How Are You, Today?

If today, RIGHT NOW, you are at the lowest point in your life---on the brink of hopelessness, helplessness, or despair, STOP! Stop thinking.  Stop feeling. Stop worrying.  Stop fretting. JUST STOP.

I want to assure you that you are not alone. You have not been abandoned. The same Supreme Power---God---who created you is at work, and has been at work, in your life, from the moment you were conceived.  How do I know? Because I read it in black and white, in indelible ink, from the best-seller of all times, the Holy Bible.  The prophet Jeremiah records in the first chapter, fifth verse of the book named after himself: "Before I formed you in the womb, and before you were born, I consecrated (dedicated) you..."  (Jeremiah 1:5)

God is All Powerful, All Knowing, and Everywhere at the same time.  Yes, He knows the circumstances of your inestimable loss.  He knows how hard all of this has been, and is, for you to handle.  He knows your very thoughts "from afar off."  He knows you are mad as hell, disappointed in Him, feeling jilted and bereft, all of the above and more! As my Mother used to sing in the midst of her pain, "He knows, oh yes, He knows just how much we can bear." (If you've read a few or many of my blogs, you know I write often of Mother's faith and steadfastness). How certain she was of her Truth!

God knows everything, nothing escapes Him.  I learned that from Mother's life.  She sang as she washed and ironed, cooked and cleaned.  In song she asked, "Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come? Why should my heart feel lonely, and yearn for heaven and home.  When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He.  His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."  As she mourned the death of her Mother, she sang.  When unexpected, earth-shattering setbacks dogged her every step, she sang.  When it seemed that things couldn't get worse---but they did---she sang.  

I wish I could say that I'm a chip off the old block.  I wish I had her faith.  It took me long enough to realize that God gives every one of us is a measure of faith, and that it is up to me to grow it, with the help of the Lord.  I'm still far from Mother's blessed assurance that "The Lord will make a way somehow, when beneath the cross I bow, He will take away each sorrow.  Let Him have your burden now..." Prayerfully, I'm getting close to fully leaning and depending on God.  Prayerfully.

That's why I began this blog asking you to STOP trying to handle whatever is weighing you down.   He knows. As long as the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, you can STOP despairing and/or feeling despondent, hopeless, or helpless.  God is our ever present help in times of trouble.   

And it's okay if you're still mad with Him. He can handle it.  He knows!