Wonderful Counselor
A Journey Through Grief and Healing with the Holy Spirit
by
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The weeks following Lauren’s home going were filled with a sense of unreality…We found ourselves at a loss for how to get back to “normal” life. How could we? Nothing would ever be normal again. My journal entries reflected the battle to try to understand life again.
2/21/2008
Lord, I am in a lot of pain. A huge chunk of my heart has been ripped out and taken with Lauren. I’ll never get it back. I will always be not quite whole until we are all reunited forever. Thoughts and images of the accident haunt me. I have not found peace in those memories yet. But the absolute knowledge that Lauren has inherited life with You forever is starting to sink into my heart and give me peace.
My Counseling Begins
It would be a long time before that knowledge became truly real to me, because I couldn’t fathom how someone so present in my life was not there anymore. The “unrealness” of her absence made it impossible for my heart to understand that she was actually present with the Lord. All I could do at the time was cling to the promises of God’s Word until they became real to me. And that would only come with time and much wise counsel.
So that is where God began with me on my journey of healing—with much wise counsel from His Word. It was my habit for seven years to begin each day spending time with the Lord. He would speak to me through His Word and Holy Spirit, and I would respond to Him in journaling and prayer. After the accident, I didn’t open my Bible or journal for almost two weeks, but soon I found I couldn’t face another day of grief without that daily time.
I can’t give you any rhyme or reason for what passages I read. All I know is, as I sat and waited before Him, the Holy Spirit led me to the Scriptures that spoke what He wanted to say to me, that met me in the midst of all the confusion. Some were in cards we received. Some were in a journal a friend gave me. Any verses I connected with in any way, I explored with Him. Here is the first one:
“The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing love of the Lord never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”
Lamentations 3:19-24
This passage described exactly what I felt, what consumed my world now. Because I couldn’t make sense of anything I was feeling, it and other verses expressed things I didn’t even know were inside of me until I read them. But that wasn’t all they did; the verses He led me to also stated the truth I needed to hear and grab hold of. Could I “dare to hope”? I had to try. It was a matter of life or death for me at that point. I didn’t see how I would ever be able to go on, to survive even one more day of life separated from my daughter. As God spoke to me, I wrote:
2/21/2008
Lord, Scott and I are so thankful for Your presence and Your work during this time. Thank You for the witness You’ve allowed and empowered us to be. But we are hurting so much. It’s difficult to function, to get through the day. Help us Lord, as things get worse. Help us to know that we can cry out in pain and grief, sorrow and anger without dimming Your glory or hurting our witness. Help us to know when and how it’s ok for us to turn inward and deal with our tormented thoughts, feelings and memories. Help us to see that it’s ok for us not to know how to go on, how to pick up the pieces and live again. Life here seems so empty now, emptier than it’s ever been. I miss my baby so much! Tell her, Lord, how much I love and miss her, and how I can’t wait to meet her at the gates of heaven.
God spoke to me again through these verses:
“I cried out to the Lord in my suffering, and He heard me.
”He set me free from all my fears…
“The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help.
“He rescues them from all their troubles.
”The Lord is close to the broken-hearted;
”He rescues those who are crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 34:6, 17-18
One emotion that I couldn’t decipher at first was fear. Grief brought so much fear with it that it blindsided me. From the first day, I was so incredibly afraid, yet I didn’t understand it, couldn’t pinpoint what it was rooted in. But God addressed it immediately, telling me He would set me free from fear. I will share with you in a later chapter how He did that, but I want to tell you one thing He did immediately, which in hindsight is so precious to me.
My initial fear was that God wasn’t there. I felt lost and completely alone inside. I couldn’t feel His presence like I had for so long. Everything had gone dark and silent, and I couldn’t find Him. But then He brought me verse after verse that said “Do not be afraid”. Almost all of them also said, “I am with you” in some way. Just as a parent quiets her child’s fears by saying, “It’s ok, I’m here. Don’t be afraid,” so the Holy Spirit did with me, over and over. It’s what I needed from the start, and He knew it.
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About the Book
In February 2008, Alicia Crawley got the phone call every parent dreads: two of her children had been in a car accident. Her son, Jonathan, was fine, but by the time Alicia arrived at the scene minutes later, her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lauren, had died. In the days that followed, Alicia, who until then had had a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ, was plunged into the dark pit of grief, unable even to feel God’s presence. His seeming silence left her spiritually paralyzed.
Alicia barely recognized herself or her life, but she kept going to God’s word, seeking comfort, understanding, and purpose. She came to realize that He had never left her but that she hadn’t been able to hear Him over the roar of her pain. Deeply thoughtful, honest, and unafraid to ask difficult questions, Alicia shares here what she learned about suffering, about heaven, and about listening to and trusting God.
Although support groups, individual therapy, and medication can all help at a time of profound loss, Wonderful Counselor assures us that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate source of wisdom and healing. For Alicia, turning to God provided more than comfort; it oriented her family toward the future and toward opportunities to reach the lost and broken around them in ways and in places they never could have imagined. Surrendering their beloved Lauren took on meaning they never thought possible. Guided by the Spirit, they have allowed her legacy to become one of hope and joy.
About the Author
Alicia Crawley, a resident of Oklahoma, is a worship leader and speaker, but her favorite roles are those of wife and mother. She and her husband, Scott, have two sons, Jordan and Jonathan, and a daughter, Lauren, who lives in heaven.