I don’t meet His standards, His law is almost like Greek to me when I am this dried up. I’ve never been so parched in all my life, and I know parched. I once was so dehydrated I needed 5 bags of IV fluid to get my strength back. This is so much worse...
What do we do with our faith when we wake up every morning with a knot in our throat that just won’t go away? What do we possibly say to the Life-giver when we wish that life would just end because it has become too much to carry? What do we do with our worship when prayer feels like an act, when songs of joy sound like mock performances to a God who knows I’m just masking my pain? When Job’s heart and life were falling apart, how could he say “blessed be the name of the Lord” and not feel like some sort of fraud? I know God knew His pain, but He could have stopped it. He could have kept him from those painful conversations with his friends that made him feel more alone. But He didn’t. Why? You may say it was to bless him. But He could have blessed him anyway. Why the total heartbreak? The betrayal? Why the sickness and the grieving and the ruin of all of his hard work and plans? God had a purpose, yes. He blessed him in much greater measure afterwards, yes. But in the blackness of that suffering, how could he have possibly kept his faith that God was still good and still listening?
I’m still asking for the answer to that question. When I pass the so-called friends I had until they didn’t want me anymore. When I wake up miles away from my husband and sick with the temptation to run to an addiction that will numb my loneliness. When I hear news that family members are sick and scared and hurting. When hopes for the future are dashed, and my hard efforts in the present seem completely useless. When the bank account is running on empty, and my physical and mental energy is depleted more than ever before. I’m still asking. The question that the psalmist asked--the question the Savior asked on the cross. “My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me? I cry all day and all night, and you don’t hear or answer.”
Maybe He does and I just don’t hear. Maybe He doesn’t and I just can’t see the reason why. In my head, I know I have a Father who loves me, who listens, who knows, and who cares. I know in my head He’s watching me write this, maybe even sharing the tears in my eyes. But, I’m still asking..because my heart doesn’t feel His presence and doesn’t believe the truth when the lies are so heavy and strong. The morning will come..but it hasn’t. And I don’t know when it will."
My body and my mind were drained. A family member had just been diagnosed with cancer. I was living hours away from my husband and knew I would not see him for another month. Even writing this now, I can feel that knot forming in my throat again... For the first time, I recognized that God is with me even when I sense nothing of His presence or His love; He was still with me when I didn't feel Him or accept His promises or spend time at His feet. But the fact that He was there did not mean I was able to experience the peace and comfort He was trying to give me.
Over the past nine months, my world has shifted dramatically. I graduated from college, moved from Massachusetts to Ontario...and became a housewife. Yeah, I never thought I would say that. Yet, as much as I would love to be working right now (especially given the real estate market here) and I am struggling with the hours while my husband is at work in which I feel utterly useless, I have learned something in this transition:
Over the past nine months, my world has shifted dramatically. I graduated from college, moved from Massachusetts to Ontario...and became a housewife. Yeah, I never thought I would say that. Yet, as much as I would love to be working right now (especially given the real estate market here) and I am struggling with the hours while my husband is at work in which I feel utterly useless, I have learned something in this transition:
My life is not measured by the job I do, or the grades I earn, or the feelings I feel, or the people I know, or the praise I receive. My life is not defined by my anxiety, or by my panic attacks, or by my physical appearance, or by my weight, or by my social status.
My life is measured by the distance between me and my Savior, and by the volume of His voice in my heart, and by the depth of my understanding of His character and compassion, and by the length of His arms as they reach out to lift me up when I fall. My life is defined by His peace, and by His love, and by His justice, and by His grace.
So often I tell myself that God doesn't want to hear from me, that He has given up on me and has better things to do, that He is angry at my failure to be who I should be and to do all I should do. But, even though I know my sin and distance grieve and offend Him deeply, those lines I repeat to myself are LIES. They are lies written by the very father of lies who rejoices in my defeat and laughs at my fear and is pleased when I am in pain.
Today, July 20, 2015, begins a new chapter of my story. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I will pray that God gives me the strength to fight those lies with the truth of my identity in Him. I will pray God lets me use my gifts in a way that honors the God who saved me and continues to save me. I will run to the Cross when I feel overwhelmed by the weight of my need for a Rescuer and a Redeemer.
Because this is the real truth. When life begins..when the miracle of birth takes place..someone entirely new enters the world. And when God gave me new life 13 years ago, He changed me for eternity and offered me the chance to become someone entirely new. A NEW creation. A woman who, through the Holy Spirit, is armed with a secure identity, a certain future, and the truth that can set her free.
{Romans 8: 1-4, 14-17}
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit...For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
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