As many of you now know, God has led me through this beautiful journey of healing, and if I can be completely honest with you, it hasn’t looked at all the way I thought it would. There were more moments of despair, feeling overwhelmed, crying out to God in prayer, and being stuck in this confused state of mind than I had thought there would be… BUT!
He never once left me!
I don’t know where you are right now or what you are going through. Maybe you are ‘really’ doing well, and maybe life is very sweet right now… and that’s great! But I’m sure that for a lot of us, life can often bring about ‘fears’ that randomly spring up. Perhaps it’s the fear of the future, the uncertainty of current circumstances, or simply knowing something is holding us back, and we can’t pinpoint it.
I understand the struggle, sister! It’s hard when there are so many unknowns… so many things that require more patience, more waiting, more ‘being still’ before the Lord than we would often like to admit.
My friend, if there is one thing that this last season has taught me is that sometimes the pain of waiting, trusting, and pausing is the very thing that God is using in our lives to teach us dependency on Him. Don’t lose heart! He is with You.
Psalm 139: 1-18
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”
Even when we don’t see it, He is there … Ever present… ever constant.
I think God brings us to times in our lives so that we reach the end of ourselves, learning that we don’t actually hold as much control as we thought we did. In reality, we don’t have any control. At the end of the day, all of this will fade away, but Jesus will remain. It reminds me of that verse in Isaiah 40:8 that says,
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
It’s a reminder that through it all, even though everything will pass away, His WORD won’t… He won’t.
We were never called to outrun God.
If I’m honest, I think I have often found myself in this state of running out before God… And whether I thought about it at the time or not, it really is just showing that I think I can ‘help’ God. I’ve said yes in more ways than I ought to in a season, I’ve tried to catch everyone around me so that they don’t fall, I’ve been everything to everyone, even when all I needed was to sit at the Father’s feet and pray.
All He desires is us. He wants your heart. He wants you to come to Him with everything that you have. “He restores our souls” (Psalm 23:3b), and He still heals.
I can say now that it didn’t happen in one ‘instant’ moment. I wasn’t miraculously a different person from one day to the next, but there is a deeper freedom, a deeper peace, a deeper joy knowing that I am not the same as I was a year ago. Now I know that trusting God often looks like:
Releasing my control over a circumstance or a situation to God, which ultimately brings so much rest and healing to my bones.
Psalm 139: 23-24
“Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!”
Don’t lose heart… if running to anything, run to Him. It might not always be easy, but it’s worth it.
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