The Distraction Of Disappointment // Do Not Disturb (Part 1) // Brie Davis

Welcome to Transformation Church Podcast, where we represent God to

the lost and found for transformation in Christ. We're so

glad you're here and wherever you're listening from, we believe

God will transform your life.

Do today's message Today, I have the honor of bringing

this word to you and I am genuinely so excited

about it. I'm going to tell you a little bit

of our story and what we experienced over the last year,

and the prayer is that hopefully this encourages somebody and

bring somebody hope in the midst of their heartache.

And at the end of this, We're going.

To have a moment where I'm going to have the

worship team come back up. I'm just giving you the

preview of what all is going to happen, and I'm

asking you to stick around to really just see what

the Holy Spirit may want to say to you and

whatever situation you may.

Be going through.

So a little bit of our story talking about disappointment today.

The greatest disappointment of my life happened on July twenty first,

twenty twenty.

Four, last year, around this time when it.

Was the first day that I the first time ever

that I got to hold my son, and he was

taking his last breaths.

In that moment.

It's hard to explain, explain to you exactly how that feels.

We had such expectations of what our son's life was

gonna bring to our life. We had such expectations of

seeing him on his first birthday, and Aaron and I

had so many conversations around whose personality was he gonna take.

Was he gonna take mine and be the goodie two

shoes or was it gonna take my husband's and not

be the goodie two shoes?

Was he gonna, you know, love basketball? Is he gonna

be a book nerd like me?

I mean, what was he gonna Who was he gonna be?

Was he gonna wear all.

The Jordans and I mean all the Jordans.

That Aaron had already bought for him.

I mean, there was so many expects that we had

of him. I couldn't wait to see how he was

going to be with his cousins, and how he was

going to snuggle with my mom like how I did

growing up, And how he was going to enjoy my

dad's laughter and boldness and craziness all the time like

I could. We had so many expectations of what was

going to happen with our son Ace. We had no

idea that we would only have fourteen days with him.

And we knew that Ace was probably going to be

born with some sickness and some things that, you know,

we were going to have to do some hard work

to really get him through. But we had no idea

that he was going to pass away. And on this day,

this day that I finally got to hold my son

for the first time, this was the last.

Day that we actually got with him.

It's the greatest disappointment of my entire life. And I

understand that I'm not alone when it comes to disappointment,

that I am not the only person that has experienced

this situation or something similar to or another disappointment in life.

The definition of disappointment is the pain of an unmet expectation,

the pain of an unmet expectation.

Every single one.

Of us have or have had some type of disappointment.

The human experience includes disappointment. Bible even tells a scripture

tells us that we are going to have troubles in

this world. Every person is going to experience some type

of disappointment. Maybe not the same disappointment that I have.

But maybe you thought your mom was going to beat

the cancer, or maybe you thought that that relationship was

going to end a marriage. Maybe you thought that marriage

was going to last forever. Maybe you thought the job

was going to give you a promotion, or the friends

wouldn't betray you.

We all had these.

Expectations in life that oftentimes we are disappointed when it

doesn't work out the.

Way that we thought it would.

Mary and Martha thought that Jesus was going to heal

their brother before he died. Jonah thought, Oh, there's no

way that God's going to send.

Me to Nineveh.

Paul thought, oh, if I pray enough that this thorn

in my flesh, that this will be gone, God will

take it away. But many of us are left with disappointments,

often disappointments that we have to live with for the

rest of our lives. When I think about our story

with Ace, there were so many delights and disappointments along

the way. Aaron and I got married ten years ago,

in twenty fifteen. And when we got married, it was

a delight, it was wonderful. We were madly in love,

so excited about it. And then that first year went

completely downhill.

Y'all. We never had the honeymoon face. If you want

to know more.

About that wash one of the sermons that we didn't pass.

I'm not going into all those details, but during that time,

we were learning so much about ourselves and our marriage

was so broken and so shattered that we knew that

there was no way we were ready to be parents.

So we intentionally did not try to get pregnant. That

was not even an option. As a matter of fact,

we had gotten to a point where we didn't even

know if we were going to ever even want to

have a kid. Most of our friends know that when

they would bring up kids, we'd be like, we won't

talk about that. And probably about year five, I started

to feel like, you.

Know what, maybe this is something that I want to do.

