Daring to Hope When Your Heart Is Shattered: Trusting God Through Pain and Loss – Episode 385

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Dr. Michelle Bengtson and Linda Dillow share about daring to hope when your heart is shattered.

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Episode Summary:

When you are crushed and broken hearted, where do you go to find hope? Jesus said that in this life we will have pain, heartbreak, and trials. So how do we deal with our pain? What does it look like to walk with God in our grief.

Our guest today has experienced her share of pain including a traumatic brain injury as well as cancer diagnoses for two of her daughters. In her suffering, Linda Dillow boldly asked God tough questions like How do I keep going? God, where are you? And How do I keep trusting.

In honor of Grief Awareness Day, today we’re going to be talking about Daring to Hope When Your Heart Is Shattered: Trusting God Through Pain and Loss.

Quotables from the episode:

  • The “hope slide”: Doubt=Why would God let this happen? Discouragement=How long will this pain go on? Despair=I feel like giving up, Depression=Maybe I will give up.
  • As things got worse and worse with my daughters, it seemed that I was slipping down into depression, and I grabbed my Bible and I said, “All right, Lord, I have gone to you before when things were bad and I turned, I turned to lamentations and read what you read when you started this.” And he said, “After he grumbled, after he grumbled a lot, but he said, “I’m going to dare to hope anyway. I am going to dare to hope,” and then really some of the most beautiful things that we read in the scriptures are there in Lamentations 3. I bathed myself in Lamentations 3, and I went to a passage that I love.
  • The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 4, was discouraged and he had been through so many trials and yet he said, “I will not give up. I will not give up. I will not give up.” And I said, “God, I can’t give up. I have to keep trusting you.” And at the end of 2 Corinthians 4 he said, “We can’t give up because we live not by seeing. We live by believing because our eyes are on our great God.” I grabbed my Bible and I got on my knees and I said, “Holy Spirit, I’m going to be here before my Abba Father and Jesus my Savior and you blessed spirit and I’m going to listen and I’m going to wait.”
  • What God had me do when I was sliding down that hope slide into depression, he said, “Okay, Linda, you need to have a declaration of hope.” I said, “There were three things. 1) God used my pain that you would be glorified. And I had scripture with that. 2) And God, would you comfort other people? Would you comfort me? And would you use me to comfort other people? From 1 Corinthians 1. 3) And God, I just trust you that you’re going to use this in some way. God, would you glorified.”
  • Hope does not come from a change in your circumstances, but from a change in your thinking.
  • Instead of concentrating on what was going on around me and the things going on around me, every day there was something negative. It had to be that I was not going to give up, that I was going to keep my eyes on God. That’s what Paul said. I had to look up, I had to look at him, and I had to say “I won’t give up.” I have a sign that says I will always have hope from Psalm 71 and 14. “You are my hope, God, and my hope will be in you.” It can’t be in my circumstances. And so that was what I pledged to him every morning on my knees. If I was standing up, there wasn’t any hope. But if I got on my knees and opened my hands and surrendered to him, I got my perspective right because my eyes were lifted up to him.
  • The greatest way to pour hope into your hurting heart is to sink deep into the love of God. But you also say that God doesn’t want us to start with doing but by receiving His love.
  • We live in a very pragmatic society, and we feel like we’ve had a good day if we can check things off our list. If I go off for two days to be alone with the Lord, what am I going to check off my list? What am I going to check off? I think God is very pleased. Jesus is pleased. The Spirit of God is pleased. I really think we’ve got it backwards because being on our knees and being still before God and being and developing an awareness of His presence and knowing his voice and knowing the peace of God that passes all understanding.
  • I kept saying, “God, thank you that I know your word, thank you that I know your presence. Thank you that I know your voice. And thank you that your presence wraps around me like a warm blanket. And that when I fall to my knees, I know I’m enveloped in you. And that you’ve taught me how to nestle down into your presence. Because being with you, my beloved, is the most important thing in my life. And if I didn’t have you right now, I would fall apart. And because you hold me, and I have your peace, because Jesus, you said, I am your peace. And I have to know that right now.” And peace can’t be in our circumstances. It has to be in him.
  • Steps for dealing with any loss: Grieve the loss, Accept the scope of the loss, Redefine yourself in light of your loss.
  • Habakkuk teaches us how to trust God: Retreat, Remember, Recommit
  • We push feelings down and we don’t allow God to come into our hearts and our souls and our feelings and heal us from the inside out. We’re often very ready for a quick fix. We don’t want to feel the pain, we want to move beyond it quickly, but it’s hard work to let God come in and heal what hurts us. It’s much easier just to say I’m fine, but then five years later you’re not fine and you’re on anxiety medicine and you’re on sleep medicine and it affects you physically, emotionally, and spiritually and it’s hard to get over grief and pain.

 

Scripture References:

  • Lamentations 3:21-24 “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance;’ therefore, I will hope in him!”
  • Habakkuk 2:4 “The just shall live by faith.”
  • Romans 15:13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

 

Recommended Resources: (If there are affiliate links in this post, meaning, if you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no extra cost to you)).

 

Grief can’t always be hurried. Healing often requires us to acknowledge the pain instead of pushing it down. God wants to meet us in what hurts and bring healing from the inside out. Share on X When circumstances give you little reason for hope, look up. Get on your knees. Open your hands. Surrender what you cannot control. Your circumstances may not change, but your perspective can. Share on X

 

Social Media Links for Host:

For more hope, stay connected with Dr. Bengtson at:

Order Book Sacred Scars / Order book The Hem of His Garment / Order book Today is Going to be a Good Day / Order Book Breaking Anxiety’s Grip / Order Book Hope Prevails  / Order Book Hope Prevails Bible Study /  Website  /  Blog  /  Facebook / Twitter (@DrMBengtson)  /  LinkedIn  /  Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube / Podcast on Apple

 

About Linda Dillow:

Linda Dillow, authorLinda Dillow is a bestselling author and a respected Bible teacher and conference speaker. She is the author of Calm My Anxious Heart and her new book Hope for My Hurting Heart. Linda is the mother of four children including one who is now with Jesus, and the grandmother of ten. She and her husband Jody make their home in Monument, Colorado.

 

 

 

 

 

Hosted By: Dr. Michelle Bengtson
Audio Technical Support: Ashton Bengtson

 

 

When grief changes your life, trusting God can be hard, especially when your circumstances don’t improve. Learn how to grieve your loss honestly, surrender what you cannot control, and keep your eyes on God as you seek hope and peace in His presence. Listen to find biblical encouragement for trusting God through pain and loss. SAVE this post so you can return to it when your heart needs hope.

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