1 Year After: Praying God’s Word when Blindsided by Unimaginable Loss and Grief

As part of the ongoing series on praying scripture over our lives, Judith Kambia Obatusa – JKO reveals how she clung to Habakkuk 3:17-18 as a lifeline following the devastating loss of her daughter on August 1, 2023. She shares the profound impact of Jonathan Traylor's song "You Get the Glory from This," as a source of comfort and hope as she navigated her pain. 

In this testimony of faith, grief, and resilience, JKO emphasizes the importance of healing from trauma, not just for ourselves but for the well-being of our children and future generations. She invites listeners to join her at the upcoming Confident Godly Woman Summit, where women will explore the significance of emotional healing, aligning values with life choices, and using journaling as a tool for transformation. This free, virtual event is an opportunity to invest in your growth and resilience, no matter where you are on your journey. 

References in this episode

Jonathan Traylor’s You Get the Glory from This

Register for the Confident Godly Woman Summit

Join the Messy Can't Stop Her Sisterhood at https://www.facebook.com/groups/3204395256540448/

If you would love to share your story on the #MessyCantStopHer podcast, click here to let me know.

Thank you so much for listening.

Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of Messy Can't Stop Her. I am your host Judith Kambia Obatusa, J K O. Today's episode is a very special one because the date is very symbolic in my life. And as we continue the series on praying scripture over us, I want to stop and testify of how God's power works. For us, when we are in dark situations, when situations are so terrible, we can't even imagine that it's possible that it can happen to us, and we can't even imagine if the [00:01:00] pain will end.

So, I'm going to walk you a little bit through my experience from when my daughter died. On this day in 2023, my daughter died. Firstborn child, my first twin, because she's a twin, died at the age of 24, just two months to her 25th birthday.

My daughter had struggled, had lived a life of pain for so long. Many times parents, we take decisions that we think are in the best interest of our children, but they end up being decisions that [00:02:00] when we look back and look at all that the child has gone through because of that one decision. We see that maybe we could have done it in another way.

But my daughter's story also highlights the importance of women knowing themselves. Women leaning into something greater than their relationship with their significant other, with the father of their child.

Knowing their trauma and healing their trauma. The biggest disservice we do to our children is not healing ourselves. If you are listening to me and you don't have children, and you [00:03:00] want to have children, and you're planning to have children, healing yourself will make you a better parent. If you are listening to me and you already have children, Healing yourself will make you a better parent.

If you already have children and you are struggling with them, healing yourself will make you a better parent. Our children deserve the best. They deserve the best of us. I don't know if I didn't have Christ, if I didn't believe in someone bigger, greater. If I could have raised my head again out of the dark pits I was thrown into when they came to tell me on the 2nd of August, 2023, that my firstborn was dead.[00:04:00] 

But I want to assure you that it is possible. And that is why I began the series on prayer. Because at the end of it all, when we do all the other self care, we can lean into something big. We can lean into a God who loves us. completely, and forgives us totally, and wants us to be happy, he wants us to grow and thrive despite the troubles that we encounter, or we are dipped in, then there's nothing we can do.

Life is not worth living. When my daughter died, I thought I would never pray again. I've been a born again Christian for so long, I [00:05:00] don't know another way to live. When my son came to me the day after, I think the same day when my son came, I told my son, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go.

Am I going to jump into the nightclub life now? I don't know how to do it. Should I start drinking and doing drugs? I don't know. To do those things, the only alternative I have to this pain that, that is indescribable is to go and sit at the feet of the one who loves me. And you know, could not even pray.

Music worship has been my strength. I used to [00:06:00] be a music minister. Music is my strength. The scriptures come alive to me through songs. Music I could not think. I couldn't find a scripture that matched my situation. But there was one scripture.

After crying for three days, and these scriptures came to my spirit, and this was what I landed on. Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no graves on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, Although [00:07:00] there are no sheep in the pen, no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior. Pope Pauk chapter 3, verses 17 to 18, that was the only scripture that came to my mind.

This is a scripture that I held on to. This scripture was the only thing I could think of, though the trees do not blossom. So. The labor of the olive may fail, the olive crop may fail, and the fields produce no food. This, this describes a very bleak time in a person's life. [00:08:00] This is all I could think of.

And that was three days after I started crying. Because I was like, am I going to cry forever? My tears will not bring back my child. And if this is all there is, then I have nothing else. How can I live my life? How will I live my life? You may be listening to me and you have been put in a place in life where you don't know how to keep going.

You don't know how to keep living after this loss. After this betrayal. After this thing that has blindsided you. But here I am. And I began to ask the [00:09:00] Lord, give me something to hold on to. None of this worship songs. I knew it into my situation, it could not, it couldn't help me, it couldn't get me out to see that there is something beyond this pain

and the Lord himself led me to a song that I had never heard before, I'd never seen the person before, I never knew that name before and you may have heard me talk about this. This song comes back to my heart.

This is so heavy. And it's bringing me to my knees. [00:10:00] And I'm crying now. Lord, I need you now. Come see about me.

Don't know why this life is so hard. Why do you seem so far? Whoa, whoa, whoa. But if this cloud won't pass, help me to stay steadfast. Let your will be done.

You get the glory from thee.

You get the glory from thee. No matter what I have to go through in this world, as long as you get the glory from me.

And [00:11:00] this song came on, and I listened to the lyrics, and the one that came on was a lyric video. And my dear, if you ask me, my sister, I

have been through so much, I don't know how he's going to get the glory from this. But just one thing that I know is that there are times that are beyond our human capacity to figure out a way. There are moments in our lives. That we cannot see a way out.

