Epilogue...Only The Beginning...Again!

Epilogue

 

What a journey…to be finished with my first writing task….to come to the point where I thank God for the amazing calendar I asked for almost a year ago.  The irony of the moment is ….the calendar is really not finished.  I must continue to listen to the words he will feed me…continue to study and search his word for the directions to my day by day walk with him.  I must hope that I have a future…..as Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 29:11, “¹For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. And then will I be blessed…for he also wrote in Jeremiah 17:7, “ Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.”

Even as I reread these pages to edit and revise, I am reminded that I still have not grasped all the wisdom God gave me to write.  I still struggle with many of the concepts God gave me in these pages…and I will need to continue to reread the scriptures and words until they become a part of my heart.  As I teach my students in the classroom…many repetitions are needed to sometimes understand a concept…to grasp it so you can teach to someone else.

It is also time for me to give credit to the people who helped inspire me to this task.  God is my editor…my best friend…my new husband…he deserves any glory that might come from these pages.  My friends, my family, my wonderful church…the Sunday School teacher…the many people who read bits and pieces of this work and gave me advice.  They deserve my gratitude and maybe even a homecooked  Sunday dinner.  And I thank my sweet Mitchell…who stares at me with that sweet smile of his from the frame above the desk where I write.  I can hear him telling me, “you should really write some day…you have a way with words.”   He always told me it would be ‘our’ ticket to early retirement.

My thanks also the wonderful technology God gave us to do research.  I turned to the internet and bible.com many days as I searched for deeper meaning to the words he would place on my heart. The topical research I was able to do on these sites made it possible for God to quickly give me the scriptures that would support the words he gave.  And I can’t imagine writing without a computer keyboard …horrible visions of quill pens…tons of wasted paprus…what nightmares!  I can’t imagine being able to write with an old fashioned pencil and piece of paper…although I do use this method to journal each night during my study and prayer time.

My greatest thanks goes to the Lord of my life…my new husband…who gives me words even through my tears. Some of the tears are still the pain from the loss of my Mitchell, but the most of them…they are tears of great joy as I realize he can carry me through anything.   Almost a year has past…I have grown so much closer to the Lord than I ever imagined I could.  God has become so big that I am slowly realizing he can not be contained.

 

As I search for just the right words to close with…I am reminded of a sweet couple from my church...a sweet couple struggling with their own pain…the loss of their son.  This father stood at our pulpit one Sunday morning not to long ago.  Like me, he and his sweet wife are recovering from grief.  Eight months ago, the cancer their son was asked to bear… gave him his early ticket to heaven. His death placed them in this role of grief…this role we are not familiar with or want for many reasons to invade our happy lives.  He and his wife wanted to thank our church for the prayers and support that have helped them get through this trying time. And so … through his tears…and the rest of the church’s tears…..we were all babbling…sharing in his pain…he shared this passage from Isaiah 57.

¹The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.

²He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.

As soon as I heard these sweet words from God’s Holy word…I knew they were to be my new comfort. Those of us that have lost loved ones…really did not lose them…if they knew God.  If they knew God…they are in the glorious presence of the father…praising him for saving their souls.  Some of us too may be taken early someday…and those of us that are left will be raised with them when Christ returns for us all.  And those of us that are left…we still have work to do…so that more of our friends and family may be counted in the number of those who are resurrected to the father.

I urge you to start your own calendar.  He is waiting to give you the words that will help you heal the gaping wound your loss has created.  Open your heart to him and ask him to help you…to show you the pathway to peace in this storm he has asked you to ride through.  As Paul…one who rode many storms out with the help of his father…wrote in Romans 15:13, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

Day 31.....One Day At A Time

Day 31         One Day at a Time

 

As I near the completion of this ‘Calendar’…this work of study that has helped me see how important is it to put the past in the past, I can hear the words of my mother-in-law.  Finding that she had lost yet another friend to cancer, we tracked to the funeral home to the “viewing.”  We were just sitting in the funeral home when a friend came up and asked her how she was doing.  She replied very quickly, “I take it one day at a time my friend.”

We can plan for the future….but the reality is that God is in control.  We may make some pretty great plans…and find ourselves still looking at a pretty tough ‘present.’  Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not arrived…we need to enjoy the blessings of today!  God wants us to commit to making the best of the day he made for us…today! What David wrote in Psalms 118:24, “This is the day that the Lord has made…..I will rejoice and be glad in it”….these are the words we must cling to if we are to find joy. It is in the present that God gives us small tasks to do…small lessons that teach us one day at a time that our lives can still be useful…that we can move past the loss.

