Remember This Truth When You’re Aching for Resurrection

I slid my hand into his, weeping.

I remember, even before we dated, noticing that musician’s hands. They’d pounded thousands and thousands of hours away on the piano’s keys. And I thought, “I’d like to hold one of those hands someday.”

And now, nearly seven years into marriage, that strong, tender hand of his has become a home for mine.

We strolled along the sea’s edge that evening, my womb bulging, making continuous announcement of our soon-coming season change. We thanked God for the precious gift, for the baby girl we’d yet to hold but already adored.

Autumn’s leaves had just recently begun to put on their show of bursting colors, and a crisp breeze washed over us as we walked together. Nature’s new season was making its announcement, too. The blaze of summer was gone, and the refreshing winds of fall wrapped around us. All three of us.

My tears fell as we walked, a mix of joy and sobriety and the heavy remembrance of the fires we’d walked through in the last few years. The recent years had broken me—my body had broken with chronic pain that doctors had struggled to diagnose and had led physical therapists to advise me to wait on childbearing, my soul had torn wide open as I watched a dear friend’s marriage come to an end, my hope had nearly unraveled altogether with prayer’s delayed answers and my heart had bled with a grief deeper than I’d ever touched when I lost my father to cancer.

But my husband had not let me break alone. He’d broken with me. And somehow, in the midst of all the pain and ache and fire, it had become a beautiful brokenness—of our hearts before God.

Now here we were, hand-in-hand by the sea—looking back at those aching years, and looking ahead with hope at the years still to unfold, all in one moment.

My husband put his hand on my womb. The little life that was filling me was speaking something to us, something that hinted of the breakthroughs we’d been crying to heaven for.

This tiny babe reminded and displayed to us one of the miracles of God’s workings.

After the storm, He brings the harvest.

After death, He brings resurrection and life.

It’s God’s way. It’s how He writes the most beautiful of stories.

Pain and tears and death and storm had swept through our worlds. But the rain doesn’t fall without causing something to grow up from the ground, right?

I wanted to gather beauty out of this storm. I ached for resurrection—for new life to be birthed from a season when so much had seemed to die.

I remember bringing my broken self before God one morning last spring, with more of my tears, telling Him I wanted a harvest, telling Him I didn’t want all of this rain to be wasted, telling Him I wanted beauty to spring up.

And one thing I asked Him for was a baby, in my womb, that month.

One week later, I found out my womb held a life. His harvest had begun. And He’d started it in my very frame.

He’s the one who changes our times and our seasons, the one who is faithful to bring bounty after the rain has fallen, the one who delights to give us good gifts.

For His children, God’s stories don’t end with storm and death.

No, He’s still writing.

This story of mine isn’t over yet. And neither is yours. God is faithful. And He invites us, urges us to cling to who He is.

As we pass through trials, we can hold fast His strong hand. Because in Him and through Him, harvest and resurrection and beauty are sure to come. {eoa}

Kinsey Thurlow is a minister at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. She is an advocate for the fatherless and her husband, Jon, is a worship leader and minister at IHOPKC.