Maybe I do want to be a mom.

And I remember actually writing for two years in a

row on my crazy Faith card that we.

Would have a baby ready marriage that I didn't know

if we wanted to really be parents.

But what I did know is that if we were

ever going to be parents, we wanted a marriage and

a home that was healthy enough that a child could

thrive in it. And so I started praying and asking God, God,

if we could just have a marriage, that if we

decide we want to have a kid, that it will

be a healthy home that we can.

Bring that child to.

And for two years I pray for that, and then

finally it was like, you know what, I think, I

actually want to be a mom, like I want to

have a child.

And I took that to God. I did not.

Take that to Aaron, okay, because we were not on

the same page yet, And so I.

Took that to the Lord. And a couple months later, sure.

Enough, Aaron came to me and we had a conversation.

We knew, okay, we want to actually try to have

a kid. And for two years we tried again, delight

after disappointment, delight after disappointment. We finally decide we want

to have a child, and it takes two years before

we ever get pregnant, and it was very much so

a torturous time for me. If you, as a woman,

have ever walked through the trying to concede process, you know,

every single month you think you're pregnant, you're not. All

the symptoms seem the same, all the things, and you're

disappointed every single time that you take that pregnancy test

and find out that you're not pregnant. And so for

two years we went through that, and then finally we

got a positive pregnancy test, and we.

Were so excited about it.

We found out at five am in the morning. We

literally started calling people at five am in the morning

to tell them we were so excited about it, and

we over of course it probably twenty four to forty

eight hours, went around telling our friends and family about it,

and we were making our way through every person that

we wanted to know before we made it a public thing.

And by the end.

Of that week, much to our disappointment, we found out

that we were having a miscarriage. And again, delight after disappointment.

So two months later we got another positive pregnancy test,

and this time it was our son Ace, and we

were so excited we went to this time, we.

Just text everybody and told him.

We was like, we're not going around told to tell

them everybody again. We just gonna send a text this time.

And we went to the doctor.

First doctor's appointment, hurt his heartbeat. That makes everything so

much more real when you hear the heartbeat. And then

we went to his second doctor's appointment, and when we

did this is about twelve.

Or fourteen weeks.

We found out that Ace was having some issues. Immediately

started to go see a specialist and went to that

specialist up until we had to move to Houston to

have him, and in that we knew that Ace had

a life threatening situation that was happening. But we took

every intervention that we could, everything that we knew to do,

including surgery and all the things, and moving to Houston

and being with the Houston doctor so that they could

give us some medical attention that we couldn't get here

in Tulsa.

All the things.

And we had an expectation that God was going to

heal our.

Son in the way that we saw it happening.

And it's very funny because as we found out what

was going on with Ace, we took the situation to God,

and we knew that what we wanted to do was

believe God that he would be a man of his word,

that he was going to heal Ace, and we knew that,

we just didn't know how he was going to do that.

And so Ace was born and we found out when

he was born that.

He is his life lungs were severely underdeveloped and that

he was not able to breathe on his own. And

for fourteen days he was in Nicku and in that

time he was able to have a breathing machine the

entire time. He had a major surgery during that time,

a lot of blood transfusions, a lot of things that

took place. And then we got a call from the

doctor one morning to tell us, hey, you need to

come to the hospital because we don't know if Ace

is going to make it the rest of this day.

And and in that moment, we went to the hospital

and we walked in, we knew, like, he doesn't look good,

and we knew that we were probably going to lose

our son that day. And Aaron and I wept and

went to God in prayer and told everyone we could, Hey,

let's pray for Ace and all the things. And we

had thousands of people praying for our son for him

to end up passing away. And here's the thing. We

said that we surrendered to God our son and that

he could heal him however he wanted to, but we

knew he would heal him. And what God did was

heal our son by taking him to Heaven. Ace is

living a better life than any of us are right now.

And what I'm realizing, even over all of this last year,

is how important it is to stay focused on God

in the midst of disappointment. My story is not your story.

Your story is not my story. This story you may

hear and you think, I don't even know if I

can go through that. I probably could hear some of

your story and think I don't know if I could

go through that myself. Every single one of us have

some type of disappointment in life, but it's not until

we meet that disappointment that we are able to see.

