Abiding

Looking back through my social media memories, I came across a post in the year I lost my husband where I was putting up my Christmas tree early. It was the beginning of November and I needed a little joy. I noticed something hanging off the tree as I was putting it up. Even though I had checked the tree time and time again before putting it away the year before, it seems that I still missed an ornament.

How fitting for that season! While I was putting up a decoration to celebrate the birth of the Savior, the one whom my husband had gone home to meet just over 6 months previous, I found an ornament reminding me to Abide in Him. Oh, how relevant that was!

Abide has many definitions. To accept or act in accordance with; to be able to tolerate; to continue without fading or being lost; to live or dwell. All of these apply.

When you are fresh in grieving, everything is a blur and a whirlwind. You have so many emotions, yet none at all. Some days you don’t even know which foot to put forward first. How do you act? What do you do?

This simple reminder came to me at a time when I needed it the most. A gentle reminder to live with God in the moment. To not only tolerate, but act in accordance with His word. To continue in Him, or risk being lost.

I know I’ve said time and time again in conversations that I wouldn’t be where I am, or who I am, 3 years after his passing, without my Faith. But it really is true. I never stopped dwelling with God. Some days it looked different, but it was always there. How important that has been.

I have seen others go through the same thing I have, with losing a husband. They did not know or follow God. I have watched them subtly destroy their lives. They turned to things that, even though it made them feel good in the moment and gave them a false sense of control, it actually made them bitter, cynical, hard hearted, and/or a drunk. It’s like a dark cloud still follows them around, and joy is hard to find.

So what does it mean to Abide?

The Bible tells us “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ” in John 15. It then continues with “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.“

So what is this fruit it talks about? It’s the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Are we showing love to others? Finding Joy in the moment? Being Patient? Kind? Showing self-control? All of these are hard to do when you are grieving, because you are just trying to get through each day, but are necessary. Without them, our hearts aren’t in a good place, and we become the things I listed above.

“The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.“ 1 John 3:24

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:7

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19

Abide in Him. Such a simple phrase, hardest to do during the most trying times. There is no secret formula, no quick fix. All I can tell you is that if you keep your focus on Jesus, and abide, then things will be okay.