When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God,
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said,
“Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. Acts 7:54-58
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God,
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said,
“Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. Acts 7:54-58
The dust is stirred so thick and dense you cannot take a clean breath, so you force yourself to adjust to smaller shallower breaths. The breeze is hot and thick and so pungent with the scent of fear it makes your stomach churn with disgust. The atmosphere is charged with the sharp edge of violence. Neurons in your brain are electrified as time slows and lengthens as you interpret every twitch of their eye in a millisecond. As you look into the crowd, you register every body movement, every turn of the head, every hand motion, and each step of the foot. The hairs on your arm and the back of your neck stand at attention, prickled with anticipation. Even in the heat you feel chilled. It’s like every part of you stands tall, like readied soldiers, alert and reflexive. But while your body is ready to defend and conquer, your spirit is calm, assured and ready with a peace only heaven can offer.
What it must have been like to be Stephen. He is categorized as “The First Martyr” of the Christian faith. His account by all purposes is grand and glorious even with its most violent and bloodied end. What faith he must have possessed! What grand and glorious faith to see him through to the end. I can hardly imagine it!! I wonder what it might have been like for him. What it is to have your faith tested to the point of death? Would I have been on the side against Stephen? Sometimes I contemplate if I would have measured the weight of the cold rock in my hand, studied its shape and exchanged it for another one…a better one. But, where my thoughts always seem to end up, circling and whirling like a leaf caught in the bustling breeze is what it must have been like for his loved ones. Did such a one watch from a distance as he addressed the crowds? Did they watch in terror and horror as the first stone was thrown? Was it they who first to ran to his side to pick up his bloodied, bruised and mangled body? What were they thinking? How did they feel? Did their view of God change in the observance of Stephen’s death? Was their faith built or shaken?
It is one thing to face your own battle, to struggle, and fight and then hopefully learn through all you faced. But, as I have come to know, it is quite another to stand helpless as you watch someone you love struggle and fight, even unto death. You can glory in God that He was with them. You can marvel at their level of faith and sustaining peace. But, there is no getting over, as you stand close to hold their hand, wipe their sweat and hear their prayers as well as the groans of never abating pain, you are transformed during the process. And, the greater their battle, the greater their suffering and agony the greater you are challenged with a perplexing new sight of your God. With a heart wide open, fully enduring and engaging in all their moments whether you want it or not, ready or not, willing or not, you are forever changed.
You try to piece in your mind a loving God who allows righteous souls such violent pain and agonizing suffering. This is the God of Stephen. I have an idea of what Stephen’s loved ones might have felt, the questions they might have addressed and challenged to their God. Or perhaps I have no clue at all. Maybe I am soft and unlearned in the ways of God and Heaven when it comes to practical Christian living here on this earth. Maybe it is a combination of both. Maybe in these circumstances our faith is shaken and it is built.
Grief is common to all. Grief is like hunger or sexual drive. It is neutral. It is just a feeling. Like hunger, I must confine my grief, master it or it will inevitably define and master me. I have grieved not only the loss of Grace but more importantly I have grieved my belief about God. I lost both and it has felt like great punishment. If I was being punished I didn’t know what for. My great grief about God can be likened to the child who is taken from his play pen and put in the highchair at the dinner table. He wails and cries at the loss of his favorite toy. But the loving parent knows playtime is over. It is now time for lunch. The wailing child, not yet suspecting his coming hunger refuses to be satisfied with the unexpected change. I am certain my “grief” is like that. We are assured our Father does not take one thing away from us only to replace it with a thing of equal value. Because He is good, He always gives us something greater than the thing we supposedly “lost”.
The deepest blackest fear that has plagued me through my grief is, “Will my faith endure this?” There is no doubt I have struggled with grief, the ones closest to me know this too well. But my greatest grief struggle hasn’t been with the loss of Grace, but rather being changed through the process around her death. I watched a peaceful soul in the hands of God die a wretched, painful, horrible death. It has proved to be more than my mind about my view of God can comprehend, absorb or even allow. But, then I reason, for this, faith has been given. Faith is to learn God, to know Him and be one with Him. Faith, when confronted with life’s challenge of uncertainty, is not a lobotomy to eradicate our fears or natural urges nor is it a sponge to erase the chalk board of our circumstances whether mental, physical, external or internal. Faith is not given to become a broom with which to sweep all of life’s “stuff” under the proverbial “Christian” rug.
