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Truth in the Spirit offers you Healing the Family Part 4 Beyond Our Control with host Patti Brunner. Beyond our control, what does that mean? It is realizing that bad things happen to good people and the innocent suffer. It’s when death comes early. What in your family is beyond your control? Something less permanent than death?
We want control but recognizing that we are not in control is ¾ of the battle. The Lord God is not an ogre who randomly swoops in to destroy lives. Often people left behind battle over the ‘stuff’ left behind. What is of true value? Hanging on to stuff didn’t bring healing to Blessed Mother’s heart. Jesus changed the world by the foretaste of the power of resurrection by bringing Lazarus from the tomb. Lazarus is not the only one who tasted death briefly. You, too, might need “eternal healing”–the breaking the barrier of time and death. This episode offers understanding by the examples of two books made into movies, “The Shack” and “Heaven is for Real”.
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The first grandchild of a friend died shortly before the delivery date and was delivered stillborn. The whole family was devastated and sad. This loss was beyond their control. I had been told that the couple was out of town with their family and I wanted them to know I cared, so I put together a gift bag of comfort items for when they returned home. I truly felt their sorrow and their loss in my own heart even though they were not close friends. They lived way out in the country and I was surprised I found their house.
As I left the gift bag, and was returning to the car, I was shocked when Charles came to the door! They had returned early, his wife had gone back to work, and Charles was home alone in his grief. Charles was angry. He was angry with the doctors. And he was angry at God. A courtesy call became the perfect time for a little one on one ministry.
As we talked, the Lord reminded us of Psalms that express anger and grief. Charles had a lot of anger to express. We talked about forgiveness. We cried and we prayed. We prayed that the newest Saint Zachary in heaven would ask Jesus to help with this pain. Before I left, the anger melted, the overwhelming grief subsided, and supernatural peace brought healing to Charles.
The Lord had already seen Charles’ pain and sent me to be an agent for healing. And just a year later, the Lord sent the family of St. Zachary a new creation to melt the sorrow into joy.
Welcome to Truth in the Spirit, and Healing the Family Part 4 Beyond Our Control. I’m your host Patti Brunner.
Beyond our control, what does that mean? It is realizing that bad things happen to good people and the innocent suffer. It’s when death comes early. We want control. This craving for control may cause us to have anger towards the person who is sick or dies and towards God. People may start blaming God instead of praising God in good times and bad. It becomes necessary to choose to forgive God who is all loving and did nothing wrong.
Sometimes when there is a seemingly preventable death, a family member reacts by starting a foundation to eliminate the same thing from happening again, to destroy the cause of the death. They want to control life and death. If they let this consume them as they seek to control the future it can become a destructive force for the rest of the family.
Healing the family will come as we stop playing the “blame game”.
Psalm 13 says: 1 “How long, LORD? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? 3 How long must I carry sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day? How long will my enemy triumph over me? II 4 Look upon me, answer me, LORD, my God! Give light to my eyes lest I sleep in death, 5 Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed,” lest my foes rejoice at my downfall. III 6 But I trust in your mercy. Grant my heart joy in your salvation, I will sing to the LORD, for he has dealt bountifully with me!”
The writer of this psalm, like several others, started out complaining, but ended up praising God.
For some, recognizing that they are not in control is ¾ of the battle. The Lord God is loving; not an ogre who randomly swoops in to destroy lives. It is the Lord who stands by you during the chaos of life. If you cut your finger is it God’s fault? If your loved one is cut off from the land of living it is not the Lord but it is from the choices made by mankind-starting with Adam and Eve—who chose death rather than to stay in Paradise.
Let’s talk a little about the “Land of the Living”. Life on earth is given so that mankind has a personal choice to choose eternal life with God. Some do, some do not.
When circumstances seem to rob the body of its existence there is always opportunity towards eternal life. The martyrs understood this. Death did not come to them by God but by the hands of their persecutors. The choice of the martyrs to accept death rather than deny Christ allowed them immediate entry into eternal paradise, the presence of God in heaven forever. Not one blamed God for the freewill choices of their executioners. Car accidents, illness, violence—these things can also take lives of those we love, yet death can be an opportunity for these loved ones to never suffer again by spending eternity with God.
A corporal work of mercy is to bury the dead, but please realize that the families of those who have died also need help burying their grief. At Baptism we die with Christ so that we might rise with him. The scripture, “Death, where is your sting?” shares the truth of the resurrection.
In 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 starting with verse 54 we read, “And when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin,* and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Healing the survivors is accomplished with praise and thanksgiving.
Often people left behind battle over the ‘stuff’ left behind. What is of true value? What lasts forever? It is not the things that can be bought and sold. All of my parents and grandparents and those of my husband have died. I have seen various responses of the family to the stuff left behind. —I am reminded of the story of the rich man’s knapsack.
There was a rich and generous man who was dying. Every day he prayed, “Lord, let me bring something with me to heaven when I die.” He prayed this every day of his life. As he lay on his deathbed St. Peter appeared to him and told him, “It’s generally against the rules, but the Lord is going to allow you to bring something to heaven. Just put it in this knapsack and I’ll let you into heaven with it.” The man died the following day and he showed up at the gates with his knapsack. St. Peter looked inside, wondering what the man could have chosen. He pulled out bars of solid gold. St. Peter exclaimed, “Of all the riches in the world, you brought paving stones?”
Consider the Blessed Mother Mary. Did she step in as the soldiers rolled the dice for the fine robe of Jesus and scream, “That’s mine! I gave it to him!” No, she let it go. Hanging on to stuff didn’t bring healing to Blessed Mother’s heart.
