trust Archives - Kristina Lunde

July 18, 2023 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Job’s Wife on Grief and Bitterness

Dear Modern Mama,

No, you probably don’t know much about me. I’m not a Bible superstar or good example of faith. In fact, the infamous line I am known for is, “Curse God and die!” (Thankfully, my words are only recorded in one Bible verse, Job 2:9.) Despite that, I hope to encourage you to seek God during the grief and suffering that life inevitably brings.

As my husband Job lay in ashes scraping his painful wounds, I questioned how he could maintain his faith. That’s when I urged him to give up on God and give in to death. I did not mean for Job to take his own life. Instead, I meant that he should blame God and let death take him, since he was half-dead already. Yes, I wrongly said evil things as I wallowed in my grief and bitterness. At the time, I didn’t know what else to do but blame God. Enemy raids, sword attacks, deadly fires, and fierce winds killed animals and people, including our ten children. My precious children! Taken from us in multiple sudden catastrophes. My entire life as a mother wiped out. Farmworkers, shepherds, nannies: all employees gone in an instant. Our livelihood ruined. I felt crushed and overwhelmed by grief and sorrow.

I got angry at God and succumbed to bitterness. Job’s friends sat with him for one week in empathy and mourning. I couldn’t stand being near Job because of his stinky breath and those putrid boils. Now, I am ashamed of my actions and of how I blamed God. I write to you in hopes that you will follow my husband Job’s example instead of mine. Don’t be like me and let grief and bitterness take over your heart until you shut out God. Notice that I am never named, and never again quoted, in the Bible.

Job maintained his close relationship with God. Despite being confronted and accused by his friends, Job kept his faith and integrity throughout his trials. He rebuked me for my comments, but he did not sin. How could he keep trusting in God after all that we had experienced?! Job questioned, but respected God. He challenged God, yet submitted to Him. Job wailed in pain, but trusted God for help. I did none of that. How I wish I had turned to God with my grief and anger like my husband did. Check out my husband’s book of Job to read the laments of his heart as he expressed them to God. Yes, Job maintained his integrity. Regretfully, I did not.

Dear friend, please trust God no matter what you are going through. Know that our God is big enough to handle any anger and emotions you feel. God can help you deal with the trials of your life. When life hurts and death seems like a better option, God can teach you to trust and submit to Him. Our God may not answer with specific reasons why, but He will guide and sustain you through everything you experience. Although I learned these lessons late, I share my story—and what I learned from my husband—with you.

By watching my husband Job deal with his suffering, I learned so much about God. Yes, my man of God stayed married to me, and later we had ten more children. I did not deserve God’s favor. Like He did for Job’s friends, God blessed me because of my husband’s faithfulness to God. How I wish I had trusted God, like my husband Job did, to help me through grief and suffering! My bitterness and resentment against God consumed me. I pray that you would avoid my sinful path and instead turn toward God during sorrow and trials.

Praying for our dear Lord to teach you through my mistakes.
Job’s wife

June 26, 2023 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Jochebed: Obedience over Fear

Dear Modern Mama,
Obeying God challenged me to face my fears about raising kids in our situation. Both Levites, my husband Amram and I (Jochebed) lived in Egypt with all the other Israelites. The Egyptians had long forgotten God’s miraculous famine relief administered through our forefather Joseph. A new pharaoh, the reigning Egyptian king, felt threatened by our numbers and forced us into slave labor. I worked the fields with the women, and my dear Amram laid bricks with the men. Hebrew children had to fend for themselves as their parents worked for the Egyptian slavemasters. Amram and I feared bringing children into this world; our people had been slaves for generations. God’s covenant promises of a nation and land of our own seemed impossible. Sometimes I found it difficult to obey God and trust His care for our family.

Into that life of slave labor, I again became pregnant. My two other children, Aaron and Miriam, would soon be old enough to start in the fields. The pharaoh begrudged our people’s strength and population growth. He ordered the midwives to kill the Hebrew boys they delivered, but, thankfully, they refused. Into this scary world, my baby boy was born. My beautiful boy, born healthy and whole! But then the pharaoh ordered the Egyptians to kill newborn Hebrew boys by throwing them into the Nile River. They drowned innocent baby boys! So much sorrow and wailing!

