Kokubun Konexión: 2016

Come Home Full

12:30 AM

There’s just something about Ruth’s sweet words in the first chapter of her book that I believe grab all of our attention…”Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Ruth’s focus had nothing to do with herself, it had everything to do with God and others. *Did you catch the word focus? Every person chooses what focus they will have.* Her attitude said, “It doesn’t matter what I’ve faced, the heartbreak in my own life, I will chose to live for God and others.”

Naomi, not quite so. She was so bitter that she insisted on changing her name to Mara. I imagine she was the type of woman that you could just tell by looking at her that she wasn’t happy or even joyful. Her public decision to change her name almost says, “Just in case you missed it on my face, I want it to be perfectly clear that I’m upset and bitter.” Wow! What a statement!!!

Ruth was “steadfastly minded” to go with Naomi. Ruth, just like Naomi and Orpah, had faced her own heartbreak and tragic chapter in her story. She chose to stay in the story God had for her without getting bitter, angry, or even upset.

Naomi states clearly that she “came home empty” even when she had Ruth who came home with her. Unfortunately, she was so bitter and focused on what God had taken away that she couldn’t get over it, and she missed the blessings God had already given her.

My million dollar question right now is, “How do I help someone become grateful for something they don’t even know they have?” So often we choose to dwell on what we don’t have yet or what’s been taken away from us that we don’t see the true blessings God puts in our lives. We “come home empty” when we focus on what has been taken or what is not, instead of focusing on what’s been freely given us already.

Today, would have been Daniel’s 28th birthday. It was a good day for me when I realized and acknowledged that God’s perfect plan for Daniel’s story was for it to be continued in heaven starting May 5th, 2015. God’s story did not have one more hour or moment or day planned for Daniel to live on earth. God’s story was to take Daniel to heaven. I can rejoice when I look at every moment I got to have with Daniel, or I can still mourn over what “is not”; what God has chosen to do differently.

Naomi clearly missed what God had given her already because she chose to focus on what had already been taken. If you look in verses 20-21, Naomi uses the word “me” 6 times. She’s so focused on herself that she doesn’t even see others. Ruth, on the other hand, only uses the word me "one" time. I believe this reveals a completely contented heart in Ruth. She was happy serving God and others.

Psalm 68:19 says that God daily “loaded us with benefits”. Many times, we are so busy looking at the empty side of the cup that we miss his blessings. Today I’ll choose to be “steadfastly minded” as Ruth was to go where God wants me to go and stay where He asks me to stay, putting God and others first. I trust that living for Him and others is the richest, happiest life that this girl could ever choose.

Trust His Heart

12:49 PM

I flipped out the light switch in my kitchen and walked into the living room. Out of sheer habit, I walked over to the french double doors of the balcony that overlooked the parking spaces underneath our apartment. At that moment I realized what I was doing: I was waiting for him. I was looking for him. I was hoping somehow that it was all a bad dream. Maybe he’d still come driving up in our 1967 volkswagon bug and the past 3 weeks of my life was just a nightmare. But then it hit me like a ton of bricks all at once. “He’s never coming home, is he, God?” I dared to whisper as tears streamed down my face. And that’s the first time I’d ever truly wept. I didn’t know I could feel so much pain deep down in my heart. The shock had only slightly begun to wear off and I had never known what it was like to feel so incredibly heart broken.

I don’t think anything in the world can prepare you for the deep trials of life. I had faced other challenges, but nothing could prepare me for this. Several weeks earlier, God gave me the biggest trial I have ever faced. My husband had fallen from a 3 story window and six days later passed on to meet His Savior. I was in shock. Devastated. Unprepared. I kept thinking, ¨No one has ever told me what to do in case of death.¨ ¨Is this really happening?¨ I asked myself over and over. ¨Can´t I go to sleep and wake up with my husband next to me in bed and shudder at the horrid nightmare, yet hug him close as I fall back to sleep?¨ Yet it was reality. No matter how much I tried to wish it away, or wanted to avoid it, the biggest trial of my life this far stared coldly at me in the face. Still to this day, it seems too heavy a burden to carry, too cruel an accident to be a reality, and yet I wake up every morning to the horrible truth: he’s gone… Until heaven. I won’t see him ever again on this earth. I will never hold his hand again, hug him when he needs a friend, encourage him while he’s discouraged, cook for him when he’s hungry, or make him laugh when he’s sad…. ever again. ¨He was only 26¨ I thought over and over. ¨We were serving God, every day, with everything we had. Why did God take him?¨ ¨There’s so much more we have to do here in Peru. So much work, so much need. So many dreams and plans and hopes and now…. What? What in the world do I do?