Or just like a child, they'll find solace in their mother's arms, in their father's arms, in loving mother, loving father's arms. When your [00:12:00] child is so heartbroken about something, because in their world, that is the most greatest thing ever. Their perspective is so small compared to yours. And they come to you, You hug them and say it's going to be okay.

And it is okay. This song reminds me of that. Part of the song says, Tribulation, persecution, my affliction. You get the glory from me. In my weakness, in my brokenness. In the cross, you get the glory from this on the mountaintop in the valley low, [00:13:00] you are in control. You get the glory from this. On my good days on my body, I'll still say, you get the glory from this.

You get the glory from this. Please get the glory from this. No matter what I have to go through in this world, as long as you get the glory commit. I

just want to encourage you today, if you are in a time of darkness and despondency like I was. Like, I, I'm still, it's not [00:14:00] as bad as the first few days, the first, in fact, it's not as bad as it was at the beginning, because when I lost my daughter, I lost a queen. I lost her twin sister when they were 10 weeks old, and I lost her when she was two months to her 25th birthday.

As I tell you this, I think about How valuable she is to me and whether I treated her with that value. It's hard to not look back and see gap in me. But I also recognize that my capacity to be the parent she needed was limited by the trauma that I had in my life. [00:15:00] The trauma I had lived through and the trauma I was experiencing that I did not get resolved.

I didn't even recognize I came from a culture where that was not recognized. Some of us are even in the Western world where the things are spoken about more frequently. And we still are in our groups where this is looked down on. But I've found out that most times people tell you go to counseling, go to this, do self care, but they can't.

All those things. There are some things that happen to you that I don't know if counseling can help me out of this. Neither do I know what can help me. Nothing can bring my child back. But,

I think in God, [00:16:00] the knowledge that I don't have to do it all by myself. The knowledge that there is one bigger, greater than me. And that I can go to him and talk to him with the words he has spoken in the Bible. Has been a great help and I want to pray for you today. My sister that is listening to me. I don't know what you've lost.

I don't know the heartbreak that you're nursing right now. I don't know the situation that life has thrown your way. That has blindsided you or that was so common but you had no way to escape. It has let you down in the dumps. In a state of utter confusion. Trying to dig yourself out of a hole that is so deep, [00:17:00] so wide, that you are at the end of your tether.

I pray for you, that the Lord himself will send you a word. Like he sent me this song, that he will send you a word to hold you up. He will send you a word. A song to give you hope.

He will send you a friend to comfort you.

He will hold you in his arms. He will, he will remind you that this is not the end. I pray that whatever it is, right as the moment you begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. [00:18:00] I don't know when, what glory means. How God would get glory from the loss of my child. From the struggles that my child had to endure before she passed.

From a life of pain that she had to live. And when I got my act together in terms of recognizing my trauma, I could not help her. Oh, Father, I don't know how he would get the glory. I want to assure you, I want to pray for you that if I can trust that indeed he will get the glory because he said so that you too can trust.

I pray that God, we give you grace to hang in there when it seems there is no way out. Bible tells us that the way that God thinks is not the way that we think.

His [00:19:00] ways are un formable to us. We cannot understand the way he works. Therefore, I'm praying that he will give you grace to have faith in him, to say, Lord, I don't understand, but I will believe you. I'll believe you. I'll trust you. That out of this pain, you will bring out something pretty. I pray that even as you wait for his, his, for his glory to be manifested from your story.

That your heart will not give up, that you will wait in earnest expectation, knowing that he keeps his word. Pray that God will give you comfort from your pain. Pray that God will help you, hold you, [00:20:00] and teach you what you need per day, time, per moment. Help you put your foot in front of the other. As he shows you.

Ways to use your pain for his glory, to use your pain, to fulfill the purpose for which you are, have been created to be here. I pray peace over your heart, over your broken heart. I pray that the healing balm of Gilead will soothe you. Over the disappointment, pray that God will turn the storms, the storms of disappointment, discouragement, raging inside of you right this moment.

I speak peace over your storm, peace [00:21:00] over your storm,

peace over your storm, in Jesus mighty name, Amen. I talked about the fact that I did not know how much, I didn't know about healing at the beginning of this journey as of my parenting. I didn't know that I even, I didn't even know about trauma. I don't know if you're like, if you don't really know too, or you know a little, but you You cannot connect how it's important like that for your own next generation.

On August 5th, we are holding a Women's Summit, the Confident, Godly Women Summit, virtually. It's just [00:22:00] one and a half hours, 7 to 8. 30 p. m. Central Standard Time on August 5th, 6th, and 7th. I would like to invite you. You come and learn about why it's important to get healed. That will be on day one, August 5th, and on day two, you'll be learning how your values and your choices translate into the life that you have.

And on the 7th, you'll have a session with a transformative somatic meditative journaling guide to teach you. How journaling can help you deal, deal with traumas. [00:23:00] So I'm inviting you to click on the link in the show notes and register. It's free and it's just one and a half hours on the 5th, 6th and 7th, 7 to 8:30 PM Central Standard Time. It is less than the length of so many movies, but it's an investment into your life. It's an investment. into your life. You might be listening to me and say, I'm not going to have children, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe you're not going to have children, but you're an auntie.

You are an auntie to your sister's children, your brother's children, to your friend's children. You have young people that look up to you. You have relationships at work and the community. Do you know that if you're not here, It is spilling over right now. [00:24:00] If you don't get to learn, invest into your own growth, you're doing yourself a die service.

Because this life that you have, this your life, is too valuable for you to leave it to chances. I hope to see you there. Please click on the link and invest in this 1.5 hours on the 5th, in the evening. Into your life because you are worth it. You're valuable. 

When you do this, I'm very very sure, I'm very convinced, I can assure you that messy won't stop you Thank you so much for listening See you next time