As parents, we all think our children are the best and most special. Of course we do! We have the closest perspective of our kids and see them through the lens of our love and support. We are grateful for these precious gifts from God. I felt the same way about all my children, including my newest baby. God gave Amram and me a plan to save our baby boy. Since the Hebrew women avoided the Nile, we thought the Egyptians would never look there for Hebrew boys. I wove a basket to float my baby on the water, hiding him in the bulrushes along the Nile. While Amram and I worked during the day, Miriam watched her baby brother. I feared seeing them both drowned in the Nile! All I could do was trust God and obey what He had asked us to do.

I remember the day Miriam ran to the field, screaming for me to come to the river. I feared that my baby was dead, but as we ran, Miriam told me that pharaoh’s daughter had discovered our baby and had compassion. Miriam told me that the woman wanted to save him, but I feared that this was a plot to kill all of us. When we got to the river, Miriam’s words proved true. The pharaoh’s daughter wanted to save my Hebrew son! Would you believe she paid me to nurse my own baby?!

After purposefully floating my baby boy on the river of death, that became the site of God’s miracle of redemption when pharaoh’s daughter pulled my son out of the water. Actually, that’s what she named my boy—Moses—which means “drawn out of the water.” (Read about it in Exodus 1 and 2.) After I weaned Moses, I brought him back to the royal household to be raised as pharaoh’s daughter’s own son. Sometimes I feared, questioned, and ached in sorrow over not raising my boy.

Thankfully, God helped me push past my fear to obey Him and to trust that He would take care of Moses. I learned that obeying God is worthwhile, even at the risk of my life and my children’s lives. Not until after my death did I find out what God did through Moses—and all of my children, as recorded in the rest of the Torah. God even called my kids leaders (Micah 6:4)!

To our people in Egypt, it seemed like God had forgotten us in our slavery and sorrow. I focused on saving my baby from drowning, but God had a bigger plan. My Lord God rescued Moses from death and into God’s plan to bring life, redemption, and freedom to all of His people.

May God help you with the incredible children He has entrusted to you. May He teach you to obey Him even when you fear for your family, when you do not understand God’s plan, and when you do not know the outcome.

Sending you encouragement from the river of life,
Jochebed

May 27, 2023 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Sarah: Trusting God through Travels and Trials

Dear Modern Mama,

Abram and I began our lives together in Ur of the Chaldeans (on your map, southern Iraq). I had no idea what adventures, travels, and trials awaited us in our marriage! From Ur, we traveled to Haran (i.e. southeastern Turkey), where God spoke to my husband. That is where our journey of trusting God began.

Abram changed after God spoke those prophetic words. God promised to make my husband into a great nation, bless him, and make him a blessing to others. God prophesied that Abram’s name would be great, and all peoples on earth would be blessed through him. All that for my husband, the nomad! I dreaded moving again, but I agreed with Abraham’s commitment to follow God’s directions. This time, we traveled to Canaan (i.e. Israel and Jordan). All that travel left us exhausted: no roads, no vehicles, and, imagine this, no air conditioning!

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Our arrival in Canaan came during the big famine, so Abram decided to take us to Egypt. His big scheme in Egypt made me uncomfortable from the beginning. Abram feared that because of my beauty, he risked being killed. He chose to lie to everyone, telling them that I was his sister, not his wife. That did not help me because, separated from my dear husband, I ended up in a harem not knowing if Abram stayed safe. That scared me! Suddenly plagues affected Pharaoh and his household. (Note: the Exodus plagues happened hundreds of years later when our descendants were Egyptian slaves.) When Pharaoh confronted Abram about the awful plagues, Abram told the truth about me. I thought Abram and I would both be killed, but thankfully, we got sent away and we returned to Canaan.