Daniel had just been drilling our teenagers during his preaching, “There are two changes in life. The ones we can control, and the ones we can’t. What is the only thing we can control?” And our teens would yell out, “Our reaction.” Never did I imagine His preachings would be precisely what I was about to desperately need.

I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure why, but that night as I wept bitter tears realizing he would never come home, I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to make a most important decision. When I came to the place that I felt I could no longer cry, I looked up into heaven and told God something I will never forget. ¨God, I promise you, that no matter how many times I cry, no matter how bad my life gets, no matter how much I hurt or grieve, and even if you don’t do anything good in my life ever again, I will always trust you.¨

You may have memorized Prov. 3:5 as a kid, ¨Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding.¨ Such a simple truth, and yet so incredibly hard a principle to apply when we truly can´t see a rhyme or reason to why God does what He does. Yet the one thing we can do, is choose to trust His heart; even when our eyes cannot see. Although it’s not always easy, this has become a decision I choose to make day after day, moment after moment. After all, it is He who made us, and who delicately writes every part of our story. He has promised it will all work out for His good. So when you don’t understand, when you don’t see His plan, when you can’t trace his hand, trust His heart.

For Better, For Worse

9:03 PM

"For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…" These are the words we memorized and proclaimed to each other on August 27th, 2011. Being married was by far one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I'll never forget how excited I was to walk down the aisle and marry the love of my life. I couldn't believe I was going to get to spend the rest of my life with Daniel Kokubun!

We willingly give ourselves away at the atlar. We give all we are, all we have to one person: a human. We know, that- regardless of how much someone loves us, that person will end up failing us. They are human: they have sin running through their veins. Yet we promise to stand by their side, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health….

Which brings me to a simple question I have been pondering much as of late. If we are so willing to trust a human being with all we are when things go well or when they become disastrous… whatever happened to trusting God, even when circumstances He plans for our lives are not favourable.

We want the “welfare Christianity.” God, I’ll follow you- but here’s my list. I must have (and you can fill in the blank here- a good job, a nice car, a happy healthy family, a painless life… etc, etc.) Perhaps we don’t openly hand Him a list, but we sure have our agenda. I think all of us when we get married have our list of “expectations.” Expectations set up for disappointment, because let’s face it- no one’s perfect, and we all fail. Yet somehow, we think we can bring our list of expectations to God and say, “I surrender all-- but you would never do anything that would bring me hurt right?”

Why is it, that we are willing to trust a person with everything, knowing they will fail us, but the moment God allows hurt into our lives somehow we feel we have a right to get bitter and mad at Him? Where are the Christians who will stand up and say, “God, no matter what you do in my life, I will follow you, until death.” Where are the Christians who will rip up their list of expectations and their hopes of a happy Disney World Christian life to say, “Here, God. Take my life. I surrender all. I’ll take pain, I’ll take suffering, I’ll do anything, just to be yours.”

I greatly admire the faith and courage of Elisabeth Elliot who said, “Faith need never ask, 'But what good did this do to me?' Faith already knows that everything that happens fits into a pattern for good to those who love God. An inconvenience is always, whether we see it or not, a blessed inconvenience. We may rest in the promise that God is fitting together a good many more things than are any of our business. We need never see 'what good it did,' or how a given trouble accomplishes anything. It is peace to leave it all with Him, asking only that He do with me anything He wants, anywhere, anytime, that God may be glorified.”

Wow, what surrender. Oh, to have a heart like hers. True love, as we read about in 1 Corinthians 13, ¨Bears all things.¨ This could mean putting up with a tiny inconvenience or being willing to bear and endure deep suffering. True love ¨Bears all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.¨ (1 Cor. 13:7)

When I stood at the altar on August 27th, 2011, I committed to 'for better or for worse' with Daniel, for the rest of our lives. It´s a commitment I gladly made. He was more than worth it.

We’re willing to trust a human being who will fail us. But God, He won’t ever fail us. And although sin brings a myriad of unfortunate circumstances into our lives, we have a promise: That His story will be perfect. We might not like our role in it, or what it means for us at the time being. But when did we start believing that it’s all about us anyways? It’s not about us. Period. It’s not about our happiness. Period. Happiness will come, one day... But right now, He’s working His story and His plan. Will we trust Him, for better or for worse? Till death… ?