Can I fix my eyes on God in the midst

of this disappointment? And what we experience is, even through

the heartbreak of trying to conceive and then having a

miscarriage and having a sudden him passing away, is that

God's goodness never really runs out.

It never really runs out.

And I want to talk to you about this because

I have for the last year it's almost felt like

I've been waiting for God.

When can I tell this story?

Because the truth is, it is the love and the

kindness of God that has absolutely saved us over this

last year.

In the midst of deep grief.

The thing about disappointment that I think that sometimes we

struggle with as a church, and by the church, I

mean capital C church, is you have to wrestle with

God and disappointment. Oftentimes, when we are disappointed by something,

we do one of two things as believers.

We either run away from God and completely.

Disconnect because he didn't answer the prayer the way that

we wanted him to answer the prayer, or we completely

spiritually bypass all the emotions that actually come with real

disappointment for all the people who are maybe the glass

have fool people. Sometimes we can focus on that so

much that we don't recognize like half your glass is empty,

and it is okay to actually greed that half of

your glass is empty. And so today what I want

to do is try to give permission for us to

do both and wrestle with God.

And your disappointment, be.

Angry, be upset, be sad, be all the things, just

be it with God. I think about the story of

Jacob and how he wrestled with the Angel and he said,

I will not let go until you bless me. And

that's exactly the demeanor that.

Aaron and I took in our situation.

God, we do not understand, we do not like this,

but we will not let go of You until we

feel the blessing come upon us from this situation.

And so when I think about.

This, I have to be completely honest and sharing with

you today. I disagree with my son passing away.

I disagree with it.

I would one hundred percent rather be at home with

my baby right now than sitting up on this dage

teaching you. If it was my choice and I was God,

I would have let Ace live and I would have

healed them miraculously, and then I would have tried to

tell that testimony until probably I forgot about it and

moved on.

With something else in life.

But I would have done something very, very different in

this situation. I can disagree with God and still trust him.

This is the permission that I want to try to

give somebody today. It's okay if you don't agree with

how God allows something to go. I do not believe

that God took my son, but I do believe he

allowed it, and I have wrestled with him on that

time and time.

Again over this last year.

God, why it doesn't make sense to me? God, you

could have went a different way. God couldn't have testimony

been so much more powerful if you had healed as

the way that I saw it happening. But here's what

I know. I'm not all knowing. I'm not all powerful.

His ways are not my ways.

I am not King of kings and Lord of lords.

I do not know the end from the beginning.

All I know.

I don't even know five minutes from right now what's

going to happen. What I do know is that I

am a human just trying to stay surrendered.

To the Lord right now.

And so at the end of the day, if you

must rest, so wrestle, just do it with God, whatever

the disappointment is. I do believe that we can live

a life where we can both hand hand hold the

heartache and hope at the same time. That God has

not asked us to choose from whether we were going

to be heartbroken or we're going to be hopeful. You

can be both, and you can really hold onto that

heartache and God, why I wish it would win another

way and still hold onto the hope of the future.

And that's what I believe that God has given us

permission to do. As Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus,

knowing full well that he was going to raise him

from the dead, knowing full well that he was going

to heal Lazarus.

He still wept. He was still in the moment. And

for me, the only way that.

I could not just survive this last year, the only

way I could thrive through this.

Last year was to do two things.

To be honest with God and remind myself of God's truth.

When I go to God in prayer, the first thing

I'm gonna do is tell you exactly how I feel.

God.

This is how I feel about this situation. This is

not okay, this is how I wanted it to go, this, that,

and the other. I'm gonna be honest with God. But

after being honest with God, I'm gonna remind myself of

God's truth. But I know You're a redeemer, and I

know you're a healer, and I know that you know

how to take this broken heart and put it back together. God,

I know that Ace's life was for a reason, and

if there is a reason, I'm gonna find that reason.

I'm gonna keep moving that reason forward. And there is

hope that can happen in the middle of heartache.

So what do we do when we experience disappointment? Three things?

Three things that we can do as we experience disappointment

in our life things a focus on. The three things

that we can focus on is God's name, God's nature,

and God's nearness. God's name, God's nature, and God's nearness.

