The sky is crying this morning. Some call it rain. I have personally always felt like the water falling from the sky was a representation of a release of some sort. The sky like us all soaks up life all day everyday and then it must release the excess. It must cry and let the unnecessary go.
As humans for some reason we see crying as a weakness, or at least something too vulnerable to do in front of others. It is something I have always struggled with. I am not sure if it is because as a child I was always told to stop crying, or if it is because society in general is not supportive of that level of vulnerability. I can cry alone but I definitely put on a strong face for others.
Would you be surprised to know that I cry everyday? Every morning when I wake up I cry. My body hurts every single day and there is nothing I can do about it. I cry midday when again my body tells me it can go no further and as a mother of 8 I desperately need it to. I cry at night because I know that I must endure this pain and lack of strength for yet another day. I cry in the car after running my people around because again my body and my soul hurt. I cry at the dinner table because I long to lay down and rest, except that I know that rest doesn't necessarily make me stronger.
Do you cry? Do you let yourself cry?
This morning as I have watched the sky cry I have been deep in thought about the people in my life who I know are going through difficult and even tragic things. Do they know they can cry? Do they let themselves cry? Do they know that they can cry to the Lord? Do they know he hears their cries?
Life isn't about not hurting. It isn't about always having this bright positive and popular optimistic outlook. It is often just about enduring and having faith.
It's okay if you don't know where to put your faith. It's okay if you feel like all is lost. It's okay if you feel lost.
Life is really really hard. Social media makes it look easy. People around us who refuse to be honest about their struggles for fear of looking less than perfect make it look easy. It isn't easy though. And for some life is just downright cruel.
Last year in the hardest part of my trial I wondered if God loved me and in my darkest hour I wondered if even if he existed. I could not see him and I could not feel him. It didn't matter what I did or didn't do. There was no peace, there was not relief, just deep and agonizing ache. I had lost my spiritual strength to even reach out through prayer. I felt like I was being suffocated. All was lost and dark, or at least that is what it felt like to me. I felt incredibly and terribly alone. My soul ached to be relieved of what I felt to be the absence of light. There were many who offered up their "cures". They thought they knew how to resolve an ache they had never known. Many think they know God because their lives have been relatively absent of trials and aches, thinking they have done something unique to deserve their relatively easy life, not recognizing that they cannot presume to know how God operates in everyone's lives.
One day, months and months into the loneliness of my soul, I said the most silent of prayers. I am not even sure that I formulated words in my mind. It was my soul that cried out for one last time before I gave up on him.
He answered. And he answered in a way that only I would know that it was He who heard and answered my prayer.
Among the many things I have learned in this trial, I have learned that we must ache to be healed.
Many religious people flatter themselves with their spiritual formulas. If you check the temporal boxes of righteousness then God will be near you and never leave you and you will always feel peace. This is not so. There is no formula. No recipe. No secret to having a trial free life. Some of us are just required to endure more than most. That it does not make sense to others is irrelevant. Only God needs to understand. All that is expected of us is that we cling to our faith. If people in your life cause you to doubt, get rid of them. They are not messengers of truth, they are instead giving way to the influences of the adversary. Surround yourself with those who bring God's light, his encouragement and those who share a testimony of faith.
For those of you who doubt yourselves and whether or not you are worthy of God's love and his answers. YES!!!! You are most certainly worthy of his love.
When I moved back to Utah in 1997 I was a little improved emotionally and spiritually, but not ready to really stand on my own. I ran away from Texas. I ran away from my father stalking me. I ran away from my abusive mother who used my siblings as pawns. I ran away from my past thinking I would find something in Utah. I was still broken though.
I met a guy who filled a vacancy in my heart. He took care of me. He made me laugh. But he was not good for me. I was going to church but I eventually stopped because I couldn't find God in any of the buildings. My soul was not being fed. I spiralled down to a lifestyle that I didn't want but I didn't know how not to have.
As the years would pass on my choices would become worse, I would almost die (quite literally and yet again the Lord would spare me) and that relationship would end. I had no feet to stand on really. I was at that point to so many who felt themselves above me, a lost soul.
God would see things differently, he does see things differently. I was never lost to him. He always knew where I was. It was about timing. Timing that I still don't quite understand but I don't think that really matters.
God's ways are not our ways. It is not up to us to try to understand him, predict him, or think for him.
Just a month after my relationship ended with that young man the Lord placed in my path the man who is now my husband. A young man who had not been scarred by life. A young man who had faith and whose heart was whole spiritually and emotionally. A man whose love and faithful support would be key in me finding my healing through my Savior.
I had just started trying to go to church. I was just starting to come out of my fog. As in, I could I see a faint outline of the Lord's light. Very, very, faint. But I could see it and I was making intentional decisions to walk towards that light.