All of me

12:44 PM

You know how when you first get married, there’s a big joke about when you’re going to have your first fight? Dan and I used to constantly mess around and joke about what our first fight would be about. What petty, stupid thing would have the honor of being the contingency for our first fight?

I don’t remember if when we ever had our “first fight” but I do remember one fight. I’m not exactly sure what horrible crime my husband had committed. (Did I really just say that? I'm sure I was the culprit!) But I do remember that night I dished it out to him. Talk about jerk with a capital J. I let him have it. We had established a rule that we wouldn’t go to sleep upset at each other. So… late that night, I finally came to my senses and apologized to him. I will never forget how he treated me that night. It had been all my fault- I was a total jerk, and yet at the moment that I said, “Babe, I’m so sorry.”
He quietly whispered, “Hun, it’s ok. I forgive you.” And he meant it. He went on to explain to me in the most loving way, “Babe, I didn’t marry you because of what you could do for me. I didn’t marry you for every good characteristic you have. I married you for all of you.” I looked at him totally puzzled. “All of me?” I asked. “Even my jerk side? You’re crazy.” I probably told him. (Hey, I believe in being blunt and real ;)) Then I asked, “Why in the world would you want to love all of me? I can be such a jerk sometimes. I fail often! I try hard… but seriously, parts of my soul are downright ugly and awful.”
He kindly responded, “I know. But I love all of you. Every part of who you are.”

I’ll never forget that conversation… or a note Daniel wrote me later, that he ended with “All of who I am, Daniel.”

About three months into my grief, my Pastor was counselling me. He must have sensed that my grief was reaching a certain stage because he told me, “You know, Heather, it’s ok for you to get mad at God.”
I was totally confused, trying to process in my mind how it would be ok to get mad at the one who loved me SO much, and had given His very all for me. “But God,” I told him through tears, “God doesn’t deserve me to get mad at Him. He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all apart of His perfect plan. Who I am to get upset with God?¨
“Did you ever fight with a really good friend?” He asked.
“Yeah…” I responded wondering where he was going with this.
“And was that friend, big enough to handle it? You could say anything, and afterwards you were still friends, right?”
My mind went back to Daniel and our little fight… “Of course” I answered.
He went on to explain, “Then don’t you think God is big enough to listen to all you have to say? Don’t you think He can take it?”
My mind went back to the verse that I’ve taught my teen girls often in Psalms 62 that says, “Pour out your heart before him…”
“Yes.” I confirmed. “But I still don’t want to get mad at God.”
“I know,” he answered wisely, “But just so you know… if you ever need to- it’s ok. God can take it. He’s big enough to handle your worst day. He will still love you.”

It wasn’t long after that, that I did indeed get very, very mad. Anger rose up within me like I’d never felt before, and I ran off to the ocean near my house where the waves are wild no one would hear me. Because I felt like my Preacher had given me permission, I began to let it all out. I yelled into those waves. I screamed, I cried, I used words that weren’t very “youth pastor’s wife-ish.” I got mad at God. I told Him all about it. I asked why in the world God would take my Daniel, and demanded what we were doing that was SO WRONG that He had to take Him to heaven. I finished my tantrum, and then I prayed as I always do at the end of my grief sessions, “But God, you know that I trust you. And of course I still love you.” And it was then, that it came to me. “All of me… loves all of you.” A silly song Dan and I heard on a commercial that we would frequently sing to each other. But this time… I sang it to God.

God’s plan, is for Daniel not to be here. I don’t like his plan right now. But I do love Him, and I do trust His heart. I do believe He is good, and that He has a perfect plan for redemption in my life, even through the death of Daniel. I’m sure God didn’t exactly like my screaming fit… and yet- He reminded me, that His love is unconditional, and that He truly does love all of me. What wondrous love is this? Oh my soul, oh my soul.

On good days and bad days alike on my journey this has become my theme:
“All of me, God, you get all of me.”

When I feel like I’m living in a nightmare and wonder what the sense in doing this thing of life really is without Dan, and why it even matters- I remind God that I’m giving Him all of me. And for one more day- and all my days thereafter, I’ll love Him... with all of me.

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Kokubun Konexión

Come Home Full

Trust His Heart

For Better, For Worse

All of me

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