What a Tragedy Revealed to This Christian Actress About Having Hope in Christ
By Movieguide® Contributor
Priscilla Shirer discussed a devastating circumstance her friend is going through to exemplify what it means to have true hope and trust in the Lord.
“I have a friend right this minute…she is burying her twins,” Shirer told TBN. “Devastating, devastating circumstance that I cannot imagine. She’s been my friend since college. And I talked to this woman on the phone today amidst incredible, incredible tears and several days ago when she was actually in the hospital holding these little, lifeless babies in her arms, her and her husband, they just could not believe what was going on.”
“Rivers of tears, as you can imagine, barely able to communicate with me over the telephone,” Shirer continued. “And yet, in the midst of her not even being able to really speak actual words, what I could hear her say is that ‘my hope is in Christ the Lord.’ She said, ‘Priscilla, I don’t know why [God] allowed this. I have screamed, I have hollered, I have told Him that I cannot figure out why He would allow this in my life. But what I do know is that without Christ, I would not be able — I would be in a loony bin somewhere,’ is what she said.”
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“‘I don’t know how anybody does not have the firm hope that God loves them, that He is on their side, can survive something like this.’ So we see the hugeness and the greatness and the grandeur of Christ, not only when He changes our circumstances, but even more when He changes us in the middle of devastating circumstances,” she continued.
Shirer believes that the hope her friend found in the Lord is an amazing example of what true peace looks like. It harkens to Paul’s writing in Philippians 4 when he says, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” And when Paul writes this, he is writing from prison, awaiting his sentencing in Rome.
“This is what peace really is. Peace is not when everything is rosy, and happy, and sunny around you and you’re peaceful. No, no. Peace is when in the midst of a storm, I mean, I’m thinking about a storm on the ocean, the storm swirling all around you but right there in the middle of that storm, there is an eye and the eye of that storm is a center of calm in the midst of chaos that is swirling all around, that’s what peace looks like,” Shirer said. “Peace is the Holy Spirit upon you, even though there is a storm swirling all around.”
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