Suffering and Grief {Psalm 147}
2:00 PM
I
am the queen of expectations and disappointments. Not my proudest achievement. Sadly, it is true. My lifetime was built on having expectations
that my way, my thoughts, my plans, were good and right. But it led me down paths of some major
disappointment and disillusion, and a lot of suffering and grief.
I
will share as I reflected of some of my more serious times of grief. Like when my first husband died and the
people I had expectations of, didn’t show up.
Others were right there to hold me up and get me through the roughest
days.
I
spent unnecessary hours – years really, stuck in an angry mode. Angry that God would not give me what I
needed. I’d pray something like this, “God,
this is what I need!” It was usually that I wanted a certain person to
react or do something the way I wanted it.
Something like show up and help me clean my house. After all I was home alone with three
children ages 8 and under. I remember
being outside shoveling after a heavy snowstorm and literally crying out to
God, “Don’t you see me here all alone?”
I still had to get these three children ready for school, give them
breakfast, and I still had to get myself ready for work.
Over
and over, year after year, my pride to get what I wanted just was not
happening. Even though what I wanted
seemed to align with God, it wasn’t happening.
But
God, has provided me with a reflective heart and mind and sat me down in my
favorite restful place to write this post.
He showed me what places He
has healed and how He has healed me! How He has sprinkled some
amazing ointment to heal my broken heart.
How many blessings He has given me and how when I truly rest in Him, my
heart opens up wide and He fills it up.
I
can’t help but see His grace – His perfect, obedient gift, to be broken far more
than I ever will be. How when I truly
allow these moments to unfold, the veil is removed so that I can see – through these
tears – that His love is amazing! He sees my pain. He sees my broken heart and He binds those
wounds.
And
so, it is “good to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise
Him!” (v. 1).
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