God helped Matthew pen some pretty powerful words in his great book, they speak very clearly just how important it is to live in the present.  He tells us in Matthew 6:31-34

³¹Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

³²(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

³³But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

³⁴Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

 

The Israelites found themselves once in a desert… no food…so they called out for God to save them.   God answered their prayer by giving them manna….manna that was given one day at a time…too little and the Isrealites would starve…too much and the extra would rot.

 

 

 

 Moses gave them the exact words of God in Exodus 16:15-19:

When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “ What is it?” for they did not know what it was.  Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.  This is what the Lord has commanded:  ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs.  Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”  The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little.  And when they measured it by the omer, he who had gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.  Each one gathered as much as he needed.  Then Moses said to them, “ No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

 

We must collect our own manna…one day at a time…and trust that God has a plan.  He calls us to trust him…like the Israelites…we who have lost loved ones find ourselves in a vast desert. And  like the Israelites…God is feeding us one day at a time.  We must pray…and study his word…and give of ourselves…and testify to the wonderful blessing s he has given us in spite of the pain.  What new blessings must be in store for us if we collect the right amount of manna each day…the amount that will lead us to new joy.  For the Lord knows his plans for us…to prose us…and not harm us….plans for a great future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 30.....Live

Day 30     Live

 

Time has helped to ease some of the pain by now, but….you will have days….days that no matter what you do…a gray cloud of loneliness and depression will hurl you into a pity party.  The mere memory of your storm will renew the fear that started the day you were forced into the storm of your life.  You have mastered the art of laughter, believed with all your heart that God has your back, allowed the fellowship of your wonderful friends to seep into your soul and slowly amaze you with the strength you have built. You will feel in your heart that you are strong…able to venture out on your own…able to handle the world and anything it can throw at you.  Beware…the pity party lurks just around the corner…ready to pounce on your newfound spirit.

I found myself in one recently…even after I had written a devotional  about balance. Truth is that the Devil will stop at nothing to take your joy…he will  attack you in the simplest of forms…slither in from his hiding place at just the right time…when he knows you are the weakest.

The day was nothing special. The long trip out of town to transfer a 401K into an IRA wasn’t too bad.  The quick stop over at the Christian book store was even a bit uplifting. After all, I did find a great frame on sale with one of my favorite verses. You would think that Jeremiah 29:11 would stave off any bout of sadness, but somewhere between the quick lunch with my son and the failed attempt to shop, the pity party started. I think it was the third pair of pants that didn’t fit, or maybe it was the $75.00 price tag on a really cute shirt that did fit…( no way was I spending that much money on anything)… or could it have been the fact that once again I was trying to fill my loneliness with a meaningless task?  God tried to warn me…the frame clearly said, “ I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper not to harm….”

God plans for us to live….live productive lives that have purpose and meaning.  Ruth found purpose in working, in gleaning the leftover grains for her mother-in-law.  Boaz even directed his servants to make sure she found enough to sustain Naomi  in her need.

Ruth 2:16:

¹⁶And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.

Jesus saw the purpose in the costly perfume poured out on his feet by Mary.  He saw the humility of her heart as she sacrificed the most expensive thing she owned to show her savior how much she loved him.

Matthew 26

¹And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples,

²Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.

³Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,

⁴And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him.

⁵But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.

⁶Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

⁷There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

⁸But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

⁹For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.

¹⁰When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

¹¹For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

¹²For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

I too must live…I must find purpose to move forward.  And as I search…I will need to fight off that pity party when it comes.  God gave the frame…the frame…the one that has the verse I need to remember...the one from Jeremiah that tells me God does have a purpose for me…and will show me his plans for me…in his time.  That frame is still in the car…I guess I need to get it out and put a picture in it…..set it somewhere where I will see it every day.   Maybe I will leave it empty…as a reminder that God has not forgotten me.  Maybe I need to leave it in the car…on my front seat…as a reminder that God is always with me…and all I have to do is follow him. No, I think I will place a large question mark on the back of the picture in it…and pray that God never let me forget to live each day…one at a time...each day providing a bit of the new purpose he has for my life without Mitchell.

Day 28...Give

Day 28         Give

 

I am recovering this morning from the soreness of teaching some really animated music selections to some even more energetic youngsters at bible school this week.  The songs came complete with motions and dance steps…reminding me of just how old this body has gotten….another miracle of God that I can do all things through him who strengthens me!  And as I reflect on this week of giving to my church the time to work with these youngsters…I see so clearly that  nothing helps me to work through the loss better than this act of giving.  Giving helps me to focus on other people and yield to God in a way that blesses my soul…giving helps me yield my loss to God. 

