For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
(Pslam 62:1-2)
This year has been the best of times and the
worst of times! From struggling through
the months of my husband’s long hospital stay and recovery, to rejoicing over
the miraculous answer of many years of prayer for the salvation of a loved one,
it’s been a most memorable year.
It has been the most stressful year I can
remember, the effects of which are still going on. I wake up with headaches from clenching my
jaws while I sleep, I have strange, stressful dreams most nights, I feel
disconnected from God in a way that I can’t seem to resolve; yet, on the other
hand, I see God at work in my prayer ministry in wonderful and powerful ways. I know he hasn’t abandoned me but is, in
fact, closer than ever. I feel like I’m living in a world of extremes, of
good vs. bad, of nearness vs. distance, of stress vs. peace, which all add to my
stress level.
But in the midst of all
this, in the deepest part of me, I can echo the words of the psalmist: For God
alone my soul waits in silence. I
feel a strong and profound sense of waiting;
waiting for God to finish this work he’s doing in me, to open my eyes to see
what I can’t see yet. I have a sense of
my life moving in a direction that is yet to be revealed, as if I’m living in a
time of transition, a life-changing period.
Do I need to tell you that this is stressful, too? I try to bring myself back to what I know to be true and what I cling
to through all of this: he alone is my rock and my salvation, my
fortress. I shall never be shaken.
The psalm says I shall never be shaken. I get that, I know this is truth; yet this year has been a year of great
shaking, a great deal of transition, change, new direction and
uncertainty. I trust God in the midst of
all this because I know he is the one doing the shaking and that he is working
in all these things for my good and the good of so many others. It’s just hard to walk through all of this
when my life feels so unsettled and “not like it used to be”. I think that’s the answer: God has, once again, moved me out of my
comfort zone. Or, IS moving me and I
resist it every time.
Looking back on my struggles during the long
days of my husband’s hospitalization, I was praying about my feelings. I was so angry. I didn’t understand where that anger was
coming from, thinking I could handle life’s hardships a bit better than that.
It felt like I was being besieged, attacked from every direction, and I was
losing the battle. The Lord led me to understand that my anger was directed at
him, that I was rebelling against his corrections in my life. That’s a rather sobering realization but I’m trying to pay attention to what the Lord
is revealing, those things that he wants me to lay aside that aren’t
worth my time and attention or that get ahead of my relationship and time in
his presence.
It’s that shaking up, or pruning, that is part
of our transformation. It’s hard, it’s
sometimes painful and like children being corrected by their loving parents, we
resist it. As disciples of Jesus it’s
not about our childish cries of "What about me?!" as much as it's about counting the cost, taking up our
cross daily and following our Lord
wherever he leads and down whichever path he chooses. Even though that path may be difficult, the
truth and the reality is that we are not walking that path on our own or in our
own power. We have his promise that he
will never leave us or forsake us. We have his comfort and reassurance that we
don’t need to be afraid; he is the I AM, our Salvation, our Rock, our Fortress. Nothing or no one has the
power to snatch us from the hand of our all-powerful, all-loving, Almighty
Father.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. (Psalm 62:8)
