I know that it has been WAY too long since my last blog post. I apologize for the absence and please know that I do recognize that many of you count on these to connect to what I am doing in Togo. The absence has been a long one and frankly I just was not in a place to impart anything. It has been a time of introspection that has been unbridled and raw. It has also been a time of physical thorns in the flesh given to me and forced me to cry out to the Lord in a new and uninhibited way. One thing that I have learned is that nothing will force your dependence on God quite like physical pain that you are powerless to combat.
Even though the Lord has been taking me through a season that has left me raw, battered, and bruised (physically and emotionally) I am at a place where I can say that at least now I am in the fight and not merely just a bystander.
I have come back to where I love the Psalms. I think they display a realness in David especially. He was called, “a man after God’s own heart” and yet he struggled and lamented with the Lord so often. Psalms 42 says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him….” V. 5
I find it comforting knowing that someone so highly esteemed by the Lord struggled as I do at times.
It is easy, well easier, to go about life half engaged, half-hearted, and lackadaisical. It is especially easy in Togo, because so often the things pressing in are hard things. Hard cases in the hospital that despite efforts just don’t turn out as you hoped and prayed. Patients that show up just too late to save for reasons as trivial to us as they couldn’t find a moto to bring them. Trying to reconcile my mind and heart around these things day in and day out can easily overwhelm.
We were created to feel, to experience, to savor this life. Why then do I fight that tendency? Because to feel, experience and savor here is most times trying, sad, and just hard.
So to play off of a very popular song right now, I am far from the shallow….I am way out in the deep end, floating at times but mostly frantically treading to keep my head above water. Even though, at times, I want to stop and sink I know that what I need to do, what the Lord has for me, is to stay out here….far out here…….
I hope these songs can maybe meet you where you are. There are moments and days when all I have been able to do to connect with God is to turn on a song. These have become those songs for me.
God of all comfort….Iron Bell
When I fall apart…. You sustain my heart….You rush in…. and begin …..to comfort me
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction...” 2 Corinthians 1:3
You Say….Lauren Daigle
You say I am loved….when I can’t feel a thing….You say I am strong when I think I am weak….You say I am held when I have fallen short…..and when I don’t belong you say I am yours….and I believe… what you say of me….I believe
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