Quick, grab this moment

Before it fades away

Don’t let yourself forget

How you felt that day.

The restless tug at your heart

The way your chest went tight

At those words, “He’s gone.”

No, this isn’t right.

Here today, gone today

No wonder that denial

Is how we all respond to death

For the first little while.

Call it shock or disbelief

Or astonishment you might

But they are all expressions

That something is not right.

As time goes on, we move along

From denying to accepting.

This is good, and we should

But there’s something worth remembering.

Yes, let a trace of your shock

Linger in the light

Of your journeys forward

That something is not right.

Something is not right about

Life that ends in death

‘Creation was not always cursed’

You hear in whispered breath.

The whispers become clearer

As you open up God’s Word

And yet returns your shock

As you read what next occurred.

Your sin-cursed world and agony

Were not lost on your Creator

Promises were made and kept

And fulfilled in an unlikely Saviour.

God himself! He came to us

To finally reconcile

That feeling that each death evokes

That feeling of denial.

In the greatest of all ironies

His perfect life at its height

Jesus laid his down for us

Could this be right?

But carry on towards his tomb

It’s the one that’s filled with light

He rose again!  Conquered death!

Ah, this is what feels right.  

And now dead hearts hear his voice

And they too are made alive

Their bodies only laid in graves

For the blinking of an eye.

So, again, I ask you

To keep denial’s trace in sight

So long as it reminds you

That one day all will be right

By Lydia Mangwathe

The post Redemption of Denial appeared first on Proverbs 31.

As the coronavirus continues to ravage communities and the world at large, it is difficult to foresee the future or any positive outcomes for the church of Jesus Christ. In this series of articles, I would like to suggest a few possible positive outcomes after the lockdown. My hope is that these articles might help us to prepare well for life after COVID-19.

I believe there is going to be a greater appreciation for fellowship among the faithful people of God. Before we go on, let me emphasize; this greater appreciation for biblical church life will happen only among the people of God. Talk to any pastor today, one of the most discouraging things in pastoral ministry is a lack of faithfulness in attendance. Our world is hugely distracted. Priorities are all over the place. It takes very little for many of God’s people to abandon church gatherings on a Sunday morning. All the reasons that would have been inconceivable as reasons for missing fellowship a century ago seem to settle well with our generation. A Christian today can miss church because of shopping, laundry, studies, cooking, a minor headache, attending a wedding, visiting the sick, and many petty excuses. One of the reasons this happens is because we have become so familiar with this sacred institution that we now make light of it. We know we can drop it this Sunday and pick it up the next day. We think church gatherings will always be there, waiting for us.  

I believe there is going to be a greater appreciation for our freedom of worship. It is one thing to have the freedom to come and go as you please. It is another to have that liberty taken away from you. Knowing that even if you wanted to go to church, you would not be able to do so. You have been mandated to shut down the church doors with no precise date in sight for re-opening. For genuine believers, who have a clear understanding of the purpose of the gathering of God’s people, having this freedom taken from them is a big deal. There is a greater appreciation for church meetings among the persecuted church than those with total freedom to gather for worship weekly. There are millions of believers today who would do anything in their power to gather with fellow Christians for worship. For these believers, gathering for worship is risking one’s life. Today this freedom has been taken away from us. I hope there is going to be a greater appreciation for the freedoms we enjoy. 

I believe there is going to be a greater appreciation for the one-another ministry. Serious Christians are genuinely concerned about holding fast the confession of their hope in Christ. But they do this through face to face Sunday gathering and fellowship with other saints. False Christians settle for showing up at the church gathering to appease the conscious, sold to dead religion. Given a chance not to gather, they would take that gladly. False professors will accept any church cancellation gladly, with very little sorrow or resistance. Not so with God’s people; the people of the Lord know that to hold fast to the confession, they need the ministry of others. They need faithful pulpit ministry, corporate prayer, and to celebrate the Lord’s supper within the corporate gathering. The faithful know that they need to join voices with other saints in praise to the Lord Almighty, the King of all creation. Today millions of Christians across the world may be yearning to return to public worship, to be with fellow saints. Soon they will return with a renewed appreciation of Hebrews 10:23 – 25, the gathering of the saints. 

