I envisioned a vacation-packed, hammock-swinging, ice-filled cooler kinda summer. All sunshine, butterflies and lemonade stands. A season of park bench eReading, oars lapping lake and soggy chlorinated swimsuits. Although these delights overflowed, this summer's also been grueling, heart wrenching and as brutal as a three-digit heat wave.
Except I've been pummeled by an avalanche in the heat of summer.
Healing can have that effect. Awakening from years of denial and facing the truth isn't for pansy wansies. It takes grit. It takes fortitude. It takes digging deep and unearthing dormant heartache and pain then unraveling the mystery of its origin.
Can I have a rain check, please?
Facing the truth feels like dropping head first from a trapeze bar smack dab into concrete. It's easier to hang in denial than lose one's grip on 'reality'. A 'reality' defined by others, which I never dared question, until recently when the fog and smokescreen began to dissipate and I yanked my blindfold and removed my muzzle.
God's word tells us: "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
Suffering and surrendering to winter seasons may make us uncomfortable---either experiencing our own chill or feeling goose pimply around others---but we often bear the most fruit during the bitter cold, white-knuckled, teeth grinding seasons of our lives. Let's not discount winter, as less sacred than life's seasons of spring, summer and fall.
Oftentimes, heartaches and adversities are the means God uses to reveal Himself to us.
And oftentimes it feels like icicles piercing our heart. It's never a walk in the park.
Whenever trials arrive flooding my heart's mailbox, I am tempted to slam lid or stamp deliveries with 'return to sender.' I put up my dukes, dig in my heels or run like the dickens the opposite direction whenever they blindside curbside. I rein in tears instead of releasing them. I prefer head in sand, like sun kissed toes, rather than facing pain head on. I'm a pearl solitarily confined within oyster's clam. Shell clenched tight and inflexible like my heart, fists and jaw.I prefer shade instead of light because sometimes the dawn delivers deeper darkness.
During my Hurricane Katrinas, I don't want someone serving me a pep talk or warmed-over platitude like yesterday's stale hors d'oeuvres. I don't need someone to understand, to try and fix or relate, because unless you've been there, you never truly can. I do need someone to listen, wrap her arms around me and ask, 'How can I pray for you?' Wouldn't that mean the world to you, too, when you're snowballing downhill and you're world is as cold as an iceberg and only dark clouds loom?
All the Super Glue in the world can't fix a broken heart.
But GOD can.
If we let Him. Or perhaps we can become the arms of Jesus circling our wounded sister's shoulders when she needs a shoulder to cry on.
Philippians 1:29 says that not only were you called to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for His sake.
Suffering is part of the Christian faith. It's not all rainbows, sunset cruises and rose colored gardens. As Christians, we are going to face brutal winters, even more so as we draw closer to our Lord. But take heart...
Suffering shows us the eternal is more important than the temporal.
Character is more valuable than appearance.
Relationships mean more than money.
People mean more than things.
We adopt a new value system through suffering. We have a choice to become bitter or better. To close ourselves off or reach out. To live in denial or face the truth.
Suffering is not something to be shunned, but embraced. It requires surrender. It requires patience. It requires dependence. It's a way God reveals Himself deeper to us. He becomes more than a creed, more than a series of theological doctrines, more than a church building or Sunday school verses we rotely memorize. He becomes, in reality, by demonstration, a loving Father, a sympathetic Savior, a caring God.
He becomes more than a fair-weather Friend.
He becomes unconditional love incarnate.
He becomes unconditional love incarnate.
If you are going through your own snowstorm right now, how can I pray for you?
"He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us." 2 Corinthians 1:4
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4
"My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you." Job 42:5
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed." Psalm 34:18
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