Take these ocean tears
Hold me through the trial
Come like hope again
---Even When It Hurts---
|Hillsong United|
These lofty ideals that you hold…it’s not that they are impossible. It’s that they require work. It’s not that they are beyond your reach. It’s that they require a process. And the process is arduous, long. It requires you to focus on today; not years from now, and certainly not on what could have been. Different decisions would have brought different outcomes, yes; but there’d still be a process there too.
I know it’s hard. I know it feels incredibly unfair. I know you wish for a different hand. I know you pray, Why me? You strive to remain focused, guarding your mind from the serpentine spirit that whispers, “What if.” I know you had different hopes, but when people say “trust God” it’s in this moment that it means something. It means more when you can’t finesse yourself out of it. When you’ve submitted yourself to him but you would rather go a different way. When you can’t understand, and everything in you wants to pull away.
It hurts, I know. And it’s a different kind of hurt, one you can’t touch or explain. It’s deeply imbedded; you feel it beyond your physical body, but shallow enough to almost touch it. You feel it in your throat, shooting through your arms, legs; it creates a whirlwind of anxiety in your stomach and proliferates that sensation to the rest of your body.
It hurts, I know. And it’s a different kind of hurt, one you can’t touch or explain. It’s deeply imbedded; you feel it beyond your physical body, but shallow enough to almost touch it. You feel it in your throat, shooting through your arms, legs; it creates a whirlwind of anxiety in your stomach and proliferates that sensation to the rest of your body.
You want this, but not like this. But trust God. Even if it’s less than what you wanted, expected, prayed for; trust Him. If it comes as a thousand broken pieces, and you expected it whole, trust that he has given you the ability to mend. And also watch him mend; do not take on what is not yours.
Even as it delays and you can’t endure one more hour. Trust God for one more day. One more day to believe. Hannah endured 20 years…20 years of heartbreak, but still trusting. Heart ache, but still trusting. Humiliation but still trusting. The contempt and ridicule of her adversary, but still trusted.
I know that you are not Hannah. And that you don’t have 20 years to give this. When a heart is deeply laden with sorrow, lamenting that which it has lost, or perceived to be have lost, who can comfort it? Hope deferred makes the heart sick; yes, your heart is failing and you are sliding into despondency. And you are fearful that this is as good as it gets.
But trust God. Even as it hurts like hell, trust Him. Even as disappointment props a chair and sits smirking at you, trust Him. You are growing through this. Let the machinations of life, His direction and prayer guide you through this tumultuous period. Don’t give up on yourself. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you have the capacity to withstand this tumult. You can handle it.
I know you don’t want it, but it’s entrusted in your hands to conquer and to overcome. You are a conqueror and an overcomer.
It doesn’t make sense, but trust God.
It has never made sense, but trust God.
It may never make sense, but trust God.
*
It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed ..therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging |Deut31:8/Psalm 46:1-3|.
*
*SoulTea*
pic via @worldtoafrica
pic via @worldtoafrica
