Writing a book about how you’ve survived the process that caused your world to crumble down as it smashed your heart is not an easy feat emotionally. It’s like you’re reliving many of the horrors that you first experienced. And when you’re in the midst of this mindset, vulnerably writing through the story you own you examine how it is woven into the tapestry of the rest of the story that God has written. In this process, your heart is so tender that its strings pluck to the breaking point when you learn that someone else is starting this story, too. The tears flow as you write. And the tears gush as you take in someone else’s news because you don’t want them to have to endure such suffering. Not them. Not another one. No. Please. Just no. It feels so personal because there’s intense fellowship in suffering that connects hearts that have suffered so similarly. But it can’t stop there…the fellowship of suffering that is. If it does, the pain is wasted and in vain. Left stuck commiserating only in the suffering, simply a pity party exists. For sorrow to reach a place of value and redemption, the fellowship of suffering must bloom into a community of comfort.
When you find yourself about to drown in sorrow and hopelessness, keep going a little bit further as you journey to escape what has oppressed your soul. If you do, you will find that your seas are about to be split wide open. The miracles take different shapes, but the hand that performs them is unchanging.
I didn’t get the miracle I wanted when my dad was diagnosed with cancer and died six months and two days later.
I didn’t get the miracle I wanted when my husband lost his job unexpectedly and we went without full time employment for two and a half years.
I didn’t get the miracle I wanted when my baby’s first breath was drawn in Heaven, not Earth.
But every sea of sorrow that God has led me TO, He has led me THROUGH.
I’ve been thinking of the story of the Exodus this week. God led the Israelites to escape from their enemy. But He did so by bringing them to a place where they would basically be trapped and have no other way out, except to cross a sea. They were baffled about this plan. I know I would be too. They were sarcastic, pessimistic, and nearly hopeless. I’ve been there too. But something stirred them to listen to what He was telling Moses anyway. And something has stirred my heart many times when it didn’t make a lick of sense to listen to what God says about His power anyway.
I shouldn’t be able to even stand today after so many years of heart pressing. There are so many days I could hardly get out of bed to face another twenty-four hours of the hurt. But God took my feet and gently scooted them to step on the dusty ground He led me to walk upon…through places that by all accounts should have engulfed me.
One aspect of the miracle is the dry ground He led me through. Another aspect of the miracle is that all that surrounded me, could have utterly destroyed me. I could have drowned because of the fear, the financial burdens, the loss of our loved ones, the heart break, the people who didn’t understand how hard it is to keep on doing life as normal, the brokenness of our family, the inability to fix it all, etc.
The world of mine that was split wide-open, dangerous territory that it became, did not demolish me. I didn’t drown underneath the waves of grief that surrounded me. I gasped for air many times, afraid that I might drown. But I didn’t. I didn’t drown walking through the terrifying territory. I just kept on walking while God held what could have totally demolished me and I looked toward the other side of the sea that He nudged my feet to walk through. And I made it.
I’m not all the way there yet, to be honest. And I still get tired many times, to be even more transparent. But I’ve come through many of the roughest of waters…at least to an island on most days. Until I’m made complete, I’ll keep on traveling because God moves me through the seas of sorrow on dry ground.
He gives us the miracles He wants for us so His rescue can be most meaningful.
He doesn’t make the whole world dry ground for us. He finds the places that we each have a unique need for help to walk through and that’s where He pushes the waters back for us.
Scary things chase us…
Fear.
Diagnosis.
Prognosis.
People out to destroy us.
Finances.
Health Challenges.
Anxiety.
Depression.
Cruelty.
Brokenness in Our Families.
Hate.
Crime.
Discrimination.
Oppression.
Unfairness.
The list goes on…
The very waters that God keeps us from drowning under will swallow all of these scary things that we want to flee from. Our ears must rise in obedience to listen to His voice and keep on walking through to the other side.
With one foot in front of the other, inch-by-inch, we will walk on dry ground.
Walking through it and being able to still stand with His direction are just as miraculous as God driving the terror away.
That’s not the miracle I often ask for, but it’s the one that I’ve needed so many times.
Maybe it’s the miracle you need today, too, friend.
When your fear comes up, let the Lord calm you down. God will fight off all that has potential to engulf you and He will get you to the other side on dry ground. Just keep following His leadership, give him the wars and wreckage of your heart and walk forward to the place of victory, relief, and rescue to which He has directed you.
“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14
If you need a bit of pumping up about the walking through the seas thing, this week…you’ve got to listen to this song. It won’t leave you. It will do something amazing to your heart and all that stuff that feels like it’s going to engulf you.