Some have said because of faith I will not look at this or that, as if it doesn’t really exist. As if refusing to acknowledge a natural fact somehow diminishes its power or existence. Is the child exercising faith when he closes his eyes and says, “If I can’t see you then you can’t see me”? Or is he merely dealing with his problem as only a child can. While that might be the beginnings of faith, I won’t disallow that, I certainly don’t want that to be the end of my faith. I could say how easy that could have been, to just pick up and move on, erase the last few weeks of Grace’s life and death and pretend I didn’t watch her suffering, pretend I didn’t believe for her healing. Pretend I was not devastated with her end. It may have been easy, but for me it seemed impossible. I am not ok with any of it, but I want to be. I do not understand the God of Stephen, but I want to. It seems to me that by ignoring my raging questions and the raw internal challenge I have with the outcome is to constrict my God and actually requires no faith at all. God to me, through all I have witnessed, has become bigger not smaller. And I have been challenged and stretched more than I thought possible at my perception of His growth.
This perplexity with my many questions and concerns about her death and all that surrounded it has made me question my “lack of faith”. It’s like my hands have held two pieces of God that just wouldn’t fit together. He is a good Father and yet, He will allow great suffering. (It seems the pieces fit perfectly on the page, that is, until they are applied directly to my life or my prayers for deliverance or my intended easy living.) Is it that my disheartened spirit is angry with God? These are some of the grueling questions that have attacked my faith during the last two and half years. I can rightfully say it was a huge factor in my feelings of “failure” and has only served to plague me further. With my unanswered questions about a God I couldn’t understand coupled with my guilt for the churning unrelenting questions, I feel I have bled out faith little by little for the past two years. I bled faith because I have not understood the “God of Stephen”, but I want to. What I am at last learning is my struggle of grief with God does not mean I have lacked or have lost faith.
“…for the greater the love the greater the grief, and the stronger the faith the more savagely will Satan storm its fortress.” (Douglas Gresham)
Because of the words of a dear friend, I now look back at our confidence of faith to see Grace raised and I see no defeat of my faith. I do not see little faith, quiet faith or failed faith. I see faith and all the strong glorious substance that it contains- hope in God, who He is and what He was doing. What we believed we believed with our whole hearts. I will never regret that depth nor will I allow the outcome to hinder the power of living and believing with my whole heart now. Her death was not a lack of faith nor a battle lost concerning my faith. What I am coming to understand is that it takes faith to look steadfast into doubt to see it turn into understanding. It takes faith to look into the darkness of nothing and search for the light of new growth. This experience, as heart breaking, hard and tedious as it has been, has not pushed me away from God but actually has caused me to search deeper for Him. My “grief” of lost belief and many questions has caused an expansion of new spiritual sight and has helped me “misunderstand a little less completely” (C.S. Lewis) the God of Stephen.
Because of the words of a dear friend, I now look back at our confidence of faith to see Grace raised and I see no defeat of my faith. I do not see little faith, quiet faith or failed faith. I see faith and all the strong glorious substance that it contains- hope in God, who He is and what He was doing. What we believed we believed with our whole hearts. I will never regret that depth nor will I allow the outcome to hinder the power of living and believing with my whole heart now. Her death was not a lack of faith nor a battle lost concerning my faith. What I am coming to understand is that it takes faith to look steadfast into doubt to see it turn into understanding. It takes faith to look into the darkness of nothing and search for the light of new growth. This experience, as heart breaking, hard and tedious as it has been, has not pushed me away from God but actually has caused me to search deeper for Him. My “grief” of lost belief and many questions has caused an expansion of new spiritual sight and has helped me “misunderstand a little less completely” (C.S. Lewis) the God of Stephen.
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