Life is Hard, but God is Good

As I have gotten older, the realities of life have mixed with my perfect ideals and I've finally come to grips with the fact that life is hard.  This past year I've seen marriages break-up, sickness and death, lives torn apart because of sin or addiction.... and they aren't just newspaper headlines or stories that I've read; they are people that I know.  And it has hit home for me in a whole new way. 

Part of me shakes my head and says, 'I just don't get it.'  Why do we have to suffer like this?  But the other part knows that God didn't promise us a life that is easy and pleasurable and perfect.  He has promised us hardship, sufferings, pain... and that sucks.  But he also promised that he would never leave us or forsake us. When we are in those places of darkness and despair we would rather be anywhere else, and yet, it is in those places that we can experience the kindness and faithfulness of Jesus the most. 

In fact, the pain that I felt when Mike lost his job a year and a half ago paled in comparison to the love that God poured out on me.  Despite feeling torn from the life that I thought we were meant to be living, the community that we loved and the security of a job and our future, I felt love like I had never felt before.  We had walked through some tough times in the past and I had felt like I had just gotten through it; this time I wanted to do well.  I wanted to push into God and trust him even when I didn't know what the future was going to be. 

Looking back I wouldn't trade that time for anything in the world.  I can see through my journal entries that he was there in the midst of my pain.  He even gave me joy at times.  He wasn't afraid of my questions, my doubts, my frustrations.  He didn't mind that I had to be silent for at least a week to try and process things before I could bring myself to talking with him again.  He didn't mind; he just waited patiently until I was ready for him to speak. 

I remember opening up my bible and going right to Psalm 103.  Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.  Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sings and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

It's quite amazing isn't it?  How he can turn things around in our lives...hard things, ugly things, sad things and redeem them for our good and his glory.  We serve a Good God, a very Good God.  Whether we put ourselves in the pit or someone else throws us in, he redeems us from it.  He crowns us with love and compassion...and how else could we have compassion for those in the pit unless we have been there ourselves?

So if you are in that terrible dark night of the soul, this is for you.  Life is hard, but God is good.

Idols of the heart

Our ladies group this past week shared about idols of the heart.  We talked about the idols of this culture and about the personal idols that we have that we put before God.  This is not always a comfortable conversation, especially when we have to face the ugliness of our own hearts.  As we talked and shared and prayed it reminded me of last fall.

After losing our jobs, Mike and I went to a pastor's retreat together.  It was a fabulous week of rest and quiet and healing.  We were able to slow down enough to hear God speak and to make a plan for the future.  I had already been through some counselling prior to that week and had just been back from Haiti where God had done such amazing things in my heart.  So I was feeling pretty good.

We both had done this super LONG personality test before arriving and were going to be given the results of it.  I was ready to go first thinking that I was doing well in the changes I'd made and so didn't think I'd find too much to be surprised about.  Little did I know that I was going to be exposed again to my flaws.  I knew I was hard on myself, but didn't realize how hard until it was revealed to me through my counsellors.  We finished our session and I went upstairs and bawled my eyes out.  Not again!!!  I thought I was getting myself together here and I have so far to go still.

I now realize that I will always have far to go until I meet Jesus face to face.... Anyhow, I decided to go out into the sunshine and spend some time with Jesus.  There he revealed to me his grace and his love for me.  You see in his mercy, he revealed to me the lies that I had been believing about myself.  It wasn't so that he could poke at me and show me how terrible I was.  It was because he came to give me life, and life abundant.  He revealed the lies so I didn't have to keep believing them, so I didn't have to keep living in a box.  He showed me so that I could walk into freedom.

So as I see again some yucky parts of myself coming out, I again look to Jesus who is so faithful to continue the work that he began in me.  He has revealed my heart so that I don't have to continue to live in a way that compromises myself or Him.  What a good God I have.

So as an encouragement to you, if Jesus reveals something that needs work in your life remember that it is only because he loves you.  He wants to see you live a life that is whole and full and completely for Him.  Be encouraged.

"But for you who revere my name, the sun of rightesouness will rise with healing in its wings.  And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall."  Malachi 4:2