CR spoke with Emma Weaver about God healing her broken heart from losing her mum to suicide and how God helped her cope with her cousins sudden death

Emma: I was going to God all the time. I longed for this healing. I believed that he could do it. I believed he could change my heart. I knew he could do it. I was so expectant and I was so impatient. I'd be going to God all the time telling him I wanted healing; I wanted this dealing with. I wanted to be able to move on from this pain. I was really challenging God.

Heather: We talked about that previous children's camp where God really arrested you and did something. I believe there was another children's camp where he did some more didn't he?

Emma: He did. God uses where I work with children to really speak to me as well personally. On the camp a couple of years later there was an American team with us and they had done a beautiful drama. I'd seen it through the week as they were showing the children, but on the Friday evening we had a celebration evening and they did this drama again. I was overwhelmed by how much God wanted to be my everything. He wanted to be a healer and a counsellor and a teacher and this vivid picture of these students doing this drama was really effective; it showed me what God wanted for me and where I'm at and what my relationship with him should be. I was feeling challenged by God that I should allow him to be my everything and that I shouldn't let things stop me. I shouldn't hold those things within myself without taking them to God and putting them on to God. Sometimes it's still a challenge now, as I want to have that control, but I'm learning to let God have all control and surrender all of me and everything I am to him.

Heather: Did God answer that prayer for the healing of your heart from losing your mum?

Emma: I wanted a quick fix. I kept longing for God to heal me, but I wanted it to be instant. I wanted it to be now. I wanted to move on and I wanted it to be straightforward; but he did answer my prayer and it was so wonderful.

I was asked to sing with my friend at church. I can't sing, but I sing for God. We practised a few songs. This one song was just so beautiful and as we practised it, it was so anointed and we could feel that God wanted that song to be sung. We practised it and we decided that yes, we know this is the song that we've got to sing for him. Then a few days before the service my friend said to me, before we sing, I need to speak about your mum. I said ok. She was very aware that I was still very sensitive about it and she knew that it still hurt; that even her talking about my mum as her friend would hurt me. So she approached me and said I need to speak about your mum before we sing. I said yeah, because I was kind of aware that God was doing something with me. I wasn't fully there but I was aware that something was going on. I felt a bit more comfortable with her speaking about my mum.

Then the service came and she spoke before we sang and she spoke about my mum. She said my mum had found comfort in that song and that that song had meant a lot to my mum. Even though I'd said yeah you can speak about it, I'd got to get up and sing and I physically couldn't. The music was playing and I stood before God crying my eyes out and really breaking my heart. I wasn't able to sing. The words were stuck in my throat. It was like I was just pouring out my heart, but it wasn't because I was sad. It wasn't self-pity or look at me, my mum's died; it wasn't anything about that. As we were singing - well I wasn't - I was trying to sing, but I wasn't able to sing. I wasn't able to vocally express the words; they were in the heart, but they weren't coming out. Then as I was singing, all I can describe it as, is arms wrapped really tight around my chest. I'm crying and I can't breathe because these arms are so strong around me as I'm singing. I'm in a bit of a mess really, but I'm just standing as I am before God and it was so beautiful. At the end of the song these arms that were so tight around me just released and I felt released. My heart was released and I knew instantly I'd been healed. That heavy heart that I'd carried for my mum had been taken. God had healed me; he had taken that pain and all that suffering. He'd taken all that inward hurt and brokenness. He took it and he just wrapped me up in his love and he took all of it away and he changed something that was horrible. My heart was a horrible mess. He turned it into a fresh heart full of love for what God's done for me.

Heather: So those arms were God's arms around you. It wasn't someone coming up behind you?

Emma: There was no-one around me at all and I know it wasn't physical. I know it was really God wrapping me in his love and wrapping me in him. It was so beautiful. It was such a beautiful time. I was really a mess as I stood before God that day singing. I was a total mess, but with it he turned that mess into something beautiful and he changed it for me. It was lovely.

Heather: So from that point how have you felt when you hear people talking about your mum now? Can you talk about your mum?

Emma: I love to talk about my mum now and the fact I'm now able to share this with you just shows how much God's done for me in that area. The fact that I'm able to express how much he's done; that love is just wonderful.

Heather: Why do you love to talk about your mum now?

Emma: I love to be able to. The fact that I can now is in itself amazing for me, but I had my mum for 10 years and it was 10 lovely years and I want to be able to talk about her for who she is to me. She's still my Mum, even though she may not be here. She did so much for me in the 10 years that I had that she deserves speaking about.

Heather: We started this interview saying you've known two bereavements in your life. Having found that healing from your Mum, your cousin died. Can you tell us about that?