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.

Day 24 Trust

Day 24          Trust

 

I am fascinated by birds. They capture my heart as no other animal. I believe that God sent me a sweet Carolina Wren to teach me an important lesson about trust. She built her nest in a plant just outside the window where I watch the news each morning. I noticed her diligently bringing the materials to line her nest, and wondered if she had picked a good location.  Three eggs were laid in this carefully built nest, completely exposed to the harsh elements like rain, close enough to the ground where the cats outside could make a tasty meal. Oh how I worried about that sweet bird…jumping to the window to see what she was doing at the slightest sound.

I was watching her this morning, coffee in hand, and it dawned on me. She has no worries! She built her nest, laid her eggs, and sits patently day after day for the eggs to hatch. She leaves the nest to eat, she sometimes brings new debris like hair and moss to freshly line the bottom, and she chirps her satisfaction at her amazing feat…and gently settles in to protect her eggs…even in the midst of the horrible thunder storm outside as I write.

As I watched her confidently guard her nest this morning I was reminded of the verse in Matthew where he takes care of the birds, and how I should be trusting him more to carry me through this difficult time. Matthew 6: 25- 34 give us these carefully penned words to tell where our trust should be.

²⁵Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

   ²⁶Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

   ²⁷Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

   ²⁸And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

   ²⁹And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

   ³⁰Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

   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.

 

David, a man who knew much pain, knew this kind of trust. He saw death, war, destruction of lives from bad relationships, and distress of all kinds. He wrote this important Psalm in the midst of his own pain. He speaks of the importance of trusting God to deliver us from all our sorrows. This concept of trust is so important to David that he uses this word ‘trust’ over 71 times in the many books of Psalms.

Psalm 18

   ¹I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.

   ²The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

   ³I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

   ⁴The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

   ⁵The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

   ⁶In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

   ⁷Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.

   ⁸There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.

   ⁹He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.

   ¹⁰And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

   ¹¹He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

   ¹²At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.

   ¹³The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.

   ¹⁴Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.

   ¹⁵Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

   ¹⁶He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.

   ¹⁷He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.

   ¹⁸They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.

   ¹⁹He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

So many verses in the bible contain the word trust, or the phrase ‘trust the Lord’…Ruth, Job, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah….important books of the Old Testament…all use this word trust.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, and John…all use this important word trust in many of the writings of the New Testament as well.

If God deemed this word so important, then why can’t I learn this important lesson? Well, one reason is that trust requires confidence! Those of us who have suffered the loss of a loved one have a hard time building this again. My world crashed suddenly around me…and I had just begun to trust again after the divorce…how could I possibly learn to trust again?

The answer is found is those same scriptures…call upon the name of the Lord…because…he delivered me…he delighted in me… he knoweth my needs…he cares for me much more than he does for my sweet wren. And not one moment is gained by worrying…I need to be more like my bird friend.  Everything I need is out there…waiting for me to collect it, and gently place it in my nest. There will I lay the tasks he has given me, and wait patiently, resting  till the day they hatch out and he requires a new work from me.  I just have to call out to him…to ask where to go next…and wait for him to answer.

Day 23 Testify

Day        23   Testify

 

One day, as I began to grow in strength and receive God’s power to move forward in my life, God gave me a desire to share what he had done for me. The thankfulness for his many blessings and the greatfulness that he had never left my side overflowed from my very soul as he gives me opportunities to tell about the amazing God who has carried me through this horrible storm. This desire to share even strengthened me as nothing had before.

Sharing my testimony strengthened my faith in amazing ways. It has helped me affirm the faith he used to carry me, it has deepened my understanding of worship, and it has even given me new courage to speak in large crowds.  It must have been this feeling that David spoke of in Psalms 19: 1-2, as his praise to the Lord overflowed from his very soul.  His heartfelt cry of praise to the Lord should be a model for all of us who have the chance to speak to anyone of God’s mercy and love.

1God's voice is always speaking. His witnesses give testimony to his glory, majesty and creative grace.

2The universe shouts with joy because behind it's intricate beauty and power is the One who gave it life, purpose, and intention.

My faith is evolving daily. As I study his word…especially when I am asked to share…scriptures are revealed to me that help me loosen the grip my grief has to sadden me. Eventually I want to be like the centurion who requested a healing for his servant in Matthew 8:1-10, or the woman who suffered a blood issue in Mark 5:25-34. These two people…just a small fraction of the whole…who had faith that God could do anything they believed provide inspiration to me as I read.

Matthew 8

   ¹When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

   ²And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

   ³And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

   ⁴And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

   ⁵And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,

   ⁶And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

   ⁷And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

   ⁸The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

   ⁹For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

   ¹⁰When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

 

Mark 5

²⁵And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

   ²⁶And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

   ²⁷When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

   ²⁸For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

   ²⁹And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

   ³⁰And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

   ³¹And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

   ³²And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

   ³³But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

   ³⁴And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

Testifying gives you a reason to worship. In praising God for the blessings he has given, and the trials he has brought you through, your very understanding of worship is transformed from a passive quiet thankfulness…to a bold dynamic demonstration of his goodness.  Like the people in 2 Chronicles 29:28… all the congregation worshipped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished…I can lift my voice in song, and shout to everyone the great things he has done for me.

 

As my faith in God matures, he is even teaching this old dog new skills. He is taking my talents of teaching children and cultivating it into an ability to speak with adults. He is showing me how to transform the thoughts from his scriptures into insights on a piece of paper. He is refining my understanding of how many ways he can use me to do his work.