Turning My Page
Today is a black hole.
It sucks out all good and feeds off my brokenness. No light gets near my sorrow without getting sucked into the density of problems and crushed.
And God has most certainly been sending light. My prayer group prayed for me and lifted my soul. A stranger plopped down a sign on a coffee shop table near me that said, “NEED PRAYER?” and took the time to listen and pray for my family. Others encouraged there’s purpose in your children’s suffering. Hold on.
Scripture encouraged. I read Acts 8-10, where Saul was blinded by the light of Christ, and his whole world turned upside down as he is chosen to go from persecuting Christians to preaching the good news to the Gentiles. When persecution seemed to be taking hold of the church, God stopped it in its tracks so that the church could take root and grow.
My black hole is the illusion of control. I’m not in control of the outcome for my children. God has chosen a hard path for them both, but when I wallow in the fact that I can’t remove their pain, I miss out on the comfort and understanding they give to their classmates and friends who also struggle. I miss out on their laughter, and I miss out on my own comfort.
I see in acts that God did not choose an easy path for the early believers either, yet they were joyous as they were beaten and cried out for forgiveness for their persecutors. What they set in front of them mattered. What I set before me matters. I can look at the waves (troubles), or I can look at Jesus. I choose Jesus. His light cannot be swollowed by the darkness.
Turning Your Page
Do you have days where from the moment you wake up (assuming that you slept at all), you feel like a black hole has swallowed all hope through Christ? It can’t reach you. You can’t hear it, no matter how loud others shout, “DON’T GIVE UP!” In those moments, be still, and know. God created the universe. He created you. Though you can’t see the light. It does exist. Jesus had a moment, too, where the black hole of the grave was sucking him in, and he could no longer see the light of his heavenly father.
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:45-46 KJV)
In crying out that his task on earth was done, he opened the door to the light. A joy that overwhelms the darkness. Stand firm in the darkness, not because you come to see God in your moment of desperation, but because Christ died so that you and I will never be sepperated from God. Know that truth forward and backward. He is faithful to see you through your darkest hour, even if death looks like it may have the final victory.
Lord, I know that the darkness does not have the final say in my life. When my desire to control the outcome of my life blinds me, remove the scales that see you, that I may that you are Christ, and there is no other way! Amen
