Our world is in distress. It’s like I can hear it gasping for breath and flatlining as disaster after disaster overtakes. Yet within the disaster is a unifying, rallying cry of the human spirit. Collectively, we turn to the One who holds our hearts in his hand.
God is my refuge. He is my safe place, my rock and my salvation. He lifts my head when I cannot hold it up. I run to him and he hears my cry. He is my God and my Savior. Is he yours?
Do you turn to him when the world collapses? Or do you turn to your strength? When I face insurmountable odds, I’m reminded anew how weak I am and how strong he is. Fire. Flood. Health. Disappointment. Heartache. Failed relationships.
Life doesn’t make sense, and sometimes God doesn’t make sense. However, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see and a heart that runs to him, he reveals himself. The mystery unravels and new depths of God’s truth is deposited in our hearts.
He is our rock and our refuge, but we have to run to him. When literal storms come we head for shelter, and when emotional storms come, God is our best shelter. Sometimes his rescue doesn’t come in the form of removing us from the situation, but comes in the form of refuge.
He is our shield and our defense. We align our lives with his and find comfort and rescue even when our lives fall apart. I don’t understand why we’re facing so much natural devastation. It could be that the earth is crying out, the rocks are praising him, and the seas are roaring because we’ve failed to praise him. But I refuse to explain the reason for the multitude of disasters this world is experiencing, because God’s ways and thoughts are not mine.
But what I am willing to explain is this: God is for us not against. He is just and kind. His heart beats passionately for us and he is the safest place for us.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a prayer for all of us facing life changing circumstances. Today I wanted to give you the prayer in a printable form so that you can see the reminders of God’s love before you. I know what it’s like to need those visual reminders of God’s goodness because sometimes the circumstances seem so large.
Please click the link for access to a printable pdf:
I do not presume to claim that I have marriage figured out. But I do claim that with God at the center, he is able to guide us through. I know that marriage is a beautiful hard. It’s beautiful because it’s a picture of God and his church. It’s hard because it’s two imperfect humans on the road to sanctification.
I’ve joined 29 other bloggers at Tiffany Montgomery’s blog for a month long series on marriage. Women will be sharing their snippets of wisdom through their ups and downs of marriage. Friends, it’s good stuff. Your heart will be touched.
Twenty years ago, I (Jessica Van Roekel) brought heavy baggage and high expectations into my marriage. Since then, I’ve discovered that God uses everything to build a marriage that glorifies him. Our strengths, weaknesses, expectations and disappointments all work together to show His Greatness in this marriage puzzle.
Does Marriage Feel like a puzzle?
We had differing expectations and ways to solve problems. We were determined to build our marriage following different “puzzle box tops.” Once we surrendered control to God, we learned that God was creating a new puzzle.
God threw out the pieces that didn’t fit.
He refitted things
Tossed new pieces into the puzzle
And waited until we relinquished a cherished puzzle piece to create a beautiful masterpiece.
I’m in the heartland, where the latest risk to my life was almost catching on fire while lighting a paper lantern. My evening enemies are no-see-um bugs and mosquitoes. My daytime struggles involve teaching the components of a literary essay. My troubles seem so puny.
My blessings seem too loud: My sunset colored evening amidst the cooling of the gloaming. My home that’s dry and a family that’s tucked safe into cozy beds seems too large too me tonight, too rich, too much. Not when there’s too much devastation happening to my fellow countrymen.
What do I know of watching waters rise higher and higher until they consume my home, my shelter, my refuge? What do I know of natural disasters? They seem unnatural. Devastating. Irregular. Unwelcome. Not natural, not expected, not normal. Not fair.
I don’t know what it’s like to suddenly be without home or roof over my head. When my children were small and we would have safety drills, they wanted to grab their cherished belongings so our safety drills were too long, with much hollering and concern. My children couldn’t grasp the magnitude of a serious disaster and the idea of leaving their treasures behind filled their hearts with indignation.
Belongings can be replaced but people cannot. And so we are here: I am safe in my second story bedroom: cozy in a chair, feet propped up on the bed, and cat purring. I’m surrounded by all things familiar: pictures, books, kids, dust bunnies, and a hundred year old floor covered in scars.
And someone, somewhere is surrounded by strangers. Possibly clinging to nothing except what they hold in their hearts and my heart breaks and cries for those affected by devastation to know this:
God sees you.
He hears your cry.
He is with you in the devastation. He is holding you close and whispering his love into your ear. He is holding you upright and he sees your heart breaking. He sees the shock and anger and fear that threaten to overwhelm. He sees and he cares. He calls you to himself in the midst of the devastation and promises to be your everything.
He is your bread of life and your fountain that never runs dry. He may feed you the bread of affliction, but he is with you in the darkness. He encompasses you and rallies around you and is for you, not against you. Cling to him, rely on him, let him carry you through.
When the waters of doubt and fear and anger overwhelm you and feel like the truth, know this Truth: God is. He was. And He will be. And you can take his faithfulness, steadfastness, and love and build your life on him. He wants to be the One who handles your fear and anger, and he wants to take the honest, gut-wrenching fear that you’re feeling from your shoulders and be the truth that sets you free.
