Tag: healing
God’s Comfort in the Midst of Pain and Loss
Anne Wilson talks about God’s how Christian music helps
Anne Wilson, a contemporary Christian music artist, understands firsthand the power of music in times of grief and loss. In an interview with Family Life Radio, she shared her personal story of finding comfort in a song by Mercy Me after her brother’s tragic death in 2017.
Two or three days after his car accident, as Anne and her family were on the way to look at the truck and see the damage, they stopped to get a drink at fast food restaurant. It was then she says, they turned on Christian radio for the first time since he had passed away. Anne said, “We heard a song. It was by Mercy Me. We had never heard it before, and that was our family’s moment of ‘WOW!’”
The perfect song at the right time became the moment in which Anne and her family let go of their anger and frustration. “We decided to just fully commit ourselves to the Lord and the plans He had with this loss,” Anne explained. “Christian radio has such a big impact on people. There’s going to be these moments where people are going to hear a song. It hits them and speaks to them at the perfect moment.”
Music has the ability to touch our souls and speak to us in ways that words alone cannot.
As a Christ follower, your faith journey can be filled with moments of joy and pain. Whether you are struggling with doubts, navigating trauma or seeking a deeper connection with God, it is important to remember that you are not alone. By focusing on music and an intentional pursuit of God, you can find comfort, healing and renewed faith in even the most difficult of circumstances.
Through music, we can offer our praise and worship to God and find comfort and peace in His presence, especially in those times when we feel disconnected from God or are struggling with faith and trauma. In those particular moments, Anne suggests the intentional pursuit of God as a way to find our way back to Him. In the interview, she shared, “You have to also intentionally spend time with him … And if I’m feeling disconnected or I’m struggling through faith or whatever it is, I’m like, Lord, would you help my heart to understand more? Would you help me to understand what it is that I’m walking through? And then I always find out, by the end of the time with Him, my heart has been softened by Him, and I’m back in connection with Him.”
James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (ESV). Through prayer, meditation and reading the Bible, we can intentionally seek God’s presence and guidance in our lives. In Psalm 63:1-8, David writes, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water … My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night” (ESV).
God is always present and willing to meet you where you are, even in moments of doubt or frustration. Anne reminds us “it’s not about a proper prayer or coming to Him in a certain way at a certain time. It’s a conversation just like you would with any other person. It’s having a conversation with God.”
God desires a personal relationship with you, one that is built on honesty, vulnerability and genuine conversation. In Psalm 34:18, the psalmist writes, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (ESV). God meets you in your brokenness and offers you comfort and healing.
Jesus invites you to come to Him with your burdens, saying, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (ESV).
Your pursuit of God and intentional relationship with Him could be a source of inspiration and comfort for others who may be struggling. When you feel overwhelmed, you can turn to God and find rest in His loving arms.
Want more? Check out our on demand resources
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Jordan St. Cyr’s Spark Before the Fire
How God gave him the song he and his family would need
When Jordan St. Cyr, Christian singer, songwriter and storyteller, wrote “Fires” about Nathan, a dad who was about to lose his house – until a group of Christian songwriters took the need to social media and fundraised to pay his mortgage off, he had no idea that he and his wife would desperately need the very words he penned.
You’ve walked me through fires
Pulled me from flames
If You’re in this with me
I won’t be afraid
“God gives us the testimony of others to strengthen us to walk through our testimony,” Jordan said, referring to the health struggles he and his family encountered after his youngest daughter was born with a rare vascular disorder called Sturge-Weber syndrome that began causing her to have severe seizures as a toddler.
“A lot of ambulance rides, a lot of emergency room visits,” Jordan recounts. “She’s at high risk of stroke. She takes three or four meds, and we’ve [had to] learn a new normal.”
Jordan says he’s like any other parent in this situation. He has those weak-kneed, weepy-eyed, shaken faith moments where he asked why this had to happen to them? Here he is, a worship leader-turned-Christian artist, proclaiming God’s Good News and mercy to millions of people, only to find himself wrestling behind the scenes with questions to which he has no answer.
It would be easy to abandon your faith when thrown into a crisis of this nature. If ever a furnace was prepared to melt away your conviction, this would be it. Yet, Jordan finds –
He is being refined as opposed to incinerated.
“[My] understanding of what a blessing is and where it comes from … it’s just blown me away,” Jordan says. “How can something that I used to think was broken draw me so close to the heart of God?”
And those words that Jordan thought he wrote for someone in an entirely different situation turned out to be the very words he and his family would need as they navigated the unknown with this fragile, little girl. Even as the flames lapped at them, God showed up.
“I still believe that God desires healing for this little girl. But what he’s doing through her already? We’re good with that. We wouldn’t change a thing. It’s a hard road, but it’s the better road.”
Want more? Check out our on demand resources
Go!When Your Father Fails
Bart Millard of Mercy Me joined Peter and Shannyn to celebrate the release of the movie version of I Can Only Imagine! (coming to theaters across Family Life Nation March 16th)
In this conversation Bart shares a bit about how being willing to “get real with his painful upbringing” was a key to his healing and to his alcoholic and abusive father coming to know Jesus.