Pastor Andre Mitchell
(This blog was written for a publication produced by Evangelist Rena Wagner. She is a great woman of God. You can connect with her awesome ministry through Facebook)
It was the fall of 2008. I was in the midst of the worse year of my young life. The year started off great with the arrival of my first child. Yet as time went on the year became filled with challenge after challenge and trying time after trying time. By the time I reached November I was asking myself and God, “How much more can one man take”?
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was resting before I had to travel 68 miles one way to a job that I did not like. I was laying in the bed passing time when I got a phone call. It was a call that rocked my world. The voice on the other end said, “Uncle Mario is dead, he was murdered sometime last night. Your grandmother just identified the body”. Wow not at all what I anticipated hearing. My head started to spin. Mario was my mother’s brother. I wondered what she must have felt. I wondered about my grandparents. I was saddened, angry, and confused all at the same time. To top it all off, I still had to go to work.
Fast forward several days later. The funeral arrangements were set. My pregnant wife, myself, and my new child had traveled over 3 hours to be a part of the wake. We arrived into town with only a couple of hours before we would have to be at the wake for my uncle. I set the bags down, sat down, and my wife’s cell phone rings. She answers the phone and within minutes her countenance changes drastically. On the other end was my mother-in-law relaying that her doctors appointment did not go as expected and she had been diagnosed with cancer. Wow again!!!!! Here I am still in the throws of grief over an uncle whose life was taken from him, but before I can properly deal with that loss here I am being dealt another tragic blow.
You see, already that month I had had a loved one sentenced to prison time. I was being unfairly treated on my job, but stuck with very little recourse available. My church was in a building project that I was the lead person on and everything that could go wrong was going wrong and we still had no new building. My personal ministry was in a prolonged season of dryness. No speaking engagements had come in for months and nothing was on the horizon either. I was the author of a book that was no longer selling, but rather collecting dust on my shelves. If all that wasn’t enough, now death and cancer.
What is interesting is life has a way of bringing us to our knees. In these moments and seasons we may want to get upset with God, but the greatest comfort is found when we cry out to God. Crying out to Him is exactly what I did. I asked why. What had I done wrong. I would pray. I would cry. I would praise the best I knew how. Yet somehow in this process I could feel the healing of God taking place in my heart. I could feel a new resolve being built inside of me that made me believe it wouldn’t be like this always. Somehow I knew that even though weeping may endure for a night; Joy was coming in the morning.
It was God’s Word, Godly songs, and Godly thoughts that navigated me through these trying times. One phrase that kept coming to me over and over again was, “Because He lives I can face tomorrow”. I was going to have to be strong for those around me. I started believing that I could do it. I wasn’t believing in my human strength. I was starting to be convinced of His strength in me. That phrase reminded me that not only does He live, but He lives in me. He is active in me. He lives even in the middle of dark days and nights. If anybody could get me out of this one; He could and He would. Because of His triumph over 2,000 years, I knew I could win in the midst of my momentary affliction. I started feeling like together, God and I could do this. Actually, I had an entire posse. I had the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, plus Goodness and Mercy following me. Come on devil, because He lives in me I’m ready to fight this thing out. I’m ready to stand.
I started to think of all Christ’s suffering on the cross. All he endured. All he went through. My issues didn’t seem so daunting. Besides, the scriptures said the same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwelled in me. To this day the phrase “Because He lives” is a source of great strength to me. In this coming Easter season remember that no matter what you are facing early one Sunday morning Jesus Christ got up out of the ground with all power in His hand. Because He lives, you can and you will make it out of any situation. Keep your head up because the last time I checked, He was still living.
(Katy)
