Things are just not quite right here, are they?
Sometimes that brokenness hits me like bricks, and I feel my stomach knotting.
The other day I just cried and cried thinking about the effects of brokenness that have touched my friends and my family and me.
There is neglect, past abuse, infertility, betrayal, addictions, and death.
It felt so very heavy. And broken. It hurt. and exhausted me.
My mouth opened as if crying out for help, but no words.
The tears wouldn't stop coming.
A friend of mine once asked me if I thought there was a such thing as intercessory grieving because she had wept for a friend as if it was her own pain.
I think there is such a thing as intercessory grieving.
And right now, I'm remembering this - that Jesus intercessory grieves for me when I feel pain.
That He prays to the Father for me and for us.
It's mysterious to me. But comforting.
Comforting to remember that He was "a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief."
That He is not indifferent or immune to our sufferings.
He knows them intimately and well and actually feels them with us. I wholeheartedly believe this.
While I'm grateful for my sheltered, carefree, relatively painless childhood, as I've grown up, I've learned what the world is really like,...the weight of brokenness that presses down on people,...even God's children,...with the threat to steal hope and leave despair.
A friend of mine in college had done a word study on the word "burden."
She told me that the Greek word for "burden" in Galations 6:2 was related to the word "knapsack."
Bear one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ. - Gal. 6:2
While the Hebrew word for "burden" in Psalm 55:22 was related to the word "boulder."
Cast your burden on the Lord,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved. - Ps. 55:22
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved. - Ps. 55:22
Thank God He carries those.
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| When God Weeps |
"This book is about God weeping over human heartache, his entering our anguish himself, and the love that drives him to let us suffer. It's about experiencing the friendship of God along difficult paths we didn't even know he walked."
I'm looking forward (I know those words may not sound appropriate) to learning more about suffering with hope, experiencing My Father's great love in the midst of heartache, and to learning how to better come alongside people who suffer.
Some of the questions that Joni wrestled with are:
And no trite answers to those questions will do, will they.
Sometimes all I can see is the sadness. But I know my view is limited. That helps.
And when I am still, I marvel thinking back on how the comfort of His presence in my past low times really has somehow, mysteriously, been....enough. And that I can hope that it will continue to be enough. For me. And for those dear to me who put their hope in Him.
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| Joni source |
Some of the questions that Joni wrestled with are:
- If God is loving, why is there suffering?
- What's the difference between permitting something and ordaining it?
- When bad things happen, is God in cahoots with the Devil?
- How can he expect me to be happy this way?
And no trite answers to those questions will do, will they.
Sometimes all I can see is the sadness. But I know my view is limited. That helps.
And when I am still, I marvel thinking back on how the comfort of His presence in my past low times really has somehow, mysteriously, been....enough. And that I can hope that it will continue to be enough. For me. And for those dear to me who put their hope in Him.
So beautifully written, sweet, Liane! If there is one thing I have learned about suffering over the years it is this: suffering allows us to enter into the comfort of God's love and presence which surpasses circumstantial, worldly comfort in ways that we otherwise will not experience apart from suffering the absence of circumstantial, worldly comfort. In suffering, we sense Him so nearly that we can feel His breath upon our skin, for God is near to the brokenhearted. As 2 Corinthians 1 tells us, He allows the sufferings of Christ to overflow into our lives that the same comfort with which He comforted Christ would also be our comfort and that we would comfort others with it as well. His comfort does not diminish our circumstantial, worldly discomfort, but it certainly puts within our hearts a groaning for Him who will wipe every tear away and make all things new, and the comfort we have in that hope surpasses any present suffering that He allows in His sovereignty.
ReplyDeleteOh Lindsey, thank for this. This ministers to me so much and resonates deep in my soul. I miss you, old friend. When's the last time we saw each other? My wedding, I think.
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