To live is Christ, to die is gain…

Taken from when I spoke at the Woodside Romeo’s Christmas Tea in 2023:

What a true blessing and honor it is to speak to you tonight. It is not lost on me that there are many women here with years of wisdom, so I am very grateful to be able to share with you what the Lord has been teaching me these last few years in my faith journey. I pray that the words I say can be an encouragement to you and that the Lord will speak through me and give you some extra hope during this Christmas season. 

I wanted to start out by sharing part of my testimony and then highlight a few things the Lord has taught me during a particular season of grief. 

I grew up in a very fun and faith filled home where my parents showed me what it looked like to walk by faith in lots of different situations and how to stand for truth even if we were alone in doing so. This had a big impact in my life.  I accepted the Lord as my Savior when I was five years old, understanding that I was a sinner and needed a Savior. I had the faith of a child. As I grew up, I continued to learn more about God, Jesus and being a follower of Him from church, youth group, family, Bible time, memorizing scripture and friendships. There were many seasons of growth, from finding my identity in God and not from sports or acceptance from others, trusting in the Lord even in times of injustice and many other examples. 

Fast forward to my mid-twenties and just after college, I was able to serve as a camp counselor for a few summers. This was an amazing time, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to spend multiple summers at camp. My first summer at Camp Barakel was in 2017 and I met some of the sweetest, most servant hearted people there. If you have ever served at a camp or gone on a mission trip or some other type of serving event, there is something special that happens when serving that knits you together in a different way than if you were to meet on the “street”. I might not have been friends with these people outside of camp, but because of our mutual love for the Lord and serving others, we were able to be shoulder to shoulder, building relationships and making wonderful memories. There is a special connection that gets woven as you serve together, sweat, cry and rejoice together. 

One of these sweet individuals was a young lady, Rosella, also a counselor for the summer. We developed what I call a camp friendship and as the summer came to an end, I found myself hanging out with her and a few others over that fall, slowly building that friendship.  I will never forget the phone call from a resident staff member telling me she passed away on her way to work and her birthday, February 7, 2018 in a fatal car accident. 

Death itself affects all of us but was not something we were created for. When God created us, it was to live forever with Him. When sin entered the world, it separated us from God and death became part of each person’s reality. Thank God for His love and mercy towards us, by giving of His son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins to restore us to eternity with Him for those who trust in Him. Even with the hope of heaven, death on earth is painful and something we all have to wrestle with as we lose loved ones. 

Her death hit me particularly hard, unlike any other death had before. I had lost all of my grandparents at this point, a cousin, my youth pastor and more, so I had experienced loss but not to someone so young and healthy. In my mind, death came with a “warning” label like age or sickness. Or at least for me, it felt more natural or easier to process, when there were tangible signs.

I had to take a step back and ask myself why I was struggling with her death so hard when I had lost people, I was relationally closer to and wasn’t struggling so hard in my day-to-day life. Her death was constantly on my mind and creating new fears and anxiety I had not felt before. For example, the thought of going on a road trip terrified me and would cause me to be anxious the entire trip while driving. Why did I feel like I couldn’t sing certain worship songs or go to the Lord with my needs? Why did I feel kinda dead inside? 

I finally realized that there were two aspects of my life that were affected with her passing. One was the grief of losing her as a person and the other was an area of my faith being revealed that needed refining. Areas I didn’t even know existed, where I was taking control and not trusting God.  

And therefore I think in any hardship, trauma or season of life (doesn’t have to be death, but any struggle), there is the situation you are dealing with (like grief, which is hard on its own) and there are areas of our faith that are exposed, both the strong and weak areas. So, the first lesson learned is a question we should all ask ourselves 1) What is God revealing about my faith during this hardship and how can I learn from this situation and not just survive it? 

Most of us are familiar with the verses found in James, 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

When those hardships come, and they reveal the areas of our faith that are flawed we will either double down on our way of living and fight to maintain our foothold in our “reality” or we will allow the Lord to slowly root out those sins and false truths.  This was so true for me in this season of grief.

Here I was living my life with this false sense of control. Even though I was active in my faith and loved God with my whole heart, I was holding onto control for my future, and I did not even realize it. Rosella’s passing blared this truth in front of me. To be honest, it took a lot of wrestling with God before I was able to acknowledge that He was and is still good.