In the Scripture, it tells us in Proverbs eighteen and ten,

it says, the name of the Lord is a strong fortress,

and the godly run to him and are safe the

name of God. When we experience disappointment, we're gonna call

on somebody. You may call on your mama, you may

call on your friend, you may call on yourself to

get you through that disappointment. But if we can remember

the name of God in the middle of a disappointment,

it changes everything. Because God's name is not just a name.

God's name is actually a place. It is a strong tower,

a strong fortress that we run into so that we.

Are saved God. This is a beautiful thing about God.

When you think of just a regular human being. We

all have a name and maybe a couple of nicknames.

We got that Boo Boo, that Kiki.

Whatever our nickname may be. But when it comes to

the name of God.

There are literally dozens of names of God. There are

dozens of names that we can call on. And when

I sat and NICKI with my son, I was calling

on God the Father. God, I need you as a

father in this moment, to be with me and see

me as your daughter, and treat and treat me.

Like your daughter.

I could call on God the healer. God, you are

the only one.

That can heal.

I do not know what to do in this situation.

My hands are tied. The doctors don't know what to do.

You are the only one.

Back in heal. And when as.

Passed, I had to call on God the Redeemer. I said, God,

this situation didn't look the way that I wanted it

to look. But I know you can redeem it. I

know that you can bring something from it. And so

in the middle of your disappointment, who are you calling on?

In the middle of your disappointment.

You will call on someone. Let that be the name

of God.

Familiarize yourself with the names of God, because.

Everything that we need he is.

When Moses stood in front of that burning bush, God said.

I am that I am.

I am literally everything that you could ever need or

want in your life. That is Me, That is who

our God is. And so the beautiful thing about us

as believers walking through disappointment is we always have.

A name to call on, and that may look.

Different in different situations, but it is the same one

God that we call on every time we find ourselves

backed up against the wall in life.

Call on the name of God.

I think about all the moments laying in bed and

airing asleep and no one's up. Who do I pick

up the phone and call in a moment like that?

Who do you call on when you're going through the

worst thing in your life?

But the name of God.

If you want to not be distracted by the disappointments

in your life, cling to the name of God. It

is the only name by which we are saved. It

is the name above every name. I know there's some

names that maybe you think can come and rescue you

from a situation, the name of money, or the name

of friends, or the name of family. But it is

the only name that is above every other name, is

the name of God. And in our situation, that's all

we could call on, and that became our safe place.

Focus on the name of God. The second thing is

focus on the nature of God. Now one of the

things that this is near and dear to my heart

because in First John it tells us that God is love.

It means that God cannot act outside of love ever,

like there's nothing that he can do that is not

loving and not full of love, because that's who God is. Now,

we say I love you to one another, and oftentimes

we still have actions or behaviors or responses to one

another that are not actually built in love. But God,

that is not the case. When my husband and I

were in the first couple of years of our marriage

and we were rebuilding something back from scratch, I knew

that I needed to remind myself of God's love. For

all of my life, I had been the quote unquote

good girl, and I really did boil down God's love

to my performance that if I perform well, that God

would love me well, and that if I'm a good

person that God would love me well. In that situation,

when I found out being a good person don't mean

you're gonna have a good life all the time, I

really needed to learn about the love.

Of God, and in that it took me.

Probably a fool year but I took some time to

just learn about.

The way that God loves me. And I'm telling you something.

It absolutely dug my roots into his love in a

way that is very much so unexplainable. Today. This is

what I know about God. I know that he loves me.

I know he loves you. I know that I am

the apple of his eye, that you are the apple

of his eye.

I know that we are his dream come true.

Out of it one chance out of forty billion chances,

that we made it to this earth. That means that

He absolutely formed and made us and made us the

people that he wanted to be on this earth.

That He is madly in love.

With us, that he passionately pursues us.

And when we are rooted in that love.

Although disappointment will shake us, it won't break us. Although

disappointment comes, it won't shake the fact that we know that.

Our God is all loving and here is a thing.

If we understand that, it'll stop us from disconnecting from

God in the middle of disappointment. Because the enemy's design

for disappointment is distraction. He wants us to be absolutely

distracted by the disappointment that we have in our life

and by that, I mean distracted from the calling of

God on our life, distracted from the love of God

in our lives, distracted and from our relationship with God.

But what I know is God's purpose is death. That

we can deepen even from a disappointment. But where we

deepen is in his love. That it is his love

that changes us from the inside out, and it is

his love that roots us. And if I were to

say there's one thing to study in the word of God,

if you were wondering where should I even start, I

would say study the love of God changes everything. It

changes everything when I know how God feels about me.