Today we have been shut out and cannot gather or see our brothers and sisters face to face. One way we “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering” is by considering one another and steering one another unto good works. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of love. It is undoubtedly hard to consider those we don’t meet often. When we gather faithfully with other believers, we have the opportunity to hear of and see their needs. Many believers take this opportunity of helping others for granted; maybe they keep putting it off. During this lockdown, we are being reminded that we should make use of every opportunity we have to be a blessing to others. We are learning now that these opportunities will not always be there. It is a possible outcome that at the end of the lockdown, many of us will make use of every opportunity to bless someone in our congregation. 

Those who have no pleasure in gathering with the saints now have no business to look forward to the final gathering with the Lamb of God. There is a high possibility that the coronavirus lockdown has reminded God’s people of the temporary nature of our gathering. That one day, we will no longer gather here, but with the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Maranatha! 

This article was first published on this site  on April 11, 2020.

Written By Pastor Malamulo Chindongo of Antioch Baptist Church in Blantyre Malawi,  where he has been laboring since 2008. Author of Rethinking Guy/Girl Relationships 

The post POSSIBLE POSITIVE OUTCOMES FOR THE CHURCH AFTER COVID-19 appeared first on Proverbs 31.

We’ve been locked down for 16 days in South Africa due to COVID-19. I have been floating from one day to another trying to balance home life, working from home and homeschooling my 5-year son. At first the pandemic felt surreal, so far removed from what I knew or heard. It felt foreign and unknown to my ‘comfortable’ Christian life. It actually started off as something we easily joked about in the work office until the numbers started spiking in China. Then, it spread from one continent to the next but it was still nowhere near home-Africa. So my husband and I went off on a trip to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. Five days later our president announced a lockdown for 18 March 2020, we had to get home before then. We did and that’s when everything changed. 

Anxiety attacks

The first week of lockdown was ‘normal’, I worked normal hours, gave my son activities and writing exercises and we’d cook together.  After our evening devotions I’d go onto Netflix and binge on pandemic movies as a way of figuring out how ‘others’ feel when calamity strikes. Of course, movies aren’t real but I found myself starting to have all sorts of nightmares and thinking “it’s the end of the world”. I didn’t guard my ear and eye gate as Matthew instructs us in Matthew 6:22-23 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

This binging of not so edifying content started to affect my mind and the meditations of my heart so I had to stop. I had to remind myself that as much as the world is falling apart, God is still in control. He knew this would happen , it’s no surprise to Him therefore it should not be a surprise to us. In such times we ought to look into scripture and remind ourselves what Paul said in Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things”.

Data predictions and total despair 

I scrolled news updates every evening trying to get to grips with the numbers but it made me numb. These numbers were unfathomable and it was getting too close to home, literally. My mom, who is an essential services practitioner, was on the front line. Day 10 of lockdown I found out a person near her workplace was infected with the illness and for the first time in a while I crumbled. The idea that my mom could get the illness made me swob like a baby. I called her, she had the most peaceful and calm voice. We both knew who was in control and the call ended an hour later with me being so edified and strengthened. 

Be still and know that I am God 

The following days I was reminded of the scripture “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10). The writer tells us that God is our refuge and fortress, He never withdraws himself from his afflicted. He is our help constantly. That passage shows that even though they maybe terrible things on this earth, the child of God should not underestimate the faithfulness of God. We are not to fear. In fact ours is to be still and know that He is who he says He is; God!

