Heavy Heart

Life is so hard. People are in pain all around me and my heart hurts thinking about it. I have experienced so little personal pain but I have been exposed to real raw grief in those around me time and again. It leaves me crying, literally, out to God, asking Him to do something, asking Him to make Himself known, asking Him to reach into these circumstances, to relieve the pain. It is easy to get lost in the pain, in the darkness that seems unyielding, heavy, and consuming. Satan would love for all of us to walk down that dark tunnel of despair never to return. He would love for us to make up our beds in his caverns of sorrow and pity.

I have to remind myself in these times, that this is why God’s wrath makes sense- this is why God hates sin so much, it’s why He put Jesus on the cross- because He absolutely hates how we have destroyed ourselves. He hates the diseases, the disasters, the disappointments, the power plays, the pride, the selfishness, the ugly destructing and grotesque sin that has disfigured our lives so badly. Do I think that these tragedies point to an absent God? That He has somehow lost control of things? Or do I believe, as He told us, that in this world we will have trouble but He overcame the world in crucifying His Son and raising Him to life, so that someday, all this will end and we will at last have rest?

My friend is suffering today. Her grandmother is dying… My childhood friend just lost her husband and is now a single mother… Another friend just lost an uncle and a few days later lost a family friend who committed suicide…How are we to take all this in? I think it is easy to question whether or not our faith will hold us in those times. And I think therein lays so much of our problem- no, faith will not hold us. God will hold us. Will we recognize that? That is the question.

It makes me think of the examples we’ve been given. When Daniel experienced the near annihilation of his people, and was taken captive to Babylon, what could he have possibly felt? What horror and grief and sorrow? His entire life was completely ripped apart. His identity was stripped away from him. He was given a new name, a new residence, a new employment in the house of his enemy. But Daniel was held by God and he knew it. I wish we had more details of Daniel’s life. I wish I could have heard some of his prayers in those early days when his new reality was sinking in. I want to know how a man like him- who we have heralded as righteous and courageous- grieved. I want to hear his requests or his praises or laments…Even more, I wish I could hear God’s voice in response. What was God saying in heaven?

I wish I knew and I wish my friends could hear. The only thing that comes to mind is Jesus in Revelations, urging the churches to just hold on a little longer. He promises that He is coming soon and tells them to hold fast…He encourages them to keep enduring patiently…Come quickly dear Jesus. What else can I pray? None of us want easy answers, we want something to stand on. Christ be our rock. Teach us what it means to put our feet on You, to give you our burdens, because words mean so little and it is the living that is so difficult. Teach us how to get out of bed in the morning and think about you and to trust you right through breakfast time and into the day. Teach us how to draw on your strength and to drink of your peace as we enter into our responsibilities. Help us to take our thoughts captive and to speak words of truth and to think on things that are excellent. Help us to follow Your lead as we make decisions and to choose to entrust ourselves to you as frustrations, doubt, fear, and failure threaten us. Help us to be courageous when we are thrown to the lions and to know that You are always always always with us, in control, and drawing us to Yourself. Help us to remember as the day comes to an end and we fear waking up tomorrow to start again, that your mercies are new every morning and that one day we will wake up in a new heaven and we will live on a new earth and we will be with You at last, face to face, hearts at rest forever.