God's tone of voice with me is not like an

old pastor or a mean parent.

Or anything like that. God's tone and voice for me

is one that is.

Feeling of love and of tenderness and of joy. And

He is so excited to see me wake up every

single day, and he beams over us every day, and

he sings songs over us.

He is so so madly in love with us.

And if we struggle to believe that, which is normal,

we will struggle to believe that He loves us, especially

in the middle of disappointment. One thing that was important

to me when going through this situation was that I

remember and remind myself of the love of God, because

when life hits you and hits you hard, it almost

feels like God's doing it. It almost feels like he

is the one to blame. God.

I've been praying for as why haven't you healed him?

God? We did everything we knew to do to try

to intervene with this situation.

Why haven't you? Why has none of that worked? God?

We've been trying for so many years to have a baby,

and we finally got to a place where we felt

like we could do it and we felt healthy enough,

and then we try and all these things God.

And really, what the enemy would love for us to do.

Is to blame God for the disappointments in our life,

whatever it is you may be experiencing in your life.

If you feel any blame towards.

God in that situation, know that that is the plan

of the Enemy. That he wants us to disconnect from

Him in a way that we don't believe that God

loves us because of what we are experiencing. God may

have allowed it, but he didn't cause it. And when

God allows something in our life, he has something in

the middle of that, and Isaiah says, I have hidden

treasures in darkness, have hidden treasures in darkness, that even

in your darkest situation, I have some treasures down there

for you.

I promise you.

I will not leave you in this situation with nothing

to offer you. I promise you you can get something

out of this situation. I promise you that you can

be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,

bearing fruit in every single season. I promise you I

have something to give you, even though that looks like

you have lost it all.

I promise you I am not a god that will

trick you. I am not a God that will give.

You this fantastic fantasy of.

Life and to trick you.

I promise you I'm going to give you abundant life.

I promise you. I am a man of my word.

I promise you that I love you. I promise you

that something will come from this. I promise you that

I can make.

Every single thing work out.

For your good. I promise you that's how much God

loves us, that in every situation he will.

Find the good in it, he will make something out

of it. When we surrender that disappointment to him. He

will meet us right there and He will give us

some good out of it, some fruit out of it,

some blessings, even out of the most painful, hurtful things

in our lives. So we must know God's nature, that

God's nature cannot be disconnected from love. And when we

know that, we can continue to serve and stay connected

to Him. Even in our wrestling. You can wrestle with

the God. Wrestling does not mean disobedience, and it doesn't

mean a lack of faith.

Wrestling means intimacy.

If you have a real good relationship, a good friendship

with somebody, y'all can argue and fight about something and

we still gonna love each other after this conversation. That

is what we can do. God said, I am your friend.

Come to me like you would your friend. Let's talk

about it. Let's wrestle over this thing. Don't disconnect. So

when we're in disappointment, we focus on the name of God,

we focus on.

The nature of God.

And the last thing is focus on God's nearness. Now,

if there is one thing that I could teach for

the rest of my life, it would be about the

nearness of God outside the love of God. It'd be

about the nearness of God, because I do believe, especially

in a world where we have a social media situation

where we are disconnected from one another all the time,

we live pretty much in a pandemic of loneliness that

oftentimes we believe we are by ourselves when we go

into that meeting, where by ourselves when we go to

have that conversational, by ourselves. If there was one thing

that I could teach for the rest of my life,

it will be about the nearness of God, because we

serve a God who really is King of kings and

Lord of lords, like he is huge expansive.

Scriptures say that the earth is his footstool.

That's how big our God is. But scriptures also tell

us that he delights in the details of our life.

That God is closer to you than your very own breath,

that God is with.

You and mirror you at all times.

As a matter of fact, in Psalms, it says in

Psalms thirty four and eighteen that God is close to

the broken hearted, and he rescues those spirits who are crushed.

I would teach about the nearness of God only if

I had one thing to talk about because I think

it changes things when we believe that God and everything

that God has to offer us is with us at

every moment of the day. There is not one second

of the day that He looks to the left or

is distracted by something else, that his full attention is

on us all day, every day, that He is with us.