How many times have we just continued with our ‘our lives’ and not had a second to just be still? How many times have we been on the rat race and tried to control everything? Well, what Covid-19 has taught me is that this season is for being still, looking to the maker of heaven and earth and knowing who He is. Being still is not easy, not being in control is not easy but I am called to do so, even in this very moment. Life has become so fast that I have forgotten to be still, I had forgotten who is really in charge of ALL things. I pray that as we continue in our lockdown in South Africa, we may come closer to God, meditate on His words and know Him again. May this season lead us to be still as the world around us crumbles.  

The post Personal Reflections On Covid-19 appeared first on Proverbs 31.

“So any kids?” she followed, “no, not yet”, I said.

These types of interactions seem to happen so quickly that I find myself unable to formulate uncomplicated truthful responses. I’ve included the word “truthful” because every time I respond with a “no” to the question of whether I have a child, I lie. I don’t mean to, I just don’t know yet how to say that I had a child who died in utero.

I feel like I betray our child every time I say no; I feel as if I deny their existence with every reply. This feeling is excruciating because it is also a reminder that our child isn’t here with us. We’ve had people coming into our home and exclaiming -kindly- that we can have the light coloured furniture we had because we didn’t have children yet. Some have asked me why I don’t have children yet and others have told us that our lives are a little less complicated because we don’t have children. These interactions are gloomy, to say the least.

I replay these interactions in my head and I think about the perception that our reproduction is fully in our hands when it isn’t. I think about the perception that we’re childless by choice when we aren’t. I think about the normalcy of asking married couples about their reproductive plans. I think about all this and conclude that none of these interactions are meant to harm me; they are innocent, not malicious.

My Own Personal Nightmare

So what do I do then? My pain is raw, deep and constant. Sometimes I can’t breathe and I have to swallow so I can force myself to take a breath. Other times I lay in bed at night, wetting my pillow with my tears, wishing that I could see or even hold our child. I wish that we had had a chance to hear their heart beat or something that could linger longer than an ultrasound image. It’s been 5 months since we lost our child to a miscarriage and I am not even a little bit over that. I oscillate between the knowledge that our child lived and died in the same place and the disbelief that they were there to begin with. I still can’t believe that we lost our Bean who just needed a chance to grow.

It turns out that what happened to our family is a common phenomenon. According to the statistics, 31% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage¹. So about one in three pregnancies end in a loss like ours.

Comfort has been hard to come by. This journey has been my most difficult and loneliest yet. I couldn’t (and still cannot) understand why it seemed that mothers who lost their children in this way did not have a lot of support based on how common miscarriages were.  I wondered this because I found myself suffering alone. My husband and I were not provided with much comfort beyond sincere expressions of sorrow and prayers when the news initially broke. No other on-going support- that we were aware of- was provided for us as church going people with friends and family. I have no doubt that those close to us continued to pray but no one else reached out, save for my mother. That perception hurt me deeply as our Bean was a real human child who was wanted and loved. This also hurt because I have found that people who are grieving need support more after the initial shock of the loss has worn off.

Mother’s Day was possibly the hardest day this year as it reawakened the grief and left me wondering if I truly was a mother. Could I be a mother if my child passed before they had fully formed? Do other mothers acknowledge me as a mother? Later, I became depressed and seriously contemplated self-harm until I was able to work through my pain with a Therapist.

Where could comfort be found?

Our comfort came from the Lord who proved Himself strong, secure and unchanging, saying: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”- John: 1-5

Colossians 1: 15- 17 says “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

In the Word, I found comfort in the truth: our child’s creation was an activity of God. Our precious child was made by God, for God. He/she wasn’t truly ours. The one who made our child saw it fitting to take them away and that is okay. I learnt that the Lord is trustworthy, although I do not have my child, I have the Lord and I am trusting in His goodness.

