It is hard to describe what our journey has been like so far. Sometimes we just feel numb. Sometimes I have wondered if there is some profound lesson to be learned here, and I am just not getting it. Okay, I confess it. I have yet to reach a higher spiritual plain through this journey. More often, we have retreated into a "fetal position" as the storm raged. I found myself feeling a little guilty over that posture.
But at our recent dinner with the Clark's, Karen encouraged us to be okay with such a response. She reminded me that HE sees us as we are, in all our frailty. At such times HE is more than willing to carry us along.
So maybe suffering is not a like a gymnasium for achieving more spiritual muscle. Maybe suffering is a rapids we ride out as HIS love carries us through the turbulent waters. Anyway, I recently claimed Psalm 32:7
You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
What should you do when you are surrounded? Fight it out? No, surrender. Encircled by HIS love, I submit to HIS care...Some day... Soon.... Deliverance will come.
2 comments:
I remember Dan asking (maybe ten years ago?), "Come on, how much more does Joni have to learn?" in a discussion of suffering to "teach us something".
I remember also something more dreadful, however (not from Dan): "God will gladly sacrifice your happiness for your holiness; more than that, He will sacrifice your happiness for someone else's holiness."
It may not be the question of how much more you have to learn: it may be how much I (or the others around you) have to learn from you. We are watching, listening, and learning: maybe not fast enough, but, then, with lives as attractive as yours, there are always more coming close to see how you do it, and Who you do it with. (Yes, I know that should be "Whom", but I yield to the weight of the culture.)
Love, and all blessings,
ron
thank you both, dad and ron, for your great words of wisdom and for once again points us to the cross!
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