Like A Mary .....

This last week was one of the hardest weeks of my life, emotionally and spiritually speaking. I have heard it said that there are different types of failures we face, one of them is called the "Unforeseen Failure" the kind that you can't plan for, the kind that knocks the wind out of you. 

That is really the best way to describe what I am feeling and what I felt last week, I

felt like the wind was knocked out of me and I don't know how to catch my breath.

My dad was in a car accident, thrown from his vehicle and now rests in a coma with severe brain trauma.  Throughout the week of being in Colorado with my family I wrestled with many thoughts. 

My prayer most of the time was just that God would steady my heart, so that I could stand through these difficult moments. Facing my younger brothers and my step mom left in the wake of this insane nightmare, was incredibly difficult. Another breathless moment, two of my brothers were in the accident and they were not permitted to see my dad in the hospital. Every time I think of my dad in that hospital bed just frozen it feels like I am dreaming, just dreaming something terrible that I will wake up soon..then it hits me that this is real and this incredibly strong human that has been a role model of success and strength was now completely broken. One night as I was struggling for some hope, I felt like the Lord led me to this section of scripture. 

John 11~

This is the story of Lazarus, I have always focused on Lazarus himself and the story that tied around him solely. I never really focused on the people left in the aftermath of Lazaurs's death.
He had these sisters who loved him dearly; Mary and Martha, now Mary was the same Mary that lay at Jesus' feet wiping his feet with her hair and expensive perfume. She had an encounter with love and  gained favor from Jesus, it is clear that he loves this family.
The sisters sent word to Jesus that their brother was deathly ill, they sent this word because they are close with Jesus and they know he has the power to heal their loved one.
When Jesus heard the news that Lazarus was deathly ill he spoke these words into the atmosphere " This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus spoke this and yet he waited two days to go to the sisters, no word of comfort was sent, no acknowledgment that he even got the word about Lazarus, the sisters were just left waiting.
See I look at this part of scripture and I think of how those sisters must have felt, waiting not understanding why this healer, this prince of peace, this man Jesus who they know and love would not come to them to help their loved one. What must have gone through their minds, what heartache they must have felt with each passing day.
You can see how each sister dealt with those feelings, in vs 17 of the chapter you see that when Jesus arrives he learns that it has been four days since Lazarus's death. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming it was like all her bitterness and frustration surfaced and she went out to meet him.
But Mary stayed home,  Martha's first words to Jesus are a rebuke. She says to him " Lord, if you had been here, my brother would NOT have died. " I look at these two different approaches to pain and I see a reflection of myself. When there are things that I don't understand or that hurt when I feel like I see Jesus finally showing up in my situation I feel like I need to gently rebuke him and remind him that I am here in pain and that I have been waiting for him, and that if he had shown up sooner that maybe my outcome would have been different.
Now what the Lord ministered to me about was the way Mary responded, this is where my heart is right now.
After Martha goes back and forth with Jesus struggling with her unbelief to a degree and still trying to grasp the situation and handle it, she gets to a point where she goes and finds her sister Mary to let her know that Jesus was asking for her. See Mary stayed in this place of quiet submission, of being hid away until she heard that Jesus had arrived and called her out of that place she was in.
She rushed to meet him, and when she met with him she fell at his feet and began to weep and said the same exact thing that Martha had said to him, but it says that when he saw Mary weeping he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. It then says "Jesus wept."
Jesus already knew the outcome of this entire situation.
He already spoke it into existence, he knows what is going to happen. But these are people that he loves and he is seeing them in pain and hurt by this loss. Its here that I love how well it is displayed that Jesus was fully God and fully man.
When Jesus went to have the stone removed, he was given a few reasons why maybe it shouldn't by Martha who began to talk about the stench of death that would surely be strong after four days. It was like she had given up on hope, that death was the final say in Lazarus' life. A seed of unbelief had crept into her heart and began tot take root, that is what began to grow in those four days that she waited for Jesus.
Jesus gently but firmly reminds Martha that "If she believed then she would see the glory of God"

The rest of the story is awesome, he demands death to let go of Lazarus and he lives.

With my dad in this coma it has created quite the wait for us, we don't know when he will come out of it and the doctors like to remind us the big IF he will come out of it.

I read this whole chapter to my dad before I left, and I told him that our timing isn't the same as the Lord's. We don't fully understand what situations will have victory at the end and which ones will have more heartache. In everything HE is always mindful of us, he cares for us and he already knows the outcome. I wholeheartedly believe that my dad's coma will not end in death but like Lazarus his healing will be used for the Glory of God. I cling to this story and what revelation it holds, my heart is to be a Mary and wait patiently in peace with a tender heart towards the Lord.

Jesus will always get the ultimate say even in death, no situation is too far gone for him, no thing is to dead for resurrection. My heart is to not remind Jesus of why it might not work, but to lay humbly at his feet trusting him in all his ways.

That is my heart at least.
Its not easy and every day is a process of believing and trusting him.
For now we wait and we pray.