Jun 17, 2014

God is Faithful

Bears repeating: God is faithful.

This morning I woke up sad, discouraged, and depressed. The grief started yesterday with the recurring thoughts about why Don and I never had children. Thoughts moved to why I don’t have more books written, and why I’m not speaking anywhere yet. Then they moved back to the recurring, “why don’t we have children?”


Engulfed by grief, and tired of being in this place, I cried out to God for help. He whispered a Bible reference to me: Isaiah 51:3.

The LORD will surely comfort Zion
    and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden,
    her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
    thanksgiving and the sound of singing. 
(Isaiah 51:3, emphasis mine)

To add to this awesome promise, the footnote for this verse includes the following:

God can and often chooses to extend His grace to those who are suffering, even though they may be reaping the result of their own sinful ways.  (NIV Disciples Study Bible, Holman Bible Publishers, p. 878, emphasis mine)

Once again, *I* tried to figure out why God never gave us children…and why I wasn’t writing. And *I* blamed myself. Then *I* tried to make my grief go away. 

In my prideful striving to be more than human, I bought the enemy’s condemnation. I allowed him to steal my joy with his lies that I missed all my chances, and that God was disappointed with me as a result. Instead of confessing sin and asking for mercy, I tried to "fix" everything...including myself.

Lord, forgive me!


Once again, God offered His hand of grace, and I grabbed it. He will bring me out of this. I’m not expected to fix anything…especially myself. I can be thankful for and sing through each day He gives me, even if I’m sobbing with grief.

I realized today that I’ll always have times of grief over never bearing children, and probably over mistakes made and mistakes yet to come. The more I trust and rest in Him, and the more I allow myself to be human, the more heartfelt my grief will be.

And that’s a good thing. It doesn't matter what we've done or where we are. God understands. He comforts. He heals. He restores.

God is faithful.

Always.

TODAY’S CHALLENGE: What wasteland do you need to let God restore? Where are you pridefully striving instead of receiving God’s grace?


2 comments:

  1. Mary, your principles of truth speak hope to my own questions of "why?" Thanks for the reminder that even when we don't know why, we still know Who. And ultimately, knowing Who is enough.

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    Replies
    1. Amen to that! Thank you for your comment, glad you were encouraged.

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