Category Archives: Suffering

Broken

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I always find it so interesting that we are broken and living in a broken world, yet there is still so much more within us that must be broken in order draw closer to God.

He wants to break us slowly, like a mighty cliff that is gradually broken down by the ocean into individual grains of sand, but so often He comes across our resistance and it is then that a great rock from our cliff will come crashing down all at once and oh how it hurts.

Oh Lord, please remove our resistance so that we might all one day flow within your great ocean.

Thy Will Be Done, Oh Lord!

High on a hill

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I saw a man high on a hill.  As I climbed the hill trying to reach him, the terrain became steep.  I called out to him asking for help.  He didn’t move and I realized he could not hear.  I waved my arms trying to get his attention and then realized he could not see.

Oh the irony and the great sorrow, that I have ears to hear and eyes to see my endless failures and flaws that keep me from ever reaching that beautiful summit, and his ears do not hear and his eyes do not see to let him realize that he has reached that beautiful summit.

Oh my sweet Lord, the thought of this is frightening and painful… please open our eyes to see and our ears to hear.

Sitting in limbo

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Sometimes I feel as if our sweet Lord is letting me sit in a state of limbo because I refuse to fully accept His will.  He gives me opportunities to prove my trust and faith in Him, and I fail time and time again as I stress, obsess and can’t sleep at night over little situations in my life.

He could really shake things up for me by ripping everything I grasp so tightly away, but instead of feeling His temper flare I feel His love as He again gently gives me another chance to prove my trust and faith in Him.

Please my Lord, deepen my faith and trust in You, turn me towards prayer instead of stress and obsession, and continue to gently guide me out of limbo towards an eternal union with You!

Missing You…

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My friends, I am not sure why but I have been distracted lately.  Jesus hasn’t been at the forefront of my thoughts, instead I have been busy, running around, and missing Him.  We took a yoga class together last night, and usually when He joins me He is helping me through, but last night in my imagination He was sitting there watching me (smiling, but still just watching).  For some reason I have put Him aside instead of welcoming Him in?

As I miss Him, I am thankful for my previous posts that remind me that He is still here watching and waiting for me to call to Him again.

Please pray for me my friends, as you bask in His loving presence, that the veil covering me will be removed yet again, my eyes will be cleansed yet again, and again I will see only Him everywhere and in everyone!

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done!

In a flash…

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I know Christmas is coming and we are preparing to celebrate His birth, but over the last few weeks all of my thoughts have been of Him in the garden of Gethsemane, suffering in agony to the point of sweating blood.

What was flashing through His mind in those moments?  What could cause such great emotional pain that it transferred into physically sweating blood?

Maybe as He knelt there praying He had a moment of life flashing before His eyes.   Instead of seeing His own life, He saw all of our lives flash before His eyes as His life.  As He lived each of our lives in His mind, He saw every sin each of us has ever committed, but instead of seeing us He saw Himself committing these grievous, selfish, terrible acts.

He Himself bore our sins… – Peter 2:24

Thank You, forgive me, and I love You seem to be the only prayers that come to mind when I think of His agony.

A hidden blessing?

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Do you remember the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?

Luke 16:19-26

“Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. “And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. “And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ “But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. ‘And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’

I was washing my hands today in very hot water after cleaning the bathroom.  The water was so hot that I had to take my hands out for a moment and then put them back in to rinse.  I noticed that once my hands had adjusted to being out of the hot water for that moment, it was even more painful to put them back in the water for my final rinse.

This is such an obvious point that we often forget about it.  Once we are adjusted to an extreme, whether it be temperature or a life situation, things become easier, they become more bearable and  more tolerable and then eventually become our normal as we settle in and forgot about our previous normal.

Could this great chasm really be a hidden blessing for those who choose Hades, because in His infinite wisdom He knows their endless suffering would increase exponentially with even one drop of cool water or one grace given from above?

The Cross

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Isn’t it amazing that if you are looking for a cross you can find one?

Look at a door, the beams on your ceiling, a window, telephone poles, electric poles, fences, bridges.  They all contain a cross within.

I think our sweet Jesus died on the Cross so that as the years went by and generations passed, reminders of His love for us would surround us.

Through it I think He is whispering, “Remember Me, I love you.  Don’t worry about what she said, what he said, what they did, or what you didn’t do, just think of Me and smile through your tears.”

