Okay, all the pain is still being dealt with, and all the realizations about what was going on in our family, are pretty clear now. (I guess it took me awhile (to see the light) on how evil certain people can really be.) But now I know, and I would be a robot to act like things don’t hurt. But because I can feel pain and sorrow so deeply, I can also feel joy and happiness just as deeply. And I am going to walk out of this darkness, and into the light. (Into the light of love, and the praise of my Heavenly Father, who will never hurt me or leave me.) We’ve been through a lot together, and every time that I was wounded, He has been there to hold me and comfort me. I think my relationship with Him will be strengthened by all we have experienced together. Because there are places that no human can go with you–things that make your heart bleed, and your spirit broken. No person can understand the depth of the pain; only God. And only God can heal it. But I believe that He can, and that He will. As the Word says, “I am accepted in the Beloved.” He is my Beloved, and I am His. The spiritual warfare has been so intense the last couple of nights, that I slept with my Bible against my heart. I felt protected.
I have prayed that the Lord would come and hold me, and I have felt His peace and comfort.
You cannot push things under the rug too abruptly, or you will not be healed. You must acknowledge a hurt, before you can forgive it. That is where so many Christians go wrong. When people are hurt, they need to pour their hearts out to God, and know that He will understand, when no one else can or will. And don’t we all long for someone “with skin on” to embrace us as well, and to just be there to listen, if nothing else? Yes, God made us that way. We need each other, even if in our attempts to bring comfort, we also wound.
I am reminded of the Israelites, who had been taken captive by the Babylonians. Their hearts had been injected with spiritual Botox. They were numb–kidnapped slaves in exile, with no hope in their hearts. Their temple had been destroyed, and they wondered where their God was. They weren’t even sure if they had any faith left. It was just too sad. The elders had died, and the young ones were discouraged and defeated. They were homeless–in more ways than one.
In Psalm 137 one of the exiles wrote, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows, we hung up our harps… How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
The enemy of our souls wants us to hang up our harps. Just put them right there on the willow, and never take them down again. Because when we lose our song, we’ve lost everything. When we lose our dance and our joy, we’ve lost the very thing that could save us from the darkness of despair.
If they had been able to sing the song of the Lord in the enemy’s camp, who knows what might have happened? The whole place may have turned into holy ground, with revival on the way. Who knows? But all they had were their precious memories and their tears. I’ve been there.
So even in the midst of my grief, pain, and sorrow, I will take my harp off the willow, and sing a new song. I will dance before my Lord, with wild abandon, and I will take back what the enemy has stolen.
May I never lose my song again. May my feet trample the enemy underneath them. May I praise my God with my whole heart. May the tears and sorrow give way to joy, for “weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning…”
Please see other articles that I have written here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/109497/lonnette_harrell.html
Sparkle's Search for Happiness 