Just when you adapt to change, when you begin to feel like you're coping and everything is ok, the bottom falls out of it all. Your routine, your life, and all of the players in it change up, and you are left feeling shaky and unsure. Everything changes. That's how life goes. Everything changes. And then it changes again.
Not God. God never changes.
His love never changes.
Tonight is a very serious night. Not because anything serious or major occurred. But because I am anticipating more change. And I am not sure that I'm ok with it yet. Sometimes it's the hardest thing to make peace with the circumstances that are entirely out of your control. To believe that God won't let something die without bringing to life something even more beautiful. To know that he is a faithful God, who will not leave a giant, gaping hole in our life. To know that he knows our needs, and will allow us to lack for nothing. I live life believing these things. I have come to trust him, and know that he is full of goodness. But once in a while, a moment creeps up where another truth hits you... it still hurts. God has promised to be our comfort. This requires that there be some reason to be comforted. And, hard as it sometimes is to deal with pain, God doesn't want us to become desensitized. After all, it was recorded several times that Jesus himself wept. Grief is natural, and promised.
David spoke of God as a refuge 43 times in the book of Psalms. There's a man who knew what's up. He knew that it wasn't selfish to acknowledge that he was in a place of need, as long as he was coming to God as his refuge, instead of the vices of the world. He also didn't believe it selfish to ask for mercy, or deliverance. There was no "if it's Your will," preface as we sometimes believe we have to use in prayer. He straight up asked God for what his heart desired. He knew God so intimately, and spoke words that are so easy to relate to.
Tonight is a very. VERY. weepy. night. I've got nothing to do but talk to God and write this blog. Which seems like the two hardest things to do, until you actually do them. And then, you realize it was exactly what you needed to do. Spend time in the shadow of His wings... and then blog about it, to process it.
Life doesn't have to be sunshine all the time. Even the die-hard optimists have their rocky days. The most important thing is to come to God with it, and not to drown in a sea of self-pity. It's a killer, that self-pity. It tells you that life will never get better, that no one cares, that death looks delicious in comparison. But God cares about us in ways we can never fathom. He is here even now, and has tasted our grief. He knows exactly what I am feeling in this very moment, because he is living it with me. There is always an end to today's tears. There is a rainbow after the storm. And there is a lover who will love us through it. He whispers of a home where there is no ugliness, no tears, no goodbyes. And everything that is now only images in my mind's eye will finally be revealed.
ps: the song "dance with me" (jesusculture) has proven itself to intensify, rather than relieve, the weepies. you have been warned. :)
Psalm 17:7
Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.
Psalm 18:30
As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in Him.
Psalm 57:1
Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in You my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.
Psalm 142:5
I cry to you, O Lord; I say, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living."
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abs, that was beautifully written.
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