For the past three years, I have really struggled to write and speak the way I once did. In 2020 it was almost as if my inkwell had dried up and I figured that my writing days were behind me. A few months ago my husband ran the kids to youth group while I stayed back. I was overwhelmed with so many things and decided I needed to pray and ask G-d what I was supposed to do next. So I decided to put some music on the TV and saw a video from one of my favorite speakers with a title that caught my eye. I figured I was having a squirrel brain moment and told myself that I needed to focus and look it up later. However, I couldn’t shake that I needed to watch it, so I did.

Do you know how people say, “It was as if the person on the TV was speaking directly to me!” It was one of those moments. Everything she spoke was as if she had been following me around for the past three years and was telling me, it was time to get out of the grave! You aren’t truly alive! All the way down to the words “There are some of you that in 2020 you stopped doing what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to plant something but instead, you buried it…”

I sat there dumbfounded. It hit me deeply. I knew G-d was up to something.

The next day I ended up putting on some praise music. I try to do this to get my day started on a positive note. There is a band name Cain that my sister introduced me to that I have fallen in love with. This day they played the song “Rise Up (Lazarus).” I had heard the song before but this time it stopped me dead in my tracks.

Their lyrics of:

At that moment I felt like Holy Spirit quietly whispered, It’s been three years, Kelly. This is your Lazarus moment. It’s time to rise up.

Let’s just say this was a Selah moment.

I’ve read the story of Lazarus so many times. I’ve even quoted “Jesus wept,” in my writing pertaining to grief. What came to my heart the other day was, could he have been weeping not only because he was moved to compassion but also frustration in the hopelessness, possibly even in the unbelief? Did his heartache that they couldn’t see what G-d was and is capable of doing in our lives for any situation that looks like it is over? Didn’t they remember the miracles they had seen? They had seen his power! They had heard his words! Nothing ends with death with G-d. He revives, restores, and sometimes completely makes a situation brand new, when did I forget that?

Even if a person passes away, in the natural it looks as if it’s all over. However, for that person, they are being transformed and made whole. It’s us that see the ending and grieve for what we’ve known.

Even as I write this what comes to my mind is how the enemy whispers into our ears that things will NEVER be better. It’s hopeless. I have to protect myself. I can’t trust anyone. They aren’t coming back. Nothing but death does he speak.

Then I imagine G-d saying, Who told you that? Don’t you know what I can do? Anything is possible for those who BELIEVE.

You see my friend, G-d is calling us out of our comfort zones. He is calling us to be obedient to Him and take off the grave clothes that have kept us paralyzed and unable to speak. He wants us to “Rise up, (fill in your name).”

We often retreat to our “safe” space feeling that we need to protect ourselves. Maybe it’s a health diagnosis, job loss, fractured relationship, a dream that just doesn’t even seem possible anymore… Whatever it is that you have given up hope, laid down, and possibly buried, it’s time “Rise up” and choose life.

So often we choose death without even realizing it. Whether it be our hearts become hardened silently or we declare it out of our mouths, it’s not life.

Not only is G-d love, but when I hear love, I think of abundant life. We must CHOOSE life! It doesn’t matter how bleak a situation is, do you believe Jesus is our savior? Do you believe that G-d can do what He says He can do?

Then it’s time to take off the grave clothes that have bound you for so long.

It’s time to:

walk

this

out.

Just listen for his voice and trust that if we believe everything he says is true, we will choose to follow and learn to live again.

Are you offended? It’s time to forgive.

Are you afraid? Step out.

Are you disappointed? It’s time to hope again.

It’s time to walk out of the tomb and choose life.