This
morning I woke up, earlier then normal, before the sun, before kids, when the
world is still quiet and the air still cool. I found that at this time, in the
stillness my mind wanders, it travels paths I don’t usually allow it to, and I
don’t block it, there’s no kids crying, there’s no one needing breakfast, and so
I am free to follow the stream of my thoughts. It is in these moments where
faith and trust can waiver, can seem a little shaky. This morning I found
myself asking, where are you God? Where are you in the hurts and the cries of
this world. Where are you when the mother is screaming, when the widow is crying,
when the orphan is reeling?
Truthfully,
It started last night, overwhelmed by
the news of another Amber Alert in the states,
I couldn’t help ponder life, waiting for
sleep to come, wondering how it is that I pray for sleep, milking to go well,
the details of the day, and somewhere there’s a dad, he’s crying out, for the one he has left in the world, crying for the return
of his little girl, begging a friend, a man he trusted, to return her, asking for his mercy as he
mourns the loss of his wife and son, daring to hold onto hope that the one he
has left will come home safe.
How
does this fit? How do I get to kiss my kids goodnight, lose my patience over
spilled milk, hustle them through life, and mothers all over the world are in agony,
they rise during the night, their hearts pouring out like water begging for
mercy, asking God to step in, to heal, to return, to save (Lamentations 2:10).
How does one comprehend how God’s plan is good in these moments, how do you
feel him near? How do you not stand, throw your fists to the ski and cry out,
where are you God?
I walk through these moments, trying to process these
sorrows and continue to argue and fight with God about how things could be
different, how if these miracles could happen, that this girl could be
returned, or life restored to the mother’s child, that his glory would be
proclaimed, that the world would have to open their eyes and see, that people
could no longer deny the intervention of a Holy God. I plead that he do it my
way, that he answer the prayers of the broken, and I know his answer. I feel it
come over me, the familiar whisper, TRUST.
Peace
does not come in understanding, it’s been the mantra running through my heart,
through my soul, my thoughts these last two years. I have felt it, I have read
it, I have had godly people say it to me, and yet I fight it. I keep telling
God I need understanding, and he keeps bringing me back to the fact that peace
is in trusting Him, it’s not found in understanding His plans, the world, not
in the answers to the why God? Why her? Why me? Why so much pain? Peace comes
in trusting “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord
their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with
roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat
or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never
stop producing fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7,8. And there, in the reading, He gets me, He has put in his book, just for me, the perfect words for me to read, in these
moments. It is through nature, I best
understand, feel, and recognize him. When I look at creation, and His word
picture, it fits me, I long to be that tree on the riverbank. Perhaps that is
why I love where I live so much, the visual reminder of what it looks like to
be a tree with roots deep into the soil on the banks of the river. To be well
watered, to see the fruit produced, in spite of the hard seasons.
And so I sit,
for the moment feeling the need to be content to trust, to stop fighting to
understand and to instead just rest in his overwhelming presence. In this I
choose to believe that he is not the indifferent uninvolved God that I am
painting in my mind, I won’t believe these lies or allow them to hold me
captive in my grief. That when the psalmist says, “You keep track of all my
sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each
one in your book,” (Psalm 56:8) it shows that His heart breaks with mine, and
all those who are broken and hurting. That He loves, and loves eternally (regardless of how those of us who follow Him fail to live it, how we may distort words, instead of showing the world the only love that completes, but His love never fails), that He feels each wound and scar we feel, that He is involved, and He is moving,
working to bring the ultimate peace…and I read on, and again He speaks to me…”Tears
of joy will stream down their faces, and I will lead them home with great care.
They will walk beside quiet streams and on smooth paths where they will not
stumble. Their life will be like a watered garden and their sorrows will be
gone. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange
their sorrow for rejoicing.” Jeremiah 31:9, 12b, 13b.
And finally, I
find peace in this, that there will be a day, that for now my questions will be
unanswered, and there will be pain and mother’s (and father’s) that bury
children, spouses who become widow’s too young, and sons and daughters
orphaned, that I will not understand but that there will be a day with no more
sorrows that “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no
more death or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has
passed away.” Revelations 21:4
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