Hey friend,
I honestly didn't know if I would make this post. It seemed a little too personal. Often times when God leads me to write, it's for me. That's one unique way that God speaks to me personally. There have been times where I go back and read what's on the paper as if I was reading it for the first time, like it didn't just flow from my fingertips. In writing, I find rest, renewal, and many times, healing. I know that this one is for me, but I just can't help but feel like it's for someone else too.
What do you do when you experience disappointment? Or hard seasons? What do you do when life doesn't seem fair? Or when worship doesn't come so naturally? Or what about when "thankful" is far from how you feel?
This season has been a hard season. I know my problems don't even come close to things that I know other people are facing, but we all have our struggles. No matter how big or small they seem, obstacles are still obstacles. Even "smaller" trials are still trials, and they all can have a deep effect.
For me, isolation has been my enemy in this season. I've found myself more alone than ever. Some people might not think that isolation seems like a big deal, but it has been my trial in this season. I've felt more burdened than ever, and I can't honestly say that I surrendered that burden to God like I should have. My situation left me alone, but even worse, I felt spiritually alone, to the point of feeling abandoned by God.
You might think that isolation and lots of alone time would be the perfect opportunity to just chase Jesus more than ever before. Well, you'd be right. It would be a great opportunity, but that's not exactly how I saw it.
I chose to be a victim of the enemy, though at the time, I felt as if I had no choice. I was alone, and there wasn't anything I could do to change that. I fell into this hole of sorts where I just felt stuck. I had my responsibilities that just seemed too monumental for me to accomplish. I needed to get things done, but my motivation failed me. There seemed to be very little in my day that I found delight in. I longed for something more in my day-to-day that always seemed out of my reach. In the quietness of my days, my thoughts multiplied and overwhelmed me, and I questioned if God truly cared about what I was going through.
I found it so hard to worship. My heart was burdened and afflicted. I felt like a bad student, a terrible wife, and an even worse Christian. I felt spiritually exhausted and depleted. I wondered if God was disappointed. I thought that God was waiting on me to toughen up and figure it all out, but I found myself with so little to offer in the fight. What I had didn't seem like enough.
In those many weeks and in many times in my past, whenever things felt hopeless or I felt empty, I would just give up. Quit trying. I might be frustrated that God wasn't making my situation better or at least making me feel better. I would be upset with myself for not being strong enough in my faith to endure such simple trials. I'd let my feelings drive me, and I wouldn't feel like worshipping. Worship seemed as though it was reserved for the mountain tops. And if that was the case, I was too broken for God to want anything I had to offer.
In the midst of this season of isolation, God revealed something to me: It’s in our lowest, emptiest, most broken moments that we are able to give the purest form of our worship…worship free of obligation, expectations, religion…worship free of all the things that we often hold onto so tightly in this world…worship free of self. And the beauty of it is that we won’t always have the opportunity to worship from that place. Every season, no matter how long it seems, is only temporary…only present for a season! So, how much more it blesses the Lord when we worship Him in those seasons, when it’s not about what I can get from God but what I can give to Him as a sacrifice of myself.
One thing I’ve learned in this season is that suffering is inevitable. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. It’s just the result of living in a fallen world. It doesn’t mean that we are purposely being punished or even disciplined. Suffering can either cripple us or refine us, and we have a choice in the matter.
Even Job, being a righteous man before God, faced immense suffering, but because He placed His faith in God, God was able to use his suffering to refine him in ways he never could have experienced otherwise. If we never experienced pain, we would never know God as Healer and Comforter. If we never experienced fear and worry, we would never know God as Prince of Peace. If we never faced sin and death, we would never know God as a Savior.
Even though I might not understand yet how God will use this season in His will for my life, I now can see that God has used it to strengthen my faith and teach me some hard lessons. I’ve seen God moving in a special and unique way in this season that I’ve never experienced before in the same way. I’ve noticed that God moves in the biggest ways through me when I don’t feel like I have anything to contribute. But isn’t that the point? Isn’t God the One who works and not me? Sometimes I’m so quick to forget that, and the Lord allows me to go through these seasons of suffering, using them to humble me so that He can work through me.
If you’re in that season, let me be the first to testify that there’s purpose in the pain. When we face suffering, whether small or great, we understand a little more about Jesus and how He suffered for us. If we want to become more like Jesus, we are going to face suffering, but there is deep joy in knowing that God is glorified when we worship Him out of our brokenness.
Dwell on this passage with me…Paul says,
“7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!
8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
If my suffering allows God the room to work in a greater capacity through me, then so be it. If my weakness leads to Christ being glorified in my life, then let me be weak. If my humility is necessary for God to be exalted higher, then may I greatly decrease. And let me rejoice in the fact that I have this unique opportunity to worship God in the midst of my brokenness and to know Him deeper because of it!