06/18/2024
I was talking with a friend yesterday who was having a really hard day and we inevitably got to "why suffering? Why is this so hard? Why can't I feel any relief?"
Time and time again, the deepest parts of me have asked this question from anger, from anxiousness, from hopelessness, but not until the last few months have I learned the gift of asking God about suffering from a place willing to listen.
Have you ever thought about the fact that God holds ALL your tears, public and private in a bottle — safe, seen, held, remembered. Sometimes, that's all I want or need when I am lonely and sad. To have my pain be seen. And yet, when we depend on this need from mortal relationships, it often gets all muddled up.
We could never expect to be a perfect friend, but God IS the perfect model for this — the perfect comforter, the perfect eye to see our pain, and to actually PUT IT to work in beautiful, glorious ways.
Oh my goodness, friend! If you could see how my own feelings of loneliness in the last week or so has been USED in such crazy ways for others to feel comfort, and love and strength. Then, in turn...my own comfort knowing that there is no such thing as useless pain or grief to God — that is comfort. This is where joy in the midst of sorrow lives. This is where peace in the midst of pain can make a home.
"Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt;
Fightings within, and fears without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!"
Charlotte Elliott wrote this hymn "just as I am," she was seriously disabled and struggled with loneliness and depression, feeling useless and limited. And yet, God went on to use her writing and literary skill to mark history with some of the most well known and comforting hymns, just like this one.
It can be easy my friend, to be convinced that God cannot or will not use the areas you feel lacking, weak, inadequate in...and the truth is, that's our own pride — the need to do it independently. Rest in Him and watch His purpose be magnified in your weakness.
