Okay, I'm opening a bit of my heart to you peeps.
My dream job is to write a column or some sort of blurp on a weekly or bi-monthly basis for a Christian magazine or website. Because I want to stay home when this baby comes, I've been praying a little harder for God to make this a reality sooner than later! If you all have any advise or connections, EMAIL ME!
So, I was reading in Job.....
Job - Blameless,
upright, feared God, turned away from evil
Had 7 sons,
3 daughters
Owned 7000
sheep, 3000 camels, 500 oxen, 500 female donkeys, and lots of servants.
Greatest of
all the people of his area
Job was
living the life. He was a good man and had it going for him. Then, God allowed
Satan to kill all of Job’s children, destroy all of his animals & material
things, and inflict sores all over his body.
And yet, Job
declared in Job 1:21 “The Lord gave, and
the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. And Job 1:22 says “In
all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”
What a man.
He lost everything. He lost his 10 children; his wife wasn’t on his side, she
was telling him to curse God and die. His friends weren’t supportive either. He
lost all of his material wealth. He had nothing.
The things
that make it hard to declare Job 1:21 are far less severe than the things that
happened to Job. They’re things like not getting what I desire in my timeframe.
But God
allows bad things to happen to blameless, upright, God-fearing people. And nothing happens to us, good or bad, that hasn’t
passed through the hand of God before coming our way. That is hard to swallow when things happen
that hurt and aren’t fair.
The things
that come to my mind are things like miscarried babies that mamas and daddies
never got to hold or meet. Family
members killed innocently by drunk drivers.
Healthy people who are diagnosed with cancer or other diseases. Soldiers
who get wounded in battle and never function the same because of it.
My struggle
seems silly after thinking about all the people who fall into the categories
above, but nonetheless, my struggle of God keeping me here in WA has been something
that I’ve learned the “I’ll bless your name whether you give or take away”
lesson through.
One Sunday
Night Zach went to serve @ our Youth Group like we usually did and I stayed
home because I was having a hard, hard day. It was Father’s day actually. And
it had been pouring rain and grey for who knows how long. Not a good mix.
I spent that
evening alone, kneeling and laying on our living room floor, crying, out to the
God who I was mad at for allowing me to go through this pain and struggle of
living so far away from where I’ve wanted to live basically since I moved here.
By the time I felt like I had sobbed enough, there was a circle of tissues allll
around me. I poured out my breaking heart to him for those hours, asking for
comfort, asking for HIS perspective, asking what he was doing in me through
this.
He didn’t tell me WHY, but he reminded me of who he was. He
reminded me that he is enough for me. He reminded me that He is my comfort and
refuge. He reminded me to run to him. He reminded me that times like this
evening please him, when I come to him broken and hurting and empty. Because he’s
the one who can fill me up to overflowing even in the hard times.
He told me that
through my season of time in Washington, he was giving me hard, personal,
proved evidence that he was who he said he was. And through this season of time
in Washington my faith was going from theoretical to real. Because I was
uncomfortable, I had to cling to him. He showed me who I really was in my 1st
couple of years here and he’s been growing my faith and “I’ll bless you no
matter what” muscle in these past couple of years. Whether we ever live near family again, I
will choose to bless your name God. Whether we ever live in the sunshine, I
will choose to bless your name God.
And I pray today for those who have more severe and
heartbreaking declarations to make, that God would give you the grace and supernatural
comfort to believe that He works all things together for the good of those who
love him and that God never wastes any pain. He’s doing a work in us all. He’s
giving a testimony to us all. What’s yours?
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