That if you put your hand to your face and

feel your breath that's coming out of your mouth, stinky

or not, that that is.

How close God is to you. It changes things. I

have this.

Spiritual practice that I do that where I sometimes imagine

Jesus with me in a room or wherever I am,

and I do this.

Now.

I do a lot of contemplative practices because those really

do root me and ground me in.

The presence of God.

But in this practice, however Jesus looks to me at

that time, I would just imagine Him in the space

with me because it gives me calm and ease and

even makes me feel more confident in what I'm doing.

When I walk up on this stage, I imagine me

and Jesus walked up here together, and it just gives

me confidence to know I'm not alone, I'm not by

myself and I belong here because Jesus is with me.

And when we were in Houston, when we initially found

out that something was wrong with Ace, we went to

meet with a series of doctors. And in those meetings,

we sit down and we're at a table, a circle table,

and there's four chairs at the table and it's Aaron

and I and then there's a doctor that we're talking to.

And we've talked to probably four different doctors at this point.

We're finally on the last doctor that we're talking to.

And when we're talking to him, he is you know

the dry eyes commercial. Okay, he is like dry eyes,

very just bland, plane, straightforward, very black and white, not

really how do I say, emotionally available?

Okay?

And so he's talking to us and he's telling us,

you know, here's a prognosis, here's what we think. He

even in this conversation shared with us a lot of

people who experience something like this decide to terminate their pregnancy,

and that's an option if we want to do that.

And all these different things that he's talking to us about.

And I don't blame him being in the medical fear

that feel that long.

I don't know what it does to you.

So if nothing else, I'm like, hey, just give us

the details.

We're fine with that. But in the midst of all

of this, I am.

Completely like sobbing, like I am crying hard. It's hard

for me to really understand what everyone's saying because it's

now the fourth or fifth doctor we've talked to, and

there's so many medical terms. I don't get it all.

And so in the moment I go, I think to myself,

oh my gosh, I've been going through all of these

meetings with the doctors and I forgot that I can

imagine Jesus in the room with me, and so he's

talking to us, and Aaron and I are looking at him,

talking to him, and I tell myself, you know, I'm

gonna imagine Christ in the room and this empty seat

that we have, it's four cheers.

And only three of us.

So I imagine Jesus in this seat. And I kid you not,

this is the Holy Spirit all by self. We're talking

to the doctor and we're looking at each other and

in my imagination, because I do believe God gave us

an imagination so that we can imagine good things like

That's what positive thinking is. Anyways, so I'm looking at

the doctor and Jesus is over here, but Jesus is

only looking at me, And in my imagination, while I

was concerned about Ace and trying to figure out what

was going on with him, and the doctor was telling

us everything that we needed to be aware of, Jesus

was concerned about me. And that as I'm looking at

these doctors and talking to them, that Jesus is concerned

about his daughter.

Well, I'm concerned about my child.

He's concerned about his child, and he's looking at me

this entire time. And I know that's only the Holy Spirit,

because why would I know to even think that. But

here's the thing, it's those practices that helped me to remember.

Jesus is near us, that he's with you.

That God doesn't once you get saved. He doesn't ask you, okay,

go figure it out on your own.

He doesn't stand on.

The other side of your sin telling you to clean

up your own mess. That instead, he walks and talks

with us, that he is with us like nobody else can,

Like when you just have no words to even say,

He's right there saying I know, I get it, I'm sorry,

I understand that Jesus is that near to us. When

we know the name of God and we call on

it in the midst of disappointment, when we understand and

tried to grasp the nature of God and how much

He loves us, and when we are experiencing and aware

of the nearness.

Of God, it changes things.

There was a point when on the day that Ace

was passing, and we went up to the hospital and

like I said, the doctor called us and said, you

guys need to get up here because we don't.

Know how much longer we have with him. And we

went to the.

Hospital and we were there for quite some time. As

a matter of fact, our whole intended purpose was we

were to see, you know, if the medicine was going

to take and his vitals were going to change or

if not. And if his vitals were not going to change,

then he his heart rate was going to slow down.

And that's how we knew that he was on his

way to passing. And we were sitting there for hours.

Matter of fact, it was a Sunday, so we streamed

church from there and put church in his little Niku

cube and we were there for hours, you know, just

seeing what God was going to do and very hard

to explain the experience of literally watching your child die,

Like that's very hard to explain. And there was a

certain point where I told Aaron, I was like, I

need a break.

