Today as I prayed for our country and the future we are passing down to our children, the friends of mine that are hurting so deeply, and the prayer lists I commit to pray over, I struggled a moment because I longed for the innocence that goes along with being young. It was kind of nice to have no real worries and to be (for the most part) oblivious to much of what was going on in the world. Don't get me wrong. I had my share of troubles, but children have a resilience that is unmatched.
Being an adult is an exhausting, and being an adult striving to raise my daughter to love the Lord in a world that seems to be going crazy is virtually impossible if I let it overwhelm me. I struggle every.single.day; however, my biggest struggle is allowing the Lord to take and keep control of my life. Loss of control is a fear of mine for more reasons than I care to admit, but it is a pointless fear because we all know that life rarely works out as we plan. We can't see the big picture. We sometimes feel trapped in pain and exhaustion and see no way out, which is the crazy part when you think about it. The Creator of it all knows it all, and who better to guide you out of a maze of brokenness than the one who can see the end? I know this, but still I struggle some days.
Hatred, violence, and anger have been filling the airwaves, and I see hurting people all over the television. If that isn't enough, I am praying for friends who are seriously struggling with some issues that just don't make sense. Some are dealing with the pain of divorce and hurting children. Some are dealing with illness or the illness of a child or parent. Some are dealing with what seems to be a senseless death that came all too soon. I don't have words to fix it for them or the power to take away the suffering they are experiencing.
I remember in the times that have been the hardest for my own family...the wreck, the divorce, the disease, the death...the most powerful things that were done for us were the little things and the biggest thing-prayer. The little things weren't little at all. They were the phone calls that came to see if we just needed a laugh. They were the puzzles for me to put together just to stay awake for that visit. They were the drop by's when things had gone back to normal for everybody else. They were a million other little things that weren't little at all. So let me encourage you to think of someone in your life that has been dealing with something, and then to take a moment to send a note, take them to dinner, drop by to see them. Those little things are sometimes quite the lifesaver.
Then, pray. Pray for their pain and suffering to ease. Pray the right people come in their lives to make a difference. Pray their hearts catch up to their minds and remember that God is in control even when our hearts struggle to understand it. Pray they find peace in the midst of the trials and that they remember that weeping lasts for the night, but joy really does come in the morning. Pray that you are the friend you need to be to them.
Finally, I want to share what popped into my head tonight. I don't believe it was by accident. About a year or so after the wreck, two songs came out on Christian radio that greatly impacted me. They were like little gifts that reminded me that God is bigger and wiser than anything I could ever pretend to be. I ended up singing one of them at church a couple of times, which is miraculous in itself since that's such a fear of mine. But...they helped again today. If you have time, you should listen. It's good stuff.
He Is Able-Truth
and this one was originally by Tim Shepard, but I can't find his version so I found Babbie Mason's Trust His Heart