When I married Ray I know his family and his extended family nearly fainted. We were married civilly and for many in the Mormon culture that might as well be hell.
I wish they could have seen, that they could see, that Ray was my gift from God. He has been my compensation for an absolutely horrible life before him. Our married life has not been all sunshine and rainbows but every hard moment has reinforced us and forged us together that much stronger.
My point in sharing this is to show there is no prerequisite for blessings from heaven other than that 'mustard seed' of faith. By the way have you seen just how small a mustard seed is? Pretty stinkin' small. Seriously, look it up.
By all intents and purposes at that point in my life I did not "deserve" Ray. I will not recall to you the awful decisions I had made, the point here is that the Lord knew my heart. He knows your heart.
He knew that I didn't want what I had, I didn't want to be broken, he knew my limitations, he knew my desires, he knew my brokenness and he blessed me with Ray despite my past because he knew me and what I needed.
Whatever people think as they stand on the outside of our lives judging us because of what we don't do or the boxes we don't check the Lord knows you. He knows us personally. His is the only opinion that matters, and you are precious to him. Just as you are. Imperfect, messy and broken.
If you will recall during the Lord's ministry here on earth, who did he serve? who did he heal? and who refused him? When he healed the man with leprosy he did not require of him to bathe, and then get clean clothes on and then to come to where Jesus was. Our Lord and Savior WENT to him. He WENT to where he was, in all the filth, in all the disgust of disease and the horrible conditions that man was living in, he went there to make him whole. It is not necessary for you or I do something grand or obvious to the temporal worldly eye. He will come to you and I exactly where we are and all he asks is that we have faith in his ability to make us whole.
To you whose heads hang down in sorrow and anguish of soul please know that the Lord will not leave you. You may ache. You may long to relieved. You may even feel like I did last year, that he has indeed left you. He has not left you. He has allowed you to ache, but he has not left you. He loves you. He loves you as if you were the only child he had.
All these things as painful as they are, are necessary in order for us to see his hand and to be healed. I wish that it could be different, but it cannot be. It is necessary for us to know sorrow that we might know complete and eternal joy.
Cry. Cry unto the Lord. Call out to him and let your soul ache and cling to that tiniest particle of faith that the Lord will relieve you, bless you and heal you. Let the Lord hold your aching heart, trust his timing, trust his ways.
"Peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" John 14:27
"Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1
Go. Fight. Win.
As humans for some reason we see crying as a weakness, or at least something too vulnerable to do in front of others. It is something I have always struggled with. I am not sure if it is because as a child I was always told to stop crying, or if it is because society in general is not supportive of that level of vulnerability. I can cry alone but I definitely put on a strong face for others.
Would you be surprised to know that I cry everyday? Every morning when I wake up I cry. My body hurts every single day and there is nothing I can do about it. I cry midday when again my body tells me it can go no further and as a mother of 8 I desperately need it to. I cry at night because I know that I must endure this pain and lack of strength for yet another day. I cry in the car after running my people around because again my body and my soul hurt. I cry at the dinner table because I long to lay down and rest, except that I know that rest doesn't necessarily make me stronger.
Do you cry? Do you let yourself cry?
This morning as I have watched the sky cry I have been deep in thought about the people in my life who I know are going through difficult and even tragic things. Do they know they can cry? Do they let themselves cry? Do they know that they can cry to the Lord? Do they know he hears their cries?
Life isn't about not hurting. It isn't about always having this bright positive and popular optimistic outlook. It is often just about enduring and having faith.
It's okay if you don't know where to put your faith. It's okay if you feel like all is lost. It's okay if you feel lost.
Life is really really hard. Social media makes it look easy. People around us who refuse to be honest about their struggles for fear of looking less than perfect make it look easy. It isn't easy though. And for some life is just downright cruel.
Last year in the hardest part of my trial I wondered if God loved me and in my darkest hour I wondered if even if he existed. I could not see him and I could not feel him. It didn't matter what I did or didn't do. There was no peace, there was not relief, just deep and agonizing ache. I had lost my spiritual strength to even reach out through prayer. I felt like I was being suffocated. All was lost and dark, or at least that is what it felt like to me. I felt incredibly and terribly alone. My soul ached to be relieved of what I felt to be the absence of light. There were many who offered up their "cures". They thought they knew how to resolve an ache they had never known. Many think they know God because their lives have been relatively absent of trials and aches, thinking they have done something unique to deserve their relatively easy life, not recognizing that they cannot presume to know how God operates in everyone's lives.
One day, months and months into the loneliness of my soul, I said the most silent of prayers. I am not even sure that I formulated words in my mind. It was my soul that cried out for one last time before I gave up on him.