It's just hard.

This is just really hard to sit here and watch

this and not know what was happening. There were no

changes positive or negative. It was just kind of staying

the same. So we went to the car and decided

to take a break. And when we went to the car,

we recognized that we got to the car and I

just knew I needed to pray.

I needed to pray and talk to God. And Nick,

you is very quiet, so you can't.

Really, you know, say too many things out loud. You

show can't be Shonda bowing up in there. Okay, that

is not the place for that. And so I.

Went to the car and I started praying, and I mean.

I was begging God, begging God to.

Change the situation. And I was, I mean literally screaming God.

Please, please, please, please, please, please do something. Don't let

this be our story, don't let this in like this,

save our son, Please God, please, and just crying out

and asking God, you know, to come and do something.

And after praying like that. I don't know how long.

Aaron probably has more regulation of that story than I do,

but after praying for quite some time, it felt like

there was suddenly just the peace, and I felt myself

surrender the situation to God and surrender ace to God.

And my prayers went.

From God, I begging you, please don't let this happen.

Please God, Please, to.

Whatever happens, just let us be okay. And I don't

know what You're going to allow to have, but can

you bring some good from it?

And can we live after this?

Please? Let us have some joy after this experience. Please,

whatever happens.

And I don't know where that shift came from other

than the Holy Spirit in that prayer, but it was

like at first I was clinching with all of my might,

trying to really force God to do something the way.

That I saw it. And sometimes we think that's what

prayer is.

I just got to say the right thing at the

right time, and I could do the magic trick.

To get him do exactly what I want him to do.

But that prayer ended in surrender.

And when I think about that today, it reminds me

of the greatest disappointment in history, and although not as

intense and not as weighty, it reminded me of Jesus

in the Garden of gaseimone before he went to go

be crucified, and he begged and pleaded.

God, please, please, please, please.

Let's do something different. If there's another plan, please let's

go that direction. If you could do it a different way, God, please,

And eventually he says, not my will, but your will

be done.

And in that.

Surrender, the greatest disappointment in history took place, but also

the greatest good in history took place too. The greatest

thing that God could do was redeem a terrible situation.

And although we would choose to not have to go

through terrible situations, we had the power in our hands,

we would choose to never have to do it, never

have to go through any trial, any pain, anything.

That is going to wreck our lives.

Here's my promise to you, which is a promise from God.

He'll bring good from it. He can bring good from

the divorce, he can bring good from the loss. He

can bring good from the termination or the layoff.

He can bring good.

From the broken betrayal or the broken relationship. He really

can bring some good from it, but you have to

surrender it. God wants to bring something really good from

things that are truly terrible in our lives. But it's

our choice on whether or not we will wrestle with

him to a point till we get to surrender.

Wrestle with God, he invites it.

At the end of that wrestle, choose to surrender it

to him.

There is no way.

That I could put a bow on my son's story.

I will live the rest of my life without my

son here, and that tears my heart to shreds.

But what I know is.

Although I will not have him, I will.

Have God's goodness.

I will see the goodness of God and the land

of the Living.

As a church, we will not gloss over pain.

It's real, and oftentimes it sticks with us even.

Longer when we try to ignore it and avoid it.

I'm at a point in my life now where when

I say, oh, I've had a good day, it's not

because I didn't cry or I didn't grieve.

It's if that grief came.

To the surface and I gave it some space, and

if I allowed myself to cry when the tears came,

instead of trying to hold them back. Or try to

slap a scripture on and act like it's not a

real thing, or disconnect from God.

And go into my hole and allow it to take

me under.

You can hold heartache and hope in the midst of disappointment.

My prayer today is that hearing just a little bit

of this story. There's so many details that I can't

share today, but hearing just a little bit of it,

that you understand that.

God is not this far off being.

That is not good to us and does not have

good intentions for us.

But that He is a God that is really, really.

Real, and that even in the midst of the hardest

thing that you can't experience, he's not far He's very close.

The moment.

That our son took his last breath, he was holding

him in my arm, and Aaron was holding me in

his arms, and it was a moment that Heaven met Earth,

that in the midst of our grief and our sorrow,

that all.

