Wednesday, November 7, 2018


The Lesson: Faith & Prayer
By Brita Crouse

Be…faithful in prayer

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 recently moved back to her home state of Wisconsin where she works as an Elementary School Counselor. She and her family have attended Oakwood for 20 years.