What healed Mary’s heart? The beloved apostle John stood by her side as she grieved. We, too, are called to be present to others in their need. The hope of the resurrection sustained her.
And when Jesus left her again at the Ascension she joined the other 120 who also mourned his leaving to pray and wait for the Promise of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit the Comforter can also be your source of healing for your family when things are beyond your control. This Giver of Gifts brings the peace that surpasses all understanding.
Mary and Martha understood this as they greeted Jesus after the death of their brother, Lazarus. Jesus changed the world by the foretaste of the power of resurrection by bringing Lazarus from the tomb. Lazarus is not the only one who tasted death briefly. Many saints have been given glimpses of heaven and hell. A while back there was a young little boy who experienced a taste of death and heaven. His father later wrote the book “Heaven is for Real” and it was made into a movie. His father was amazed as the toddler spoke of meeting “Pops” his grandfather who appeared in heaven as a young man. The toddler also met his sister who, in his mother’s womb, had died in a miscarriage. She was growing up in heaven. When the dad asked for her name, the toddler said to his father, “You never gave her one.” As the little boy saw the old as young, and babies that had grown up, he also felt the joy of the Presence of God met Jesusand saw many wondrous things.
I was at a conference at the Presentation Church in Philadelphia in 2000 and the speaker told us we should name our children who had died before birth including miscarriage or abortion. Immediately, we named our son, who had died in 1973, James Matthias. It was a name we had picked out before our 2nd daughter was born. During that conference the Lord gave me an image vision of James Matthias and he looked much like my husband did as a young man but with a mustache. A different and more recent time the Lord gave me more healing by letting me see him take James Mathias to heaven as a tiny baby immediately after the miscarriage. These brought healing to areas of my life that were beyond my control. I needed “Eternal healing” breaking the barrier of time and death.
I recently met a woman whose baby died very soon after birth. She did grieve, but she has quickly come to the understanding that her child, Thomas, is in everlasting bliss with God in heaven. She speaks of him in the present and takes joy from the short time they had together as a gift from God. Our hope is in the Lord who created heaven and earth.
Some years ago there was a book and then a movie called “The Shack” about a child’s kidnapping and death and the ongoing destruction of those left behind. It took a lot of literary license theologically, but it showed an encounter of the grief stricken father of the murdered child with the Holy Trinity in human forms. Readers and viewers are allowed understanding of the pain of this horrendous crime and the eventual healing by forgiveness and by understanding not just the effect of generational freewill to sin but the peace and joy of heaven that wipes away every tear as the love of God brings healing to events beyond our control.
Quite a few of our friends have had a spouse die in the recent past. All of our friends trust God, yet their loss is a loss of a way of life of depending on their spouse to provide for them in various ways. This is normal. All married couples should provide for each other. But the main thing to provide in our marriage is help to our spouse to attain heaven and that goal is almost finished as we pray for the repose of their soul and requests masses to be offered for them. What we should realize is that they are now in a position to help us even more than before death as they pray for us from the heavenly realm. Each time we take Holy Communion we are more closely united to them than any other time in our marital lives. Just as we prayed together before death, we can continue ask our deceased spouse to pray for all our family. We can also ask other deceased relatives and their Guardian Angels to pray for us and our family—for every need, including those beyond our control. They are part of the “cloud of witnesses” who urges us on as we gain ground towards our own finish line.
What in your family is beyond your control? Something less permanent than death?
The Lord once told me: the media advertising creates ill so they can be treated. The Lord also told me: Cancer is preventable—all you need is a regular dose of the Father, Son & Holy Ghost. And believe me that doesn’t come in a Pill! We all desire healing from illness beyond our control. The good news is that when we rely on God it can be a win/win situation as we offer our suffering to God the Father as Jesus did on the cross. Also, recognize we can receive the ultimate divine healing as we pass from darkness into the eternal light of the Presence of God in heaven, also known as death in the state of grace.
Let me switch gears and say something about young couples and the youth. The dryness is greatest there because the aridness of the media is all they have known for the most part. Few have known a culture steeped in love, wholesomeness, fidelity and (they) have abandoned their freedom to be enslaved by the world. Ask them about stress—they have it.
Pull out a dollar bill or a penny . Our money, so far, says, “In God We Trust”; don’t just pay it, pray it! I have it printed on my personal checks. Perhaps we need to have “In God We Trust” inscribed on our credit and debit cards. Perhaps then it will encourage the newer generations of our family to trust God in all things including those beyond their control!
When circumstances make you realize that they are beyond your control, use that awareness to teach you about surrender. Surrendering your will to the will of God the Father can bring joy. Surrendering your will to the Holy Spirit can bring power. Surrendering your freewill to Jesus can bring hope to the world. When you do this the world is changed.
The bottom line, so to speak, in Healing Your Family of these things Beyond Your Control is the urgent need to bring faith to the forefront in your family. It is hope in God, in the resurrection, in the merciful love of God that will heal you and your family when disaster and ordinary life’s events take place. Enjoin your family to trust in God, to follow his pathways, to delight in the hope of everlasting joy for all eternity.
Teach them to surrender their will to the Holy Spirit. Teach them by word and example. With God all things are possible. We know that all things work for good for those who love God, for those called to his purposes.
You’ve been listening to Truth of the Spirit. I am your host Patti Brunner. Be sure and subscribe and come back for more of the series Healing the Family, because with the Holy Spirit there’s always more. Amen.
