On to other things…I finished the Shack this week. Every one and their mama recommended it to me. It took me a while to embrace it. But I loved it. it brought me a Peace this week. I have been struggling these past weeks with knowing Christ’s Truth and with my own hurt feelings. It has been so long since I actually prayed. I am hesitant to go to God. He knows that. I have told Him. I can say little prayers for others. I can lift up my friends in prayers, their babies, their ordeals. When I pray it is almost like a “you can’t let anything else bad happen, understand?” But I can’t talk to God about what is going on with me. I can ask Him to comfort me, I can scream at Him why, why, why, but I can’t get down to the nitty gritty and talk to Him. I don’t know if that comes from fear or anger or just plain hurt. I have been searching His Truth for answers or just verses that will comfort me. Psalms does nothing. They are more from a heart of someone who has enemies and is suffering by enemies hands. the Gospels don’t help. Job; nothing. I need a verse just for me. Someone in the Bible who lost their husband and was struggling with Trust. Somewhere that it says, “Erica, I love you. I’m here.” I have my Faith and I still hold onto His Hope. But..oh, I don’t know.
So, the Shack really brought me some peace. I still struggle and am still not to the point of having that conversation, but here are some things that gave me little “He does love me, He is here” moments.
“You really don’t understand yet. You try to make sense of the world in which you lived based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality. It is like looking at a parade through the tiny knothole of hurt, pain, self-centeredness, and power and believing you are on your own and insignificant. all of these contain powerful lies. you see pain and death as ultimate evils and God as the ultimate betrayer, or perhaps at best , fundamentally untrustworthy. You dictate the terms and judge my actions and find me guilty. the real underlying flaw in your life is that you don’t think i am good. if you knew i was good and they everything- the means, the ends and all the processes of individuals lives- is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand, you would trust me. because you do not know that i love you, you can not trust me.” pg 125
“My purpose from the beginning was to live in your and you in me” pg 112
” I know that your heart is full of pain and anger and confusion. I want you to know that there is more going on than you could imagine or understand. rest in what trust you have in me, no matter how small” pg 102
“Regardless of how He felt at the moment, I never left Him…When all you see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of Me”pg 96
” You are smack dab in the center of my Love”.
“Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies, does not mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something, means i caused it or I needed it to accomplish my purposes…Grace does not depend on suffering to exist, but where their is suffering you will find grace…”
” I did not purpose Missy’s death, but that does not mean I can not use it for good”.
” this world is full of tears. but if you remember I promised that it would be Me who would wipe them away from your eyes. “