We are called to give thanks, to give honor and praise to God, and we are also called to give of ourselves…like the great church of Macedonia.  An impoverished church who managed to give even what little God blessed them with.

 

2 Corinthians 8

¹Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia;

²How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.

³For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves;

⁴Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.

⁵And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.

⁶Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also.

⁷Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.

⁸I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love.

⁹For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

¹⁰And herein I give my advice: for this is expedient for you, who have begun before, not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago.

¹¹Now therefore perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have.

¹²For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.

¹³For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened:

¹⁴But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality:

¹⁵As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.

Wow…what a message is hidden in this passage…even when we ‘think’ we have nothing….we still have our time….our love…our ability to do things for others.  God gave us an amazing capacity to love others.  Giving proves to our soul that we still have something to give…even when we think we have lost one of the most important things in our lives.  This pain…this sacrifice we have been forced to make…will never match the sacrifice God made for us when he gave his son to die or our sins.

When we give…we reap joy! When we give…God will pour out his blessings on our efforts to rebuild the missing pieces of the life we knew with our beloved.  Even Job in all his sorrow…understood…. He craved for the time when God would bless his life through giving.

Job 29

¹Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,

²Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;

³When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;

⁴As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;

⁵When the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;

⁶When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;

⁷When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street!

⁸The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up.

⁹The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.

¹⁰The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.

¹¹When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:

¹²Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.

¹³The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

¹⁷And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

¹⁸Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

¹⁹My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.

²⁰My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.

²¹Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.

²²After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them.

²³And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.

²⁴If I laughed on them, they believed it not; and the light of my countenance they cast not down.

²⁵I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners.

As the great writer of Acts recorded for us these simple words in Acts 20:35, “³I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. We should all do well to give more…to pour ourselves into service for the Lord brings about blessings untold. 

I will work willingly…even joyfully as I sing with those kids tonight.  The pain and loneliness will be replaced with new blessings and laughter from the mouths of children…as they celebrate and sing to the Lord.  I will sing a new song to the lord and thank him for the ability to still love…in spite of my loss.

 

Day 27 Balance

Day 27         Balance

 

The world is a great big ferris wheel…spinning…each day is a new rotation…it does not stop just because we have chosen to get off for a while.  Or maybe it is a giant teeter totter…if you crawl out to the middle….it just stops moving…or maybe your seesaw has stopped because you are sitting on one side…your partner...your mate taken from you.  Your friends and family play on the other side of the equipment…they ride in the vacant cars all around us…they see that we are fragile…they feel sorry for us and let us do what we want. They can see us on the teeter totter…but have no clue what to say to get us to climb to the left or right…so we stay in our safe mode…we stay where we are and think we are balanced!

 

Somehow you must find the courage to get off that ride…to crawl back onto your side of the teeter totter…to find the counter weight that returns the movement of your life. The world misses us and wants to know that we have conquered our fear of moving on.  Our friends want to see us happy again…playing in our world…building new lives that move us forward.

 

Job struggled with this concept.  As he prayed to God toward the beginning of his trial…he asked desperately for balance.  In Job 6:2-4, (and I love the NIV translation here) he wishes his grief were all but over…he feels the darkness that surrounds those of us that have not found our way back to the mainstream of life.

 

Job 6:2-4

New International Version (NIV)

² “If only my anguish could be weighed
and all my misery be placed on the scales!
³ It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—
no wonder my words have been impetuous.
⁴ The arrows of the Almighty are in me,
my spirit drinks in their poison;
God’s terrors are marshaled against me.

 

 

Job searches for many days for an answer…a way to move the teeter totter…to restore it to its purpose.  He finds it late in Chapter 31…when he is tempted to lust after the flesh…

Job 31:6:

⁶Let me be weighed in an even balance that God may know mine integrity.

Soloman, coined as the wisest man in the bible, must have understood how restoring balance to your life brought happiness, he wrote in Proverbs 11:1, “A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.”

 

And Amos….wow did he ever understand how wrong it is to deceive ourselves with our own pain!  He used the analogy of a ripe basket of fruit…it rots if sits too long without being eaten. Oh how we…who have seen a loved one taken from us…sometimes without warning…should understand the brevity of this time we are granted on the Earth. Amos, in chapter 8, speaks these words of true balance,

“⁵Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?”

