that ‘God only gives grace for today,’ and ‘the future is in His hands.’
About 2 years ago, God began to allow some of those yucky words to enter my “semi-charmed kind of life”. It started like slow drizzle on a cloudy day.
Little annoyances with broken down cars, Joel having surgery, Bible study leaders smoking weed in front of their sorority house, parents of a new convert showing anger toward us, cockroaches crawling in our HVAC, catching on fire and blowing up the motherboard, etc. You know! Every day drizzle. But the drizzle was beginning to turn into rain and it was really messing with my parade.
Joel and I knew God was leading us to start a family, but it just didn’t seem to be actualizing. We would cycle from hope to disappointment and back again. As the days and months and now 2 years passed, we experienced great sadness and frustration with God, who we knew was allowing and controlling our circumstances.
Little did we know there were thunderstorms in the forecast.
We were on Greek Summit in May and were playing beach volleyball during the last full day of project, when both a strong 20-year-old frat guy and weak-old-me went for the same volleyball. The kid slammed into me so hard that I literally went flying across the sand. I felt immediate pain in the shoulder I had been working so hard to re-hab all semester. I felt relief that, “Okay, my rotator cuff is shot and I’ll get a quick surgical procedure and move on.” We packed our bags and headed back to Columbia, just in time for my doctor’s appointment.
Two days later, I am sitting on the crunchy paper-covered table facing a white-faced doctor, a crying nurse, and a very ominous x-ray. My orthopedic surgeon’s best guess was Ewing Sarcoma, which was a very life-threatening bone cancer. They immediately got me into a world-class orthopedic oncologist, who normally has a 3 month wait merely 2 days later.
I can remember those 2 days of waiting were a torrential downpour. Lots of tears and pain. It was the kind of pain that literally made your heart ache. I just remember thinking “our charmed life is over.” And I remember God saying to me, “this is my love for you.”
Fast forward (or read all these blog posts) through a life-threatening allergic reaction during a core biopsy (think hammer and apple-corer through your bicep and humerus bone) and I was left downright afraid of God who was supposedly showing His “love” toward me.
I stood in church that next Sunday as the crowd around me sang, “Take My Life and Life and Let it be Whole Consecrated, Lord to Thee…” I refused to sing with them and thought to myself. “What idiots. Do they understand that You could actually take their lives in one instant?” He answered me tenderly, “Yes. But do you understand that the tumor, the near-death experience, etc... is my love for you? Do you trust Me?”
In that instant, the Holy Spirit flooded my heart with peace and confidence that, YES! Pain and sorrow and sucky, scary circumstances are filtered through a loving a trustworthy Father’s hands. They are being worked together for good and I must choose to embrace them. I melted into tears/worship as again I surrendered my life here on earth into God’s hands.
Another surgery, bone-graft, and 3 weeks of being blacked-out on pain meds (which have AWFUL side effects…not sure why people use drugs for fun…) and 3 weeks of resting recovery, I was tumor-free and fixed up with a new bone.
The emotions of the whole experience intertwined with the painful journey of infertility surface regularly. Joel and I have been daily learning what it looks like to live a life of trust: believing that tenderness, humility, brokenness, disappointment, sadness, shock, frustration and weakness, are tools in the hands of our sanctifying Savior who is “cutting off every branch in us that bears no fruit and is pruning every branch that does bear fruit so it will be even more fruitful! …and THIS is to my FATHER’S glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourself to be my disciple!” (John 15)
We have been learning that nothing is wasted in God’s Kingdom. No time, no waiting, no experience, no pain, no tears, no joy. Nothing is wasted. Nothing. I MEAN, WHO’S PARADE IS IT ANYWAY? Surely it’s not MY parade. It’s HIS!! The faster I/we grasp that all our hopes and dreams aren’t in this life…the better off I’ll/we’ll be.
"How long, O Lord, must I call for help?
The Lord replied, "Look at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn't believe even if someone told you about it....But these things I plan won't happen right away.
Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. IT WILL NOT BE DELAYED."
I have heard all about you, Lord, and I am filled with awe by the amazing things you have done. In this time or our deep need, begin again to help us, as you did in years gone by. Show us your power to save us.
I see God, the Holy One, moving across the deserts...His brilliant splendor fills the heavens, and the earth is filled with His praise! What a wonderful God He is! Rays of brilliant light flash from his hands. He rejoices in His awesome power.
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains." --Habakkuk
Suffering is a great tutor. It teaches real lessons and takes away all the illusions of the world. Without the test, there is no testimony and without the rain there are no flowers!
There is so much more I could share, and if you’re even still reading, HIGH FIVE!
What about you? Have you experienced this? Have you experienced what it means to be broken? Have you allowed God to transform you as a result of your brokenness? Have you experienced freedom?
Nancy Guthrie in “Holding Onto Hope” says, “Embracing my grief means allowing it to do its work in me.” Rather than running from or trying to ignore your grief, would you lean into it? Would you allow it to accomplish its healing work in your heart?
“Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days – when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you’re out of options, when the pain is great – and you turn to God alone.” ~Rick Warren
