This Side of the Rainbow

This is actually a post that a friend posted on her blog.
I was just going to post a link to her blog, but wasn't sure if people who weren't friends with her could read it. I repost it because I felt myself here when i read this. Ben and i gathered with some friends the other night for a time of worship and prayer and my request to them was that I needed God in a miraculous way. My spirit has grown weary...and I continue to press, I continue to worship, but I'm so weary. The enemy has saught to use the death of lisa to introduce crisis after crisis in our lives...i recognize these as him, but i have to admit, 14 months of it later, and i'm really tired, waiting for what it will be next. I DO continue to trust him to move miraculously in my life and to be the lifter of my head....Sarah wrote so beautifully....

There's a line from a Christmas song that keeps rolling around in my head this year. It's tucked into "O Holy Night". You'll recognize it, I'm sure.

. . . the weary world rejoices . . .

Some days I'm just overcome with the weariness of this world. The weight of sadness that so many experience daily. That I experience daily.

And yet, I rejoice. Why? Because God is teaching me so many things as I work through my grief. Because He is good and has blessed me far beyond what I deserve. Because He is using me in spite of my very elementary understanding of Him.

Job stood up and tore his robe in grief.

Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground before God.

Job 1:20

I studied this verse this morning. Job lost everything, all at the same time. His wealth, his family, his health. And yet, in his grief, he worshiped.

"Is it realistic to think that you and I can worship God, not after we've figured it all out, but as our initial reaction to loss in our lives? Job shows us it is. Worshiping God does not require that we understand or approve of what God has allowed into our lives; it simply requires a heart that desires to trust God and a will that is bent toward obedience to God regardless of our feelings. We worship God because he is worthy, not because we necessarily feel like it. And as we worship in the midst of our pain, we are able to gain perspective on that pain. This is a costly worship-- which makes it all the more worthwhile and precious to God." -- Nancy Guthrie from her book Hope, p. 34 (bold mine)

This Christmas I am weary. I don't understand the path that my life is taking. But I do trust Him. Even though I don't understand and even though it takes every fiber in my being to reach out to God in my pain, I will worship. I will rejoice. I will sing.

Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.

1 Peter 4:1-2