Be Strengthened in the Lord

The book of Ephesians is a letter written by Paul to believers in Ephesus as a way to fortify their faith. Ephesus was a wealthy port city, probably the largest city in the world at the time (located in modern day Turkey). It was a big, bustling city as it were, and home to many different religions and cultural influences that would have been commonplace to the people living there, such as the temple to the Greek goddess Artemis (one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World).

Paul knew how hard it was to live in a place that wasn’t devoted to or honoring of God. Throughout Ephesians, Paul uses so much physical language to describe spiritual things (see Ephesians 2:21, 4:15-16, and 5:8), yet toward the end of his letter he speaks of the armor of God. The armor of God is given because the true battle of believers in Ephesus was not against other people, but against spiritual forces and the evil one. Paul exhorted them to STAND FIRM and to equip themselves with the full spiritual armor God provides.

Just like the people in Ephesus, there is an ongoing battle all around us. The evil one would love nothing more than to use the death of our babies as a way to draw us away from the Father. On our own we are not strong enough to resist, but in Christ we have all we need; for He alone is our strength.

God is the supplier of our strength, and we are called to depend on Him rather than ourselves or any other power. God’s strength is the foundation for the armor we’re clothed in as believers. God is generous to us with His strength, and it is ours for the taking.

The prophet Isaiah tells us, “The Lord GOD comes with strength” (Isaiah 40:10). That’s the deal.

“The LORD is the strength of his people” says the psalmist, “he is a stronghold of salvation for his anointed” (Psalm 28:8). How differently we might live if we remembered—hour by hour—that God is our stronghold, holding fast to us.

“The God of Israel gives power and strength to his people,” says Psalm 68:35. Here, we see God’s role as giver and ours as the receiver.

All of life is this give-ness. This divine generosity from our Father who wants to strengthen His people (His daughters) for kingdom work. Yet, after the loss of our babies it’s easy to feel soul weary. We can feel abandoned and like we are being asked to carry these burdens alone, and fight alone, and muster strength from nowhere every single morning. We can wonder where God is. It can lead us to distrust.

But let me remind you: divine strength usually isn’t showy. It’s the way Christ sits with us in our sorrow as the closest friend that helps us to believe another day. It’s the way we wake up again and keep going even when we don’t want to. It’s facing a mountain of a task, like packing up a nursery or drying up a bosom of milk and being sustained even when we don’t realize it’s happening. It’s going through the motions, remembering to shower, eating for nourishment despite the lack of appetite, and coming to God in prayer when we’re at the end of ourselves. We couldn’t do any of these things without the Lord’s strength.

May we long for Psalm 28:7 to be our constant prayer and state of being: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him.” We will grow weary in grief, but let’s choose to stand firm, to keep seeking God in the midst of our tremendous heartbreak, and to remember that we already bear His strength.

Jennie is the Executive Director for Hope Mommies. She and her husband Brian live in Washington State and have four children together— Trenton (15), Paige who has been in Heaven with Jesus since 2010, Mason (10), and Cora who is (4). If you were to knock on her front door today, you’d find her in something comfortable drinking a hot cup of tea, while trying to figure out how to balance all the things that make up a life. She enjoys spending time in God’s word, fresh flowers, board games with her kids, cooking, and evening walks in her neighborhood. She adores being a new creation in Christ and prays she reflects Him well on this earth.

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