October | 2013 | Letters Out of Africa

This is a letter I wanted to share from Betty, a good friend of mine who I met many years ago on a Walk to Emmaus. In it she describes what she went through after suddenly losing her son, Chris, while he was yet only in high school. She would admit that it’s been a long journey of grief, but what she has learned in the process is well worth reading and taking to heart.

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Personal Inventory

I was in a group at one time called Adult Children of Alcoholics. Since my father was an alcoholic, I obviously fit right in with the issues and the dysfunctions of people growing up in an alcoholic environment. I find I still use the tools I learned in that group to reflect and analyze my thoughts. You see, those thoughts typically affect behavior in some way either consciously or sub-consciously. One of those tools is taking a Personal Inventory. The Personal Inventory is just as it sounds, a personal cleaning of house to put it in simple terms. An inventory of our lives as we see them. That is, the individual relationships we have with our parents, our children, friends, co-workers, our job, our spouse, our Pastor, our church, our sibling(s) and, most importantly, God.

But, I get ahead of myself. The Personal Inventory is the 4th step of 12 in the process of cleaning house. The actual beginning of the 12 steps is to “Admit we are powerless and our life has become unmanageable.” The next step is we “Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity” and for me, this power is God. Step three is to “Make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understand Him.” Then comes the point of this article, step four, “To make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” So, what does this mean? I can only tell you of my experiences with the process.

As I stated earlier, step 4 is a cleaning house of past or present obstacles that prevent me from moving forward in my life. My format for completing step 4 includes 1) Area (or relationship), 2) Description, 3) Resentments 4) Fears, 5) Appreciations and 6) Regrets. In my step 4 relationship with God, I had many struggles after my son’s death trying to understand His purpose. So, the searching and fearless moral inventory began. Searching means a thorough cleaning of behavior you would really prefer not to dig out again or feelings you might not want to admit. I didn’t want to admit the depth of my anger with God. I felt as though He had completely abandoned me. What terrible thing had I done in my life that could possibly deserve this unbearable pain? Why did He take my son and leave this immeasurable void in my soul? Those were just some of the questions I had for God. Of course I had many fears that related to my anger with God. How could I possibly be angry with God? Isn’t that just against all religious teachings? Isn’t that just the absolute worst thing I could do?

Then, I got to the Appreciation part and I realized the incredible depth of God’s love for me. Oh what love! Oh, don’t get me wrong, this didn’t happen overnight. In the first personal inventory I did, the appreciation was there but was much more surface level. It was only after about 3 to 5 years of doing an annual personal inventory that God so deeply touched my heart with His love that I understood. The Regrets portion of my God inventory are usually many. The blessing is always forgiveness. That’s God’s love.

My point of all this is that if we always look in the past, focus on a negative relationship or a negative experience, we simply miss what God has in store for us today. We miss all of God’s blessings today if we are consistently looking at what has been. In fact, we just might miss God’s calling of what He really wants us to do to glorify Him. That doesn’t mean we get rid of the memories, it simply means we get rid of the garbage that prevents us from moving forward. For instance, if I always focus on the death of my son I diminish his short life. I diminish the wonderful young man he was and all the people that were affected just by knowing him. When we constantly look back at all the negative experiences in our life we fail to see God’s grace and we diminish the life of Christ and the love He came to bring. Get rid of the garbage and there’s more room for God.

By the way, I’ll never forget my son. I know he’s in heaven with his Savior. He was a beautiful young man with a heart of gold. I know I will see him again and, after this many years, I can see how God has worked in many of the lives that were touched by Chris and his death, including mine. That’s a blessing from God!

Maybe it’s because I got rid of some of my garbage.

Chris Canter

06/28/70

02/06/86

Love,

Betty

I think prayer is one of the most misunderstood of all spiritual practices. I once was asked many years ago by a child how to pray to God. She wondered if she had to pray in a certain way for God to hear her. I told her then and I believe it now that there is no required way to speak to God. He just wants to hear from us.

Yes, I know Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer after the disciples asked Him how they should pray. But I believe this was meant only to be a guide for us. Instead it has been over evaluated to give a formula of what parts should be included in a prayer. This just confuses us and simply makes prayer too difficult.

Essentially, prayer was meant to be a conversation with God. It was never intended to be complicated. The apostle Paul recommended to pray without ceasing. This is talking to God throughout our day as if we were conversing with a friend. It can simply be a heartfelt “thank you” or a plea of “help me know what to do, Lord.” Sometimes our situation needs a longer conversation or when in desperation, it happens on our knees. Whatever the circumstance, God just wants to hear from us. He desires a relationship with us and without conversation this would be impossible.

It never ceases to amaze me the results of our prayers. During lunch club this summer at my church, we have seen these prayers “on the fly” result in amazing things. When the electricity went out on the first day of the lunch program, a prayer went up and plans went into gear to bring a grill to the church to cook hot dogs but there weren’t enough in the freezer for the number of kids expected. Someone happened to drop in later that morning to see if we could use the hot dogs, hamburgers and potato salad that were extra from their graduation party the day before. Problem solved! Another time there weren’t enough cookies to serve and a prayer was sent heavenward. In no time someone walked in with 16 dozen cookies. She said she felt a nudge from God that she needed to bake cookies for us. She had never baked so many cookies at one time ever before. God had set into play the answer to this prayer before the need was even recognized.

I’ve personally experienced this phenomenon of having a prayer answered before I’ve even prayed on many occasions. When my son and I were in Haiti in 2011, I asked one of the surgeons who is a devote Christian man, to speak to Garrett about his faith. I prayed that my son would be given encouragement to pursue his own faith by the example of this wonderful man. That same evening before the surgeon had a chance to speak to my son, Garrett shared with our group how one of the Haitian men at the mission had expressed to him how thankful he was that God had gifted him with the ability to repair machinery. This man was using his gift to glorify God. I was amazed and more than a little tearful, that God had been answering my prayer through this Haitian man before I even asked. I was trying to maneuver an answer myself but God had better plans.

Don’t underestimate the power of prayer. The answers may not always turn out the way we anticipate but sometimes they turn out even better. His answers aren’t always yes. They may be no or not now. Sometimes the answer is “I will be with you through this.” God knows what we need even before we know it ourselves. He wants to have an intimate relationship with us and give us what is best for us always. Remember, we don’t see the whole picture, but He does. Trust and keep praying.