For the last two or three days, I have had a real sense of peace; the kind of peace that makes you feel that you can breathe again. All the tension goes out of you, and you just relax into it. It's like God, as your Dad, gives you a big hug that makes you feel that everything will be ok after all. I have even felt stirrings of joy again.
It came on quite suddenly. I found myself in a place of acceptance again, a place where I was able to let go of the questions that have tortured me for the last few months. What happened happened, and things are the way they are.
Sadly, part of that was having to let go of my attempts to justify or excuse the person who hurt me. That doesn't mean going to the other extreme and giving way to anger and resentment. It just means accepting things as they are. There are still unanswered questions, but I feel that I can live with them now. I feel that it's ok not to know.
All in all, I feel that God is bringing me back to the place I had reached when I came home from my time away. He is restoring my soul again. :')
Hosea 2:15 tells us that God can make the 'Valley of Achor' (Achor means trouble) into a 'door of hope'. Even in our darkest times, He can take our situation and turn it around. There is no valley too dark for God's hope and love to shine into. :)
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Showing posts with label Trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trust. Show all posts
Friday, 10 December 2010
Monday, 12 July 2010
The Great Adventure!
Ok, so to be honest, I've really been struggling for the last few days; and I didn't want to post about it here because I really wanted this blog to encourage people...
Anyway, I was really down today, despite all my best efforts to the contrary - and then I found this song 'by accident' while looking for something else...
I couldn't believe how much it reminded me of the poem I wrote a few days ago (see post "A Knight's Tale"). It even contains the phrase "the ride of your life" - which I didn't put in the poem but had been thinking as I read it through afterwards. Clearly Mr Chapman is thinking more cowboys than knights in armour... but that's a minor detail! :D
This has really lifted my spirits again and made me feel quite positive and upbeat about 'riding on' with Jesus again. It's like I said - God always sends me something to lift me out of the black moments. I just have to keep giving the whole sorry mess to Him and let Him sort it out. He is faithful, and He does have all my days in His hands.
I am glad of the reminder that He doesn't just lead me, he also 'rides' with me. And He can see the way ahead when I can't see how to take a single step forward. I just have to take His hand, trust that He knows best, and walk on with Him. Or ride! :')
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Thursday, 8 July 2010
Faith and Questions
"If we have faith, there are no questions; if we do not have faith, there are no answers" - Voltaire
My sister mentioned this to me this afternoon, and I have been thinking about it... I think it's perhaps a little simplistic. I think it is more true to say that if we have faith, we can live with the questions.
Christianity is faith in a Person; a person whom we actually know and spend time with. It's a friendship. So when things seem to go wrong, faith is a matter of trusting that whatever He does or allows to happen, He has a good reason for. We can trust Him in this way because of the friendship we have - the time we have spent in His company, the things He has done for us in the past, the Person we know Him to be.
In particular, we can trust because of what Jesus did for us on the Cross. No one would put themselves through such horrendous misery for someone else unless they genuinely cared for them very deeply, and genuinely wanted the very best for them. So when the bad stuff happens in our lives, we need to trust our friend - our very best friend - and wait for Him to explain, because we know that He will have a reason that justifies whatever it was that we went through.
It probably is true that without faith, no answer will ever satisfy us. Unless we can learn to trust Jesus as a Person, we will always be confused and dissatisfied; but if we can learn to put our trust in Him, as our friend, the questions are ok, because we know that there are answers - and satisfactory ones - we just don't have them yet.
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My sister mentioned this to me this afternoon, and I have been thinking about it... I think it's perhaps a little simplistic. I think it is more true to say that if we have faith, we can live with the questions.
Christianity is faith in a Person; a person whom we actually know and spend time with. It's a friendship. So when things seem to go wrong, faith is a matter of trusting that whatever He does or allows to happen, He has a good reason for. We can trust Him in this way because of the friendship we have - the time we have spent in His company, the things He has done for us in the past, the Person we know Him to be.
In particular, we can trust because of what Jesus did for us on the Cross. No one would put themselves through such horrendous misery for someone else unless they genuinely cared for them very deeply, and genuinely wanted the very best for them. So when the bad stuff happens in our lives, we need to trust our friend - our very best friend - and wait for Him to explain, because we know that He will have a reason that justifies whatever it was that we went through.
It probably is true that without faith, no answer will ever satisfy us. Unless we can learn to trust Jesus as a Person, we will always be confused and dissatisfied; but if we can learn to put our trust in Him, as our friend, the questions are ok, because we know that there are answers - and satisfactory ones - we just don't have them yet.
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