A deeper love

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Last weekend I headed out to an overgrown portion of our yard with a saw in hand and planned to trim a few low hanging branches and cut down a few weeds that were becoming full grown trees.  As I started pushing branches out of the way and worked my way back to the fence I came across some dead branches/vines covered in 1-1.5 inch thorns.  I quickly recruited my sweet husband to spend the next 30 min braving the thorns while digging out this plant.  Unfortunately we did suffer a few pricks during the process and they really hurt!

The thorns and the pricks made me think of Jesus.  It reminded me of His crown of thorns and I tried to imagine these thorns pressing into my head… I couldn’t.

Thinking of this made me wonder why we have elevate the rose to such a high symbol of love when it too is covered in these merciless thorns which pressed into the vulnerable and precious head of our Savior and Lord.

Could it be that the young men of the past longed to present their dear ones with not only a beautiful, soft, sweet smelling flower, but also a flower that required them to brave the thorns before it could be obtained in order to deepen the love they were showing their sweetheart through the gift of the rose?

The soldiers could have mocked Jesus with a crown of twigs, but God placed a bush with thorns nearby to allow Jesus to show us yet another level, an even deeper level of His piercing love for us through His crown of thorns.

Jesus thank You for Your deep love that I don’t understand and cannot fathom.  You call to me, You wake me from my sleep and You long to be with me regardless of my disregard.  Please inspire me to long for You as You long for me, my Love.

Regrets…

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Some believe that Jesus told Judas Iscariot to betray him.

In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus said, “But you will exceed all of them.  For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

If this is the case, then Judas acted out of obedience and faith in Jesus and he was given the strength to follow through with Jesus’ request.  Imagine for a moment being Judas once things had been set in motion and he was outside the loving gaze and light of Jesus.  Imagine the torture and suffering he put himself through questioning his actions, wondering if he had acted within the will of God or made a mistake.  Imagine the tortured thoughts he experienced as he second guessed his actions under the criticism and hatred of those who had once called him brother, his fellow disciples.

It is so hard to keep our hearts and our heads clear and open to God’s message, and then once we are bogged down with fear of a mistake or acting selfishly rather than within His will, we pull yet further away from Him and our faith is so quickly drained from us.

I think it is in these moments of fear that we have to breath deep, and know our faith is being tested.  The moment our faith begins draining from us, is moment that we must hold tight to it and thank God for our current suffering, questioning and lack of confidence in our actions or words.  We must continue to reflect even more on His perfect plan and remember that sometimes acting within His will might not be comfortable.  If we have stepped off the path, there is a lesson within each step and we must remember that He loves us so much that He will not let us stray far before He begins nudging us back on track.

I said something a few days ago that I so deeply regret, that I can now actually appreciate why some people take a vow of silence.  I am not sure if I was on track or off track with what I said, but even through my regret I am trying very hard to be thankful for experiencing these feelings of regret, for the increase in my desire to be pleasing to God (through silence if necessary) and for yet another opportunity to empathize with Judas.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for everything.

Praying for Judas…

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I love the song The Hammer Holds by Bebo Norman.

When I first heard this song about a year ago I thought of Judas Iscariot.  I thought of the love he must have felt for Jesus when he first met Him.  I thought of how fervently he wanted to follow Him, to be good and to care for and help the poor.  I thought of the dreams he must have had for himself as a follower, a disciple and a friend of Jesus.  He possibly imagined that God was shaping him into a perfect piece of art that would be displayed for all to see.  Then I imagined his pain, his sorrow, his despair and possibly the numbness he felt when he realized that God’s plan was not for him to be displayed as a perfect piece of art, but instead God’s plan was for him to betray Jesus, betray the blood of a guiltless man.  When I thought of this I cried and cried and cried for this man whom it would have been better for if he had not been born (Matthew 26:24).

Tonight I saw that a friend had taken the quiz, Which one of Jesus’s disciples are you? so I decided to take it too.  Guess which disciple I am?  Judas Iscariot.

WOW… I was shocked and so sad that this computer quiz calculated that if I had been there 2000 years ago and been blessed beyond measure to be chosen by Him as one of His 12 disciples, I would have been His betrayer.  I would not have been sleeping in the garden as He prayed, but instead would have been wide awake leading those blind with hatred and envy to Him, my Love.  It would have been me…

Ever since empathizing with Judas Iscariot through Bebo Norman’s song, I have prayed that Judas Iscariot only found the courage and strength to betray Jesus purely out of obedience to Jesus and faith in Jesus.  I still pray for this to be true, and my hope lies in the fact that so many things are upside down and turned around from what they seem, our treasure lies not in the bank but in our love, the first shall be last and the last shall be first, the veil is still drawn, the truth is still hidden, but someday all will be revealed… and until then I am praying for Judas.