 

Even the great king David, who fell with the eviliest of men, repented of his sin, and recognized the need to put the sadness of our lives in the past, and move on. He wrote so many wonderful Psalms to show us the way back…the way to get off that ferris wheel…to inch our way off that teeter totter and begin to search for life again. One of my favorites, Psalm 24:9 says, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”  All we need to do is lift up our head…completely soaked with our tears.  We need to lift up our face…makeup smeared in places it was never meant to be.  We need to lift up our heart…torn apart…like the son of God as he died on the cross.  Did you read the last part of the verse…the part that says….and the King of glory shall come in?  The King of glory…he comes to us…after we lift up our face…and he dries our tears…he becomes our new partner on that teeter totter! He sits on the other side and fills the empty seat…and he breathes new life into our tired unbalanced life.

 

We will wear ourselves out if we keep on that ferris wheel alone…we will crash from the expenditure of so much energy.  He is that guy at the bottom of the wheel…he knows just when to stop the ride...to hold out his hand and say… “come ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!  God gave those very words to Matthew…as he was reflecting on some of the precious moments he had spent with God’s son Jesus.  Oh what joy must have flooded his soul as he remembered the words of the best friend he ever had, and realized that the words he thought Jesus spoke to the lost…those needing salvation….were also the key to letting go of his own grief.

 

Oh how he must have struggled with the day to day battle of loss. Oh how his heart must have longed to see his friend just one more time. Then…that epiphany…the words flowing into his mind…and as he wrote he must have thought...I will come to you…I will lift up my face and allow you to take me to new places. I will allow you to place these wonderful stories of love on a scroll…so people can read it …and be free from their pain. I just bet the original copy of Matthew was stained with a few tears!

 

God is like that….waiting till he knows we are ready to accept the words he places in our hearts and minds…waiting till he knows we are brave enough to ask him to be our partner…our life…our joy. Satan will trick us into leaving the seat next to us empty…but God will call us daily to take up our new position….the task of carrying his cross...his story to a world that is still hurting…cause they don’t know him.  The King of glory…he comes to us…after we lift up our face…and he dries our tears…he becomes our new partner on that teeter totter! He sits on the other side and fills the empty seat…and he breathes new life into our tired unbalanced life.

Day 26 Why?

 

Day 26        Why?

 

Even now…after I have begun to move forward from my pain…and I am allowing God to apply his love to the pain, bandage it with his sweet mercy, and heal the gaping hole in my heart where Mitchell used to be…I still find myself asking why? So many times I cry myself to sleep…hold tightly to his shirt and pray…or fall to my knees at an altar…to ask God this unanswerable question.  Our human heart wants a reason…a purpose for our pain; but does God’s love demand that we just accept it as a way to grow and multiply our strength in serving him?

Could it be the answer came to me as I read in Exodus one evening. Here are a mighty people of God…suffering day after day from the afflictions of their bondage.  My eyes only made it to verse 11, when I read, “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. “

The Lord used the captivity of the children of Israel to teach and train them for the long journey ahead. They grew strong physically from the labor making bricks. They grew mentally as they figured out ways to hide and protect their young babies. They grew spiritually as they feared God more than they did the mandates of Pharaoh.  God allowed the people to suffer to teach them the skills they would need to survive the next 40 years…the wilderness he would lead them into would require great physical strength, keen mental awareness, and great faith in the God who would save them.

And as soon as I read and received this wisdom from the Lord…my humanness….my pain…still questioned my loss.  Even after prayer...even after I asked God to help me remember this story and how strong he can make me when I am suffering…I found my weakness…my need to ask why… still a prominent part of my being.  Why is it so hard to let this go? 

Maybe it isn’t so bad to question our pain…and what happened to some of the real people of bible times when they posed this question o God?  Rebekah  posed this question to God in Genesis 5 when she struggled with her pregnancy…and God gave her an answer.  I am thinking that if I were given this answer…my mom brain would be more worried than I was before.

²¹And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

²²And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.

²³And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

²⁴And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.

Moses posed the question why to God…oh how he must have felt my need to question the purpose of his calling.  As he watched his Hebrew brothers suffer….as he waited for god to make his move…he questioned God with the “why” of his calling.

²⁰And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh:

²¹And they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.

²²And Moses returned unto the LORD, a

+nd said, LORD, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me?

²³For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.

 

Gideon questioned God too.  He saw the angel of the Lord and bravely posed the question why.

¹²And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

¹³And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

¹⁴And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?

¹⁵And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.

