The Lesson: Faith & Prayer
By Brita Crouse
Romans
12:12c (NIV)
I said it would take something big to change me, and it did.
I witnessed a suffering I could not have imagined. I saw
heartbreak like I had never known. I watched people I loved hurting. After her
death, the nightmares began as soon as I closed my eyes. Memories washed up
into my mind with an unpredictability that frequently brought me to
uncontrollable tears. I had an anger burning me from the inside like I had
never experienced before.
In my 18 years, this was the first major life-altering challenge
I had faced. And needless to say, I was not handling it like I thought I should
be. I was living my life outside of faith, yet I still had friends and
family and people I didn’t even know, choosing to pray for me.
It took months of daily wrestling with God for me to begin to
see the light. One day, I was asked to step into a leadership role at my
university. The position? A Discipleship Assistant - - a spiritual leader. If
you haven’t learned by now, God has quite the sense of humor. For unexplainable
reasons, I badly wanted this position.
So I went for it. I got it. And I knew I had to make serious
changes in my life if I was going to lead and encourage 30+ women in their
faith.
It wasn’t anything I did. But through the faith & prayer
of others, and the provision of God, I began to get my life back on track. With
baby steps, I started to build up my fragile spiritual life. Slowly, I trusted
God with my life - - and the lives of those I loved - - once again. And the
funny thing is, healing began to happen as I let God take control.
Fast forward five years in the future, my family once again
received news of a cancer diagnosis. Once again, we lost someone we deeply
loved. Once again, I watched my family suffering, carrying enormous weight and
pain.
But, this time, instead of acting against God, I prayed boldly
and asked for my faith to remain, and even grow, from this experience. I
trusted that God would use this pain for His benefit. And I still pray and
have faith that He will.
My lesson learned in all of this? God can take any circumstance,
good or bad, and use hearts in any kind of condition for His glory. Through joy
& hope, patience & suffering, and faith & prayer…Our God is both transformative and restorative.
GOING DEEPER:
1.
How are you daily choosing to demonstrate your faith in Jesus?
2.
Who can you be praying for today?
FURTHER READING:
Brita is a licensed K-12 School Counselor and works as the
Non-Public Counselor in Roseville, Minnesota. For the past eighteen years, she
has called Oakwood her home church.