I just kept thinking, “If Rosella can die on her 20th birthday, being as strong and healthy as she was, with such a deep love for the Lord, what’s not to say, I also will be called home tomorrow or in a year or two?” This terrified me, because I had all of these plans and goals that I had not met yet. If He took me home, it would be too soon! But oh isn’t that the truth of someone living for their own gain, instead of the Lord’s. It was MY plan, and MY goals, and MY future that would only feel completed if it happened MY way.  

Philippians 1:20-21 says as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” 

Let’s break this down. To live is Christ means that my life on earth is to be for Christ and follow Him. “to die is gain” means that upon death you are gaining something greater than you are leaving behind. It can ONLY be a gain if we aren’t losing anything. Well, if I were to die, at that moment in time, dying felt like I was losing something.  Losing out on my desires to get married, have a family, grow old, experience certain things. It was at this point that I realized I was focused more on my desires than what God had called me to, and calls all of His children to, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself and to make disciples.”  He didn’t say, get married and have a fun life, He said follow Him and anything along the way is life. 

I had to realign my faith to the truth of God’s word that we aren’t promised anything except that the Lord will be with us and that salvation in Him and the joy and peace that comes from God is the greatest gift or experience I will ever have. I was taking earthly experiences like getting married, having a family and living a long life and elevating it about God. I was taking the greatest gift from God and saying it wasn’t good enough, when in fact, it is the greatest gift we will ever receive! 

This can be true in any area of our lives. What is a fear or goal that has to happen to make you feel whole? What experience or relationship are you putting above God? Are you allowing His joy and peace to flood your life and dictate how you respond to people or seasons in your life?

2) Secondly, do not compare your faith walk with others, especially during hardships or different seasons of life. 

Comparing our faith walk to others and how we respond in hardships can affect us in multiple ways. It can keep us from being vulnerable because we don’t want to sound weak or needy. It can keep us from allowing others to come alongside and encourage us because we keep everything inside. And it can create a false sense of jealousy or comparison that frankly wastes time and energy. 

Not only did I lose a friend in 2018 but in the fall of 2020, one of my closest friends also passed away in a fatal car accident. When both Rosella and Rachel passed, I found myself comparing my grief to others and thinking, “well they seem to be over it, so should I,” or “they aren’t talking about her, so maybe I shouldn’t either” and it was an internal battle of should I say something, post something or talk about her?  It was an unhealthy way to process my grief based on false assumptions of what grief looks like, when in fact, I have no idea of their internal struggles as well!  We all grieve differently, and we all learn different things in grief! 

Grief taught me, don’t over analyze your needs based on false assumptions made from the outward appearance of someone else. 

The community of God is a wonderful gift and something we should all lean into in both the joys and sorrows of life. I would encourage you to allow your sister’s in Christ to enter into your pain and uncertainty and allow them to bring encouragement and truth. 

3) Lastly, People can bring comfort but only Jesus can heal 

Fast forward August of 2020, and like I said earlier, my dear, sweet friend, Rachel passed away. This time it was less of a refining of my faith, but more of the deep grief of losing a friend. We were supposed to do life together, raise our kids together, go on trips together. All of these plans gone in an instant. What was I supposed to do with this love I had for her that had nowhere to go? How was I supposed to have the same joy experiencing things that I know she would have been at?

Grief / hardships can be lonely, but God also gave us a community to be there during those times and bring comfort. There have been amazing moments of comfort from friends and family during these past few years and I will always be grateful for those who reached out and went out of their way to make me feel seen and my pain heard. 

I’ll never forget the individuals who sent cards, gift baskets or messages of prayers during those times of loss. So, I encourage you to write the card, send the flowers, show up to help. Don’t wait for permission to enter into someone’s grief because they are fighting that battle whether you are there to help or not.

However, we also need to be careful not to put false expectations on those around us to bring comfort and healing that only Jesus can. It’s so easy to think, “I wish they would…” “don’t they know I am struggling, why aren’t they reaching out?’ but really we need to go to the father with our hurts and allow Him to bring ultimate healing. 

We know we can find ultimate and complete healing in God because of Jesus and His death on the cross. He came down, lived a perfect life and died on that cross for our sins. He took the penalty of death meant for us. We can be made new in Him and all of our sins are forgiven if we trust in God and ask for forgiveness. Jesus is the ultimate healer from death to life as we will no longer spend eternity away from Him but in heaven. Our sins are no more and we can have new life and a joy and peace that can only be found in Jesus that is greater than any earthly comfort. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jsus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” When you bring your hurts to God it’s amazing the healing He gives. So I encourage you to trust in Him.