¹⁶And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.

Even the great Job questioned why he had been placed on this Earth after all his sufferings…more than once…

Job 3

¹After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

²And Job spake, and said,

³Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

⁴Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

⁵Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

⁶As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

⁷Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

⁸Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

⁹Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

¹⁰Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

¹¹Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

¹²Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

¹³For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

 

David wrestled with the why of things as well.  So many of the Psalms record him asking God why.

Psalm 10

¹Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?

Psalm 22

¹My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

Psalm 43:5:

⁵Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

 

Bottom line….Why?…should we ask?…well the scriptures give us three scenarios if we do.  When we ask why we might get an immediate answer like Rebekah…an answer that may be harder to understand than the reason we posed the question in the first place. The lesson here…reasons are sometimes revealed because we need to make important decisions…ones that shape an entire nation of believers.  Sometimes when we ask why….God will be silent….silence for Moses, Gideon, and David meant an increase in their faith.  He simply did not reveal his purpose so he could build faith and work his mighty miracles in their lives and the lives of the people he had given them to lead. And Job…sweet Job….his reasons for asking why were more like mine…he just needed to call out in pain….to vent…and even that was okay with God.

 

Maybe some day I can be more like Moses…maybe some day God will build my faith because I walk daily with him and seek his wisdom in daily prayer and bible reading. And someday I will be able to accept his choices….because like David I will praise him…even as I continue to ask why?  I will praise him for he alone can someday reveal to me why I lost my sweet Mitchell…why he only gave me this gift for such a short time. Like David…I will lift up my voice and thank him for all the other blessings he gives me daily and worship him for his goodness and mercy.

Day 25 Prayer

Day 25         Prayer

 

I have been struggling of late…every word he has given me so far has helped me grow…but that confusion…of what to do next….to rest in him and wait…it keeps raising its ugly head and weakening my ability to trust in what he has done for me so far. I think my struggles could be the direct result of a weak prayer life.  I have added two routines since Mitchell’s death.  One of those is bible reading…each night…I sit in my bed and I search the word for at least an hour…it should be longer.  And then I pray…but they are weak attempts at communication…so holy is our God…all I can seem to do is babble out my needs…cry a few more tears of pain and loneliness….lift up a few friends and family in their needs…and drift off to sleep.  Oh how he must be disappointed in my inability to put real fervor in my talks with him…so routine and empty they must seem to him.

Okay…so what do I do to fix it?  I am far from being a bible scholar, but a simple search of   www.bible.com  (King James Version) brought up one hundred twenty-eight references with the word prayer in them….and I did just admit that I need to read my bible more…so today…pen in hand to take notes...I began to read them all…with the good intentions of searching for an answer to my question…but I stopped as I read this passage from Psalms 80…

¹⁷Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.

¹⁸So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.

¹⁹Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

Sweet David…so much like me…hurt…lonely…searching for peace…as he waits in a cave…or maybe it was one of the nights he was watching sheep…or it may have been the night after he lost his son…as he prayed to the father…his prayer asked for God to help him stop depending on man…but to help him call on God’s strength and power to help him.  He wanted to see God’s glory…to see his face shine…to be saved just because God’s radiance could take over when our humanness reaches its limits.

I am thinking as I sit here…trying to figure out how to ‘fix’ my problem that I am making it too hard.  I just need to follow the example of David, Hezekiah, Peter, John and the many other models contained in our bible.  Hezekiah saw a need for prayer. He did not know how to pray either…even recognized that he was not following the rules set down by God through the words given to Moses…but he lifted up his simple prayer of pardon and it was heard…and answered.

¹⁸For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim, and Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, The good LORD pardon every one

¹⁹That prepareth his heart to seek God, the LORD God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary.

²⁰And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.

 

So he just prays…with his whole nation…and lifts up a simple request that would give a covering of pardon from the Lord…that God look at their heart…not the timing of their gift. And God hears his prayer…and healed the people! Just like Moses….intervening for a people who had turned away from the ways of God…Hezekiah sends up a mighty call to God to forgive his people… and our loving God…who wants us to love him more that anything…gives these unpurified people another chance.

Maybe my own prayers are not so weak…even in there simple routine form…they are prayers…prayers that are honest…prayers that are from my heart.  Instead of bashing myself for my weaknesses…I will ask that God stand in the gap for me…and say a few prayers on my behalf.  I will thank him…and rest in his perfectness.  Like David, I will ask to see his glory, to have the radiance of his face shine the light for my feet to make their next steps…and rest in the timing of the Lord.