He answered. And he answered in a way that only I would know that it was He who heard and answered my prayer.
Among the many things I have learned in this trial, I have learned that we must ache to be healed.
Many religious people flatter themselves with their spiritual formulas. If you check the temporal boxes of righteousness then God will be near you and never leave you and you will always feel peace. This is not so. There is no formula. No recipe. No secret to having a trial free life. Some of us are just required to endure more than most. That it does not make sense to others is irrelevant. Only God needs to understand. All that is expected of us is that we cling to our faith. If people in your life cause you to doubt, get rid of them. They are not messengers of truth, they are instead giving way to the influences of the adversary. Surround yourself with those who bring God's light, his encouragement and those who share a testimony of faith.
For those of you who doubt yourselves and whether or not you are worthy of God's love and his answers. YES!!!! You are most certainly worthy of his love.
When I moved back to Utah in 1997 I was a little improved emotionally and spiritually, but not ready to really stand on my own. I ran away from Texas. I ran away from my father stalking me. I ran away from my abusive mother who used my siblings as pawns. I ran away from my past thinking I would find something in Utah. I was still broken though.
I met a guy who filled a vacancy in my heart. He took care of me. He made me laugh. But he was not good for me. I was going to church but I eventually stopped because I couldn't find God in any of the buildings. My soul was not being fed. I spiralled down to a lifestyle that I didn't want but I didn't know how not to have.
As the years would pass on my choices would become worse, I would almost die (quite literally and yet again the Lord would spare me) and that relationship would end. I had no feet to stand on really. I was at that point to so many who felt themselves above me, a lost soul.
God would see things differently, he does see things differently. I was never lost to him. He always knew where I was. It was about timing. Timing that I still don't quite understand but I don't think that really matters.
God's ways are not our ways. It is not up to us to try to understand him, predict him, or think for him.
Just a month after my relationship ended with that young man the Lord placed in my path the man who is now my husband. A young man who had not been scarred by life. A young man who had faith and whose heart was whole spiritually and emotionally. A man whose love and faithful support would be key in me finding my healing through my Savior.
I had just started trying to go to church. I was just starting to come out of my fog. As in, I could I see a faint outline of the Lord's light. Very, very, faint. But I could see it and I was making intentional decisions to walk towards that light.
When I married Ray I know his family and his extended family nearly fainted. We were married civilly and for many in the Mormon culture that might as well be hell.
I wish they could have seen, that they could see, that Ray was my gift from God. He has been my compensation for an absolutely horrible life before him. Our married life has not been all sunshine and rainbows but every hard moment has reinforced us and forged us together that much stronger.
My point in sharing this is to show there is no prerequisite for blessings from heaven other than that 'mustard seed' of faith. By the way have you seen just how small a mustard seed is? Pretty stinkin' small. Seriously, look it up.
By all intents and purposes at that point in my life I did not "deserve" Ray. I will not recall to you the awful decisions I had made, the point here is that the Lord knew my heart. He knows your heart.
He knew that I didn't want what I had, I didn't want to be broken, he knew my limitations, he knew my desires, he knew my brokenness and he blessed me with Ray despite my past because he knew me and what I needed.
Whatever people think as they stand on the outside of our lives judging us because of what we don't do or the boxes we don't check the Lord knows you. He knows us personally. His is the only opinion that matters, and you are precious to him. Just as you are. Imperfect, messy and broken.
If you will recall during the Lord's ministry here on earth, who did he serve? who did he heal? and who refused him? When he healed the man with leprosy he did not require of him to bathe, and then get clean clothes on and then to come to where Jesus was. Our Lord and Savior WENT to him. He WENT to where he was, in all the filth, in all the disgust of disease and the horrible conditions that man was living in, he went there to make him whole. It is not necessary for you or I do something grand or obvious to the temporal worldly eye. He will come to you and I exactly where we are and all he asks is that we have faith in his ability to make us whole.
To you whose heads hang down in sorrow and anguish of soul please know that the Lord will not leave you. You may ache. You may long to relieved. You may even feel like I did last year, that he has indeed left you. He has not left you. He has allowed you to ache, but he has not left you. He loves you. He loves you as if you were the only child he had.
All these things as painful as they are, are necessary in order for us to see his hand and to be healed. I wish that it could be different, but it cannot be. It is necessary for us to know sorrow that we might know complete and eternal joy.
Cry. Cry unto the Lord. Call out to him and let your soul ache and cling to that tiniest particle of faith that the Lord will relieve you, bless you and heal you. Let the Lord hold your aching heart, trust his timing, trust his ways.
"Peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" John 14:27
"Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1
Go. Fight. Win.
Comments
Post a Comment