Children are everything in my culture: joy, purpose, household help, work force, retirement plan, status symbol, and more. Infertility bothered me so much in those first decades, even though traveling seemed easier without the challenges of parenting. God’s covenant with Abram promised as many descendants as the stars in the sky. I ached to bear children those first decades of waiting, but I aged-out of having a family. I assumed that Abram’s nation would not happen through me, because I never got pregnant. In Genesis 16-18, you will read how trusting God was hard for me: I doubted God’s plan and made sinful choices, trying to find a way to bring children into our family. After I realized my sin, I doubted that God loved me enough to give me the privilege of bearing and raising children.

Please read my story for yourself and learn the lessons that took me almost a century to understand: God is faithful and He always fulfills His plans. Expect challenges along the way as God builds your faith and teaches you to trust Him. For me, trusting God involved travels along dusty roads, multiple international moves, and almost three-quarters of a century of infertility. Abram and I experienced tent living, an Egyptian king’s hospitality, and then expulsion from Egypt. I often felt both frustration while submitting to my husband and resentment at my infertility.

One important truth that I learned: God’s perspective is very different—much bigger and grander—than my personal viewpoint. Please learn this from my experience: do not doubt or underestimate God’s plans. I admit that my response to God’s plan included disobedience, disbelief, and laughter. God called my husband into a covenant for all generations and times. God also changed our names to Abraham and Sarah, which confirmed the prophecy that we would be the father and mother of nations. When the angels visited, my own ears heard the prophecy that Abraham and I would become parents. I laughed and doubted, but it happened within a year, just as God promised.

The miracle of Isaac’s birth meant that I had a part in the covenant. These events filled my heart more than I could have hoped or imagined. Following God is not boring or fruitless, but neither is it easy or predictable. God’s plan made my suffering worthwhile. Keep trusting God through whatever travels and trials happen in your life. Don’t be like me and spend decades disbelieving God’s plan! Obeying God is the best and most fulfilling adventure you can pursue.

Love to you from this ancient mama,
Sarah

August 22, 2022 by Kristina Lunde Leave a Comment

Hagar’s Assurance: God Sees and Hears You

Dear Modern Mama,

God sees and hears you in your parenting struggles. That assurance comes from this Bible mama, but I write to you from my painful experiences of abuse, betrayal, and single-parenting.

I worked as a servant girl for Abram and Sarai long before God changed their names. An old couple without children, they treated the members of their household work force as family. I loved working for them—until they abused me. I couldn’t believe that boss-lady Sarai sent me in to be raped by her husband. After all my loyalty and hard work, they betrayed and abused me. When they found out I was pregnant, Sarai blamed everything on her husband, but she was the one who started this mess!

Sarai treated me so cruelly that I ran away into the desert, where the angel of the Lord found me by a spring. When He spoke to me by name and mentioned my mistress Sarai, I admitted that I ran away from her. The angel of the Lord then told me to go back and submit to her. He prophesied that my future generations would be too many to count.

Then He told me that I would have a son and should name him Ishmael. After reassuring me that the Lord had heard of my misery, He added some scary details. My son would be a wild man, living in hostility against everyone and everyone would be against him. Those words described how I felt: hostile and that everyone had turned against me.

No human being would know all of that and speak personally to my concerns. In response, I blurted out my thoughts. “You are the God who sees me!” “I have now seen the One who sees me” (Genesis 16:13). So I named that well Beer Lahai Roi, which means well of the living One that sees me in Hebrew (Genesis 16:14).

Although I returned hopeful, jealousy filled the household fourteen years later when Abraham and Sarah had their son Isaac. When they banished Ishmael and me, we wandered into the desert together. Hungry, exhausted, and sure that we were going to die in that barren wasteland, we sat in separate places to cry.

Would you believe that God heard Ishmael crying?! This time, the voice came from heaven and instructed me to lift Ishmael off the ground and hold him by the hand. Then God promised to make Ishmael into a great nation. I did what God asked, and suddenly I saw a well. That proved to me that God not only saw us, but He heard us.

Do you know that mine is the first account of the angel of the Lord in the Bible?! A destitute rape victim banished to raise a wild child in the desert—but God never abandoned me. Instead, He blessed me with His appearance, prophecies, and provision. (Check out my story for yourself in chapters 16 and 21 of Genesis.)

