I know a lot of you are facing some very difficult circumstances. Trails and hardships that threaten your desire to wake up, to get dressed, to smile, and carry on. I can confidently say I am familiar with that place. A few years ago, I went through a trial that positioned me in such despair that I gained a new identity-victim. Life alternates between numbness, crying, anger and fear there. I was drowning in a set of circumstances with no life preserver.
Why? I had plenty of friends for support. I went to a good church, and had all my life. I had a supportive family. I had every provision I needed. I had…I had…I had so much, yet none of it was enough to save me from my own despair. It was there, broken and helpless, that God found me.
It’s a perplexing thing to understand. I had been in church all my life. He hadn’t found me, or I him before? No! I had found a religion, not a relationship. I had found a lot of laws, not a lot of grace. I had found a lot of truth and not a lot of freedom. I had found a book called the Bible, but not the gospel. I had heard but I didn’t really hear. I saw, but didn’t really see, and I knew, but didn’t really know, didn’t really know-HIM.
It was not until I entered the darkest place that I began to find the light. For when things are always bright we cannot see, and when we cannot see we will eventually stumble. I say all this to encourage you that when life feels overwhelming, unbearable and hopeless, we can choose hope and peace, because it is in the darkness that we see the light, and it is only by the light that we find our way.
Rescue comes in the Relationship, and I did very little on my own to initiate that. All I did was start showing up, and some days it was a battle to do that! I can tell you, though, once you have been dragged through a dense forest, once you have been redeemed from victim to victor, subsequent trails, which are no doubt inevitable, become such a different experience! If for no other reason they draw us into compete lack of self-sufficiency, and into complete dependance upon a Savior. The more you need someone, the more you get to know them. Then a curious thing happens, the more you get to know Jesus, the more you want to spend time with him, and it only gets sweeter from there.
I’m not going to lie, some circumstances are outright unthinkable, but you can choose to find one positive thing in the midst of them, and that is an invitation…come broken, come messy, come weary, come over burdened-just come! I will personally testify-HE will meet you there. Trust me, I am there a lot, and I do know!
