Hello long lost friends. First, I want to apologize for being gone so long without so much as an explanation. My last post promised a journey towards refuge from a weary refugee, and then I basically fell off the face of the social media earth for a while only to pop back up recently. I wish I could say that my journey is complete and that is was quick, painless, and I am right now resting in my spiritual place of refuge. However, I can't.
Side note* Have you ever ulgy cried? You know what I mean. The kind of cry where you lose control of all facial features and it's not just letting a tear roll here and there, but you have snot dripping, your face is contorted, and your coloring has gone haywire. Well, I've done so much of that lately that it's not even funny. Anytime I refer to crying in this post, you can safely assume I am referring to ugly crying, not movie star crying where one tear drop delicately rolls down my face. I'm just not that kind of girl...*
I am still going through one of the toughest trials of my spiritual life. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on with me spiritually for a long time, but I know now. I thought at least knowing what God was doing in me would help. It doesn't. I thought I had been through spiritual trials before in my life, and I have, but on a different scale. You see, as we grow spiritually, so do our trials. It is awesome that God finds us worthy of testing, but don't go glamorizing the process, it hurts. Dictionary.com defines a trial as, "the act of trying, testing, or putting to the proof. A tentative or experimental action in order to ascertain results; experiment." This lets us know that a trial does not last forever and the purpose is to get results. What results will it yield? Well, that depends on us. Trials are often a painful part of our spiritual walk, so the bigger the trial, the more painful the moment in life that trial may produce (not always I suppose). This trial has been a bizarre one for me.
As I said in my previous post, my one strength in my Christian walk is my ability to communicate with God. That's about all I had going for me, so I took great pride in that one strength, and you know what the Bible says about pride, it "comes before the fall". Well, my trial is this. Not only did I quit hearing from God. I started feeling as if he didn't hear me. Now, I know because the Bible tells me so, the God hears my prayers. However, when it feels as if God doesn't hear you for one day, it's easy to tell yourself that He hears you even if it doesn't feel like it. When you feel like God doesn't hear you for a week, it's a little harder. Two months later, you find yourself throwing a hissy fit on God asking Him why He is mad at you, crying like a baby, rolling on the floor like a little kid in the check out at walmart thinking that making a ridiculous display will force the parent's hand. Anyone else been there? I was doing the seek and pray thing until I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown, and to be honest, most of the people closest to me were getting pretty worried too. To make sure He really had my attention, God didn't just stop there with the trial.
Dean and I also started having strange things happen that would make life stressful financially. Car trouble, hot water heater breakdown, closing costs on a loan that were triple what we had been told, more car trouble (talk about a rough month). I wasn't sure we could handle much more bad news. Then my dad told me he had gotten a promotion...and relocated. yay (read with sarcasm). Now they haven't relocated yet, but you all know how much I depend on my mother and the army around me just to survive, so losing her is like cutting off one of my arms. There were other little nuances as well that the devil threw in the way just to trip me up, but it always went back to the fact that I just couldn't see what God was doing. What was He preparing me for? If I could just see a reason, a point, get a word of encouragement from Him, then I could make it through.
I tried to just keep pushing on. I kept up with my responsibilities at home, work, and church. Actually, if something extra needed to be done at church, I picked up on it and took over. There weren't necessarily big things to take, just little things to plan here and there. Still, nothing, silence. I thought for sure He would give in eventually and just talk to me. Finally, I got a chance to talk to JoyMac, one of my friends at work who I always go to for spiritual advice. I was sitting in her room blubbering on and on about how I was praying and seeking my little heart out and getting nowhere, when finally, she said, "Now don't get mad, but why don't you just stop? Maybe you just need to quit talking and listen. Maybe you're looking and looking, and what God wants is for you to let Him lead you." Ouch. I don't know about you, but when my friends start out with the phrase "don't get mad", they are about to say something they know I need to hear, but they know I am not going to want to hear. Thankfully I also have friends who love me enough to say it anyway and who know how to say it in love. She's right. I've spent my whole life preparing myself for God to use me, and now that I don't know what to "do" in preparation to be used, I'm at a loss. That is one thing this trial is all about. It is in part at least to make me stop working towards a goal of readiness.
The trial still isn't over, and I'm not sure why. In the darkest point of this trial, I finally said to God, "I know You're there, I know You love me, and I know You hear my prayers. I know You're faithful to me, and I will be faithful to You, no matter what." It was all I could pray for a while. It was that or nothing, honestly, so I thought that was better than nothing at all. Somedays, I still put that in there. Then, somedays, I would have a small breakthrough during that prayer. Other days, I would be listening to the radio and have a breakthrough in a song. One day I was singing "How Great Thou Art" in my car and had a break through. I didn't hear God speaking, but I felt His comfort, and that was enough. I just needed something, just a little touch to know I hadn't been completely forsaken, just a hand on my shoulder, even for a moment so that I knew I could make it through. I'm not saying I have gone through this trial gracefully. I have spent many a Sunday crying so hard the whole church service people have asked me if I'm okay after church. I have been affected emotionally so much that when my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas, Princess spoke up and said, "I know! What she wants is to not have a nervous breakdown, Nana." Out of the mouth of babes, huh? My poor husbad has prayed with and for me, and I've apologized so many times for dragging him through this trial with me. Maybe had I been more faithful, I could be on the mountain top looking down on this experience now rather than making my slow climb up still. But it isn't all bad. Even in the trial there were blessings and happiness. I learned new things from myself, I saw new strength in my husband, and I sought new truth in the scriptures.
One of my favorite biblical characters, David, encouraged me through my trial. I've always loved him because even though at one point he was a colossal failure as a person, Christian, and leader, he loved God so unashamedly and he always gave God credit for his redemption. When I just couldn't take it anymore, I would go to the Psalms and just skim through until I found a first verse that suited me, and then I would read the whole chapter. David (though he didn't write all of the Psalms, he wrote most of them, and my Bible tells me which ones) would praise God through everything. Sometimes with a happy heart, sometimes with a broken heart, sometimes for his people, and sometimes for himself. Amazing. Here are some beginings I like. "Have mercy upon me, O God, According to You lovingkindness; According to the multitude of your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions" (Ps 51:1) "I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry." (Ps. 40:1) "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth" (Ps. 34:1) I read these and tried to mean them even if I didn't. I read them and cried, I read them and laughed, I read them and related, and sometimes I read them and felt nothing. I'm on trial. I don't know when it will be over, but hiding away won't make it end faster. For those of you out there going through a trial yourself, here is my prayer for both of us:
"God, help us as we go through trials. Help us to know that they are not to hurt us, but that they will make us stronger. God, please help us stay faithful to You no matter what we may face in this life. God we love You. I ask that You protect my friends and put up a shield of love around them. I ask that you cover us with Your comfort. We praise You, we praise You, we praise You. Amen."