From my personal experience with God, I learned this truth that I share with you: God sees you, hears you, and knows your situation. Although I struggled to raise Ishmael, I always knew that God saw, heard, and understood me. I knew that I could trust God no matter what happened. Please recognize that you, too, are seen, heard, and known by God. He might not appear to you in-person, but you have the truth of Jesus Christ in His Word. Trust Him even in the toughest parenting situations.

Love to you from Hagar
P.S. Did I tell you about my twelve grandsons?! (Genesis 25:12-18)

May 25, 2022 by Kristina Lunde 3 Comments

The Sadiversary: A Grief Milestone

Sadiversary sounds like an anniversary, but instead of a celebratory event, the grieving person commemorates the date their loved one died. Sometimes that date may loom large and foreboding, as you fear falling apart in a fresh new way. Or, you may have expectations and hopes of closure and peace. As usual in the grieving process, your response will be as unique and individual as your relationship with your loved one. With some planning and preparation, the sadiversary can become a memorable grief milestone. Here are some thoughts to help you recognize the truth of your situation and prepare for the sadiversary in emotional, logistical, and spiritual ways.

Sadiversary Truths

In anticipating the first sadiversary, recognize that you have spent a year acknowledging and dealing with your loved one’s death. This may be yet another grief challenge, but recognize all the sorrow that you have processed and coped with already. The truth is, you already faced many painful days of grief in those early weeks after your loved one died, and you will get through this one, too. Sadly, there is no award—no prize or recognition—for your survival of one year of grief. Most people will not remember that day of death, the day when your loved one’s life ended and your life changed forever.

Please take heart. The sadiversary is a grieving milestone, a marker on your journey through mourning, sorrow, acceptance, and adjustment. Someday it will not hurt like this, as my mother promised me. A widow at age 36, my mother raised three children on her own and knew what I faced. My mother told me of writing a check once, when she suddenly recognized the date as the day of my father’s deadly plane crash years earlier. Instead of a grief ambush, she felt surprised that it was just an average, normal day. Such healing seems impossible when grief is so fresh and painful, but God’s comfort and healing continues, long after that first year.

Emotional: Be Gentle with Yourself

Please be gentle with yourself. Allow yourself time and space to grieve on the sadiversary. Remember and honor your loved one in whatever way is best for you. By now, you will know what that looks like. For example, look through photos, read letters, watch videos, or play music. Be by yourself or find emotional support reminiscing with others who also loved this person. Or plan both solitary and group activities for that day. This might be a sad time, but recognize how far you have come in terms of grieving and living life again.

Logistics: Make a Plan

Make a plan so that the day doesn’t stretch out in dread before you or get filled with so many work projects that you have no time to reflect. Schedule something in honor of your loved one. My six-year-old son decided that our family should go on a bike ride for the first sadiversary, because Daddy liked to bike. My kids chose the route, biking back and forth to the house of family friends. As my little guy rode his “big-boy bike,” from which Daddy had recently removed the training wheels, I fought back tears. I recognized my son’s determination to honor Daddy as those little legs churned round and round at the pedals, a total of over nine miles that day.

Schedule something you enjoy, like an outdoor activity, a restaurant outing, or a concert—whatever makes you smile. My in-laws spent sadiversaries eating out at a Mexican restaurant, my husband’s favorite cuisine. The people you choose to spend time with do not need to know about the occasion. After I moved and my husband had been gone for years, I often scheduled sadiversary events with girlfriends. They had no idea about the significance of the date and had never met my husband, but I enjoyed having a planned activity.

Spiritual: Trust God

Recognize and remember what God has done for you in this past year of mourning and sorrow. Reflecting on your early grief may elicit pain again, but you can truly appreciate how God has comforted you. How did God encourage you? Provide for you? Remind you of His love? Help you grow in your faith? Speak to you through His word? Pray and thank God for His comfort. Read God’s Word and ask Him to guide you into the next phase of your life. Spend time writing your reflections down. You may identify progress that you did not recognize before. Trust God for His healing.

As you acknowledge this loss and honor the deceased, this sadiversary may be a grief milestone that propels you forward. May God use this day to remind you of His love for you.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NIV