Saturday, July 18, 2015

When suffering is long

I can't tell you what it's like to care for your daughter 24/7 for sixteen plus years - day in and day out of suffering.
It's gut wrenching, painful.....
You try to run,
                     hide, 
                          turn your head, 
                                 pretend it isn't.
You try to pray it all away........
    and yet God doesn't answer in the way you want.......
                  you so desperately desire.  

So you have two choices, two options.....

1.   To run, run away
       turn your face away from God,  just like we were when we were born into this world....
            faces away and clutched fists

Or

2. You face the pain head on into the arms of a loving God who does redeem, saves and heals.............
But not always to our liking - which forces you to press in even more because it feels as if your very breath will be taken away in the pain and yet........
        He faithfully , Jesus faithfully gives you the next breath and the next breath and the next. In the taking of breathes you realize in this hard and broken world that even your very breath is a gift........
  a gift from Him, the One who creates.....and restores.  
You realize that on the day when all your days are done, are over, and you take your very last breath, once again He faithfully, Jesus faithfully will bring you from death to life.  Life in His very presence, into everlasting joy, where every tear is wiped away and everything is restored.  Peace and rest are finally realized.

It's a breaking of our will to walk this road.  A "not my will, but Yours, be done." (Luke 23:42)
It's His kindness, His mercy, His grace that makes all this possible.  
He is good.....even in pain and suffering.
He is good, He restores, He heals even though sometimes it doesn't look the way we want it to look and the road is long.
His mercy leads to repentance 
      Which leads to life 
                                  new life.