The Lord then directed our eyes at Him and it caused me to be grateful. I am grateful for the 2 months I got to live with our precious Bean. I am in awe of the Lord for using a small human to change our lives forever. I am grateful for the babies that make it safely through their journey in the womb, who emerge, beautiful and perfect; I appreciate the care the Lord takes while knitting together precious humans in their mother’s wombs. I am as awestruck as ever by the Lord’s creative ability. I am grateful for those who did pray for us because I could not do so myself in the beginning. I am grateful for the stories I heard of similar losses as they helped me know that I was not the only one to know this pain.

The Lord directed my eyes to the pain and suffering of others and caused me to be more mindful in future of how I support my grieving loved ones; I am now a lot more aware of how crucial providing long-term support to those who are grieving is.

The comfort also came when we realized that the Lord had been seeing us through our grief. It was the Lord who helped me note that I was depressed and in need of urgent counselling. I could not have had the desire or the awareness without Him. It was the Lord who comforted us through His faithful provision of shelter, food and faithful preaching at our local church.

I’m still learning how to navigate through interactions with people regarding the absence of children in our marriage without lying or feeling like I’m betraying our child. I’m getting better via online conversations that can be thought through; I was able to answer the question about whether I had any kiddos with a modifier. I replied, “We have no little ones running around yet”. Maybe the Lord will grant us little ones who will run around in the future, maybe He won’t; either way, may His will be done.

The post Living with the Loss of our Child appeared first on Proverbs 31.

As she tried to soothe her gums with her fingers, screaming in pain, I still had to finish giving her a bath, and do the whole night-time routine before she could take some pain medication and fall asleep. I kept reassuring her that after her bath and medication, she would feel better and fall soundly asleep. Mind you, she is 18 months old and probably had no interest in (or idea about) the words coming out of my mouth. I kept wanting her to hold on just a little while longer, knowing she would be fine soon, but she just wanted the pain to go away immediately. 

As a mother, seeing your child in pain is one of the hardest things. For an 18 month old toddler, there is no “let me just try and suck it up, the pain will go away” way of thinking. In fact,  all they are thinking is, “I am in pain and I want it to go away now.”  In these moments, I think about how that childish mindset is often our mentality when facing trials in our lives. We become like little children who don’t know that trials are temporary and good for them. Trials often cause us to become stronger, having learned something from them or accomplished something through them. We go through life thinking that trials should not be a part of life and each time we come to a bump in the road, we think “This is the end” or “This is the last straw”. Yes, we can be that dramatic. 

All our trials and all our pain and suffering is temporary, and there is no way to prevent these things from happening in our lives on this side of heaven. What matters is how we handle our trials. We can wail and scream or completely retreat from what is happening to us, but that won’t help. It may even worsen our situation, leaving us asunder from the lesson to be learned. Most mothers wish that our little ones would know and understand our murmurings of, “It’s okay, you’re safe with mommy. I know you feel like your teething woes are the end of life as you know it. Mommy can relieve the pain with some teething powder; you can fall asleep and the pain will go away for a while. You need to go through this so that you will have a full set of teeth and be able to eat yummy, nutritious food and grow up to be strong and healthy; it’s all part of the plan.” However, the poor child doesn’t know this; he or she is not mature enough to understand.

So it is with us in this life we have been given. [eltdf_blockquote text=”When trials come, let us look to our heavenly Father, our Lord Jesus Christ who says in Matt 11:28, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” James reminds us to “count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:2-5)” title_tag=”h2″ width=””]. These words are our very own “You need to go through this. Soon enough it will be over and you will have learned or accomplished something, with God as your guide, strength and comfort.  It’s all part of the plan.” But we cannot see this unless we know who our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, is. Like little children, we need to grow in our spiritual maturity to understand and put our faith into action. We cannot do this apart from the Word of God, because that’s how we know who He is — through His Word. We cannot know His Word without the Holy Spirit, and we cannot have the Holy Spirit without a repentant heart drawn by Christ by His grace and by faith in Him through His word. For then, “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” (James 1:12)

The post Can’t it just be over already? appeared first on Proverbs 31.