Of Heaven was leaned in with us in the moment.

Don't you know that God has leaned into you, that.

He has never once taken his eyes off of you,

and that your heartache does not mean that He is

far off, but when you're.

Going through what you're going through, He's crying with you,

and he's standing with you.

And in my situation, he understands because he lost the

son too. And hebrews in with this scripture four fourteen

through sixteen, it says, therefore, since we have high, a

great high priest who is ascended into heaven, Jesus the

Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith

that we possess.

For we do not have a high priest who.

Is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have

one who is tempted in every way just as we are.

Yet he did not sin.

Let us then approach God's throne of grace with go confidence,

so that we may receive mercy and find grace to

help us in our time of me My encouragement to

you today is you are not alone in the midst

of that disappointment. God is with you. No matter what's

going on. God is with you. And not only is

he with you physically with you, but he empathizes with you,

and he understands, and he's not afraid to wrestle with you,

and he's not afraid to go toe to toe with you.

And he's not afraid of whatever lack of faith you

may have. He's just asking you to invite him into it.

Inviting Jesus in to our life. Over this last year,

and everything that we have experienced has saved our life.

There's no way in the world that I will be

able to share at all anything with anybody else had

not God been with us.

So God in this place today, we're really really grateful.

That you are a God that sticks closer than a brother,

That God you are near us, that you love us

the way that you do, and that your name is

a strong power that we can run into in whatever

situations we may be going through today or tomorrow or

the next day, that we know where we can run,

that we get to run to the King of Kings

and the Lord of lords, that we get to run

to our provider, our healer, our protector. That you are

everything that we need. I know all too well.

That you can be everything that we need.

We thank you that as we leave this place, that

we don't leave this place alone, That as we go

to work and back to home and all the other

places that we may have on our agenda, that.

We have a God that sticks with us.

And that out of every situation, no matter how bad

it looks, you can bring good. That God, out of

every situation, you can bring love, you can bring joy,

you can bring peace. God, that you can bring empathy

and compassion for other people, that you can deepen our

roots in you, and that we will not be distracted

by disappointment in the name of Jesus.

Maybe you're in this room or you are.

Watching online and you hear us talk about this relationship

with God, but maybe you want to enter into your

own relationship with Him and today you want to receive

the free gift of salvation. I talked about Jesus being

in the garden of Gassemone before he went to the cross,

and he was asking God, Hey, if there's another plan,

can we do something else? But instead he decided to

do what God's will was, and that was to die

on the cross for every single one of our sins

that we've ever committed.

Or ever will commit. And he took it all to

the cross for us.

If today you want to receive the salvation that he offered,

what I want you to do is pray a prayer

with me. I'm going to ask everybody in Transformation Church

Transformation Nation, to pray this prayer together as we pray

as a family. If you're receiving the gift of salvation today,

all you have to do is confess with your mouth

and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord,

and that he is your Lord.

Now, so pray this prayer.

Repeat after me, say, Dear God, I admit I've made mistakes.

I admit I need a savior.

I asked you to change my heart, change my motives.

I believe you lived, and you died and you rose

again just for me. Please change me, renew me, transform me.

I receive the free gift of salvation.

In the name of Jesus. We pray. Amen, Amen, Amen.

If today you received that free gift of salvation, what

we're gonna ask you to do.

Is just lift your hand in the air.

If you're around somebody that has their hand up, celebrate

with them. We got some folks back there in the back.

If you are receiving that free gift, how do we

celebrate Transformation Church. Somebody receiving the gift of salvation.

It has changed all of our lives.

Listen, we are so grateful that you received that today.

If that is you and you want to get some

more information, you can text saved to eight two eight

two A two and we can give you some more information.

Do not take this journey alone. Transformation Church, we love

you so very much. If at all you need prayer,

we'll have all to workers coming up to the front.

And to the back of the room.

If you need prayer for anything, you can come and

receive prayer.

We love you so much. Go out and live a

transform life.

Thank you for joining us today. If you said that

prayer and accept it Jesus into your heart, it's the

best decision you could ever make.

We want to.

Celebrate with you, and we have some tools to help

you on your journey. Text saved to A two A

two A two and to find out more about TC

text connect to A two A two A two. Be

sure to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends.

Thanks for listening. Now go out and live a transform life.