3000 Days

“Today marks 3000 days since we were separated from Sarah.”

Those are the incomprehensible words of the text my husband sent me this morning. It took my breath away to read it. I don’t track time like that, probably intentionally. I am acutely aware that the separation from our precious daughter has been agonizingly long, but seeing it numerically depicted instantly turned my stomach.

I was having my quiet time when I received his text. A photo from eleven years ago of Jeremiah 15:16 highlighted in my Bible had popped up on my phone earlier in the morning, leading me to revisit Jeremiah. I was reading a Spurgeon commentary on that verse and had just texted a friend the quote below and shared how I long to have the heart of Jeremiah.

“He was eminently the man that had seen affliction, and yet in the midst of a wilderness of woe he discovered fountains of joy. Like that Blessed One, who was “the man of sorrows” and the acquaintance of grief, he sometimes rejoiced in spirit and blessed the name of the Lord. It will be both interesting and profitable to note the root of the joy which grew up in Jeremiah’s heart, like a lone palm tree in the desert. Here was its substance. It was an intense delight to him to have been chosen to the prophetic office; and when the words of God came to him, he fed upon them as dainty food. They were often very bitter in themselves, for they mainly consisted of denunciations, yet being God’s words, such was the prophet’s love to his God, that he ate every syllable, bitter or not.” Charles H. Spurgeon

As the reality of the words of my husband’s text melded with Spurgeon’s beautifully articulated assessment of Jeremiah’s love for God, my heart and mind were flooded with flashes of God’s great faithfulness over the past 3000 days.

Immediately after Sarah’s death, the fleeting delights of temporary worldly joys quickly dried up in the scorching heat of suffering like deceptive streams in the desert. My only solace was found in His Word. I devoured His Word, not for joy but for comfort. He faithfully met me there.

Like Jeremiah, I fed upon the truths of His Word. Shattered and sitting in the ashes of what once was, many of those truths were suddenly bitter to taste. God’s sovereignty, which had always been a sweet comfort before, was made difficult to swallow as I wrestled to accept His choice to spare every other person in the crash except Sarah. Truth after truth from His Word tested and tried me as I wrestled with each to eat “every syllable, bitter or not.”

Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the LORD tested him. Psalm 105:19 NASB95

3000 days in the wilderness of woe have proven that He alone, by His Spirit and through His Word, is able to revive and nourish us in our suffering. His Word powerfully and faithfully comforts, confronts, encourages, convicts, sustains, refines, strengthens, and equips us to persevere and stand steadfast, even as our hearts and flesh continue to tremble from sorrow.

This is my comfort in my affliction, That Your word has revived me. Psalm 119:49-50 NASB95

He has set before us a Fountain of Life where streams of living water burst continually forth, even in the wilderness of woe. If you are journeying behind us on a path of suffering, I am praying for you now that you will muster the strength to abandon every deceptive stream to reach out to Him who stands not far off from you. He is there longing and ready to forever refresh you with His life-giving water (Acts 17:27).

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” … but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:10, 14 NASB95

I do not claim to have Jeremiah’s heart, but my heart is fixed on the same God, and He has been equally faithful to me. 3000 days ago, and many days that followed, I desperately devoured His Word in search of His Comfort. He graciously granted it again and again, and continues to today, 3000 days later.

But to my surprise and deep delight, through graciously granting His comfort, God also gives us His joy. He has lavishly granted us His deep and abiding joy through the certainty of His glorious Hope set before us, our Hope in Jesus Christ—Hope of eternal life with Him and Sarah. 3000 days later, I am rejoicing afresh over this precious and priceless Hope that continually wells within us and overflows with “joy inexpressible and full of glory.”

Come, Lord Jesus.

so that the proof of your faith, [being] more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. 1 Peter 1:7-8 NASB95

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. FOR YET IN A VERY LITTLE WHILE, HE WHO IS COMING WILL COME, AND WILL NOT DELAY. BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH; AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Hebrews 10:36-39 NASB95

Artwork by Sarah Harmening