Could he have diverted the storm? Yes. Does he still care for you? Absolutely. Does he still love you? Unequivocally. Does he still have good for you? Yes and yes and yes again. He is only good. He is your rock in the storm. And he hears your heart.
God hears our hearts. He sees us in the darkness and offers himself to be our light. I know that there are times when hope seems impossible to find, but God says that with him all things are possible. Even hope. Hope is Jesus. Hope is resting in who he says he is. He is peace. He is comfort. He is the rock we stand on when all else is sinking ground.
May God hold you close and may you make him famous in whatever you face today: emotional flood waters, literal flood waters, or unexpected disappointments. I’m praying for us all.
God is so good. He meets me where I am and he’s my safe place to pour out my heart when I’m feeling rejected. I know this sounds silly, but sometimes I wake up and feel like all my friends don’t like me anymore. By the end of the day I have myself convinced that I am friendless and un-likeable and rejection lurks.
I run to God, and I pour out my heart to him and tell him my fears and within his refuge he reminds me of myself. He reminds me that I am a child of God, that I’m redeemed, and that I’m secure in Him.
He reminds me that in him I am loved. He reminds me that my thoughts need to be brought captive and by thinking that all my friends hate me because of some imaginary thing I did is pretty inward focused. He gently redirects my heart to what is true: I have friends. They like me. I like them. I’m going to disappoint them. They will disappoint me. But that’s what forgiveness is for. I can forgive myself when I fail my personal friendship standards. And I can ask forgiveness when I fail theirs. God also reminds me that my battles with insecurity don’t make me weak, they make me strong because I run to him for strength and help.
Do you ever feel like your heart is about to vomit all over the place? That there’s so much inside and some of it’s great, but some of it’s really ugly and like mold it spreads and takes over the good stuff?
There’s some word vomiting happening around us. Too often someone speaks before they think and in the process spews dissension and hate all over the place. Too often we hid behind screens and keyboards failing to consider the consequences of our words. Social media is not our personal journal. Not everything we feel or every opinion we have needs to be aired in public.
Yet, we need a place for these ugly feelings and thoughts to go. Some of us have trusted friends that we can share the “uglies” and they will point us to Christ and his word for direction. Sometimes, though, we choose someone else to spew our uglies at and it becomes even messier than before because we’ve created a super-cell super-destructive storm of emotions.
Somewhere along the way we’ve lost the relatability of God. In the midst of our awareness of his awesomeness and majesty, we forget that he is also supremely interested in us. In all of us–the good stuff and the bad.
“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Psalm 62:8
Our trust in God is related to how open open our hearts are to him. I don’t think God wants our sanitized hearts. Our sanitized hearts look a lot like the produce drawers in my fridge: clean on one side and nasty on the other.
In our world divisiveness rages. People hate on one another, turn their backs on their fellow man, use words to kill and destroy, declare tolerance in the name of hate. Our hearts fill with rage or disgust and so we speak. And sometimes in the speaking, we wound.
We wound because we haven’t taken the pain in our hearts to God and let him sanitize our pain so our words become life-giving instead of life-taking.
At times, our hearts have a difficult time separating righteous anger from regular anger, gossip from a prayer request, or conditional love from unconditional love. We need God to sift through the feelings and purify the things that don’t please him so that our hearts honor him with everything we say and do.
Pouring out our hearts to God can become the single most important thing we can do in our personal walk with him. He is the first to receive our confusion, our frustration, our questions, fears and anger. Only then, once our hearts are empty can he fill us up.
He fills us up with his peace, wisdom, guidance, joy and love. He becomes our refuge–where we’re kept safe and held close to his heart–so that we can know his heart. And when our hearts are filled with his heart, we can share words that give life and pour love onto the weary hearts around us.
Run to him first with all your care and concerns. Find solace in his word. Find power in the Holy Spirit. Live in his wisdom not your own and remember that your poured out empty heart has room for him to fill you.
I seem to forget the things I need to remember. It’s like I put them in a “safe” place in my mind, only I lose them, forgetting where I put them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned my house upside down looking for something I put in a “safe” place. So I’m a stacker instead of a filer and I have numerous junk drawers in the house that hold innumerable items of importance, like padlocks, pliers, and papers. If I see it, I remember, and I can find it when I need it.
God tells us to remember him and so we need to keep his promises and abilities close to our hearts and in our minds. We need to think on him and remember:
He holds the stars and calls them each by name.
He knows the number of hairs on my head, including the ones I daily lose.
His thoughts towards us are innumerable and good.
Why, then, do we doubt his goodness towards us? Why do we wonder where he is when he is silent?
Today, can you take courage? Can you take hold and hold onto your hope?
God is in the waiting. He is never failing. His love is unending and everlasting.
If you hold onto your hope, your triumph will unfold. Take courage. Stay steadfast. He’s there, in the waiting. He will turn your darkness to light because he is light.
Take courage and let your soul stay steadfast. Your doubts will fade, your questions dissipate as you focus on the King of Kings. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the Hope of the world. Our miracles happen when our eyes are fixed on him, despite what we see, feel, or experience.
It’s in the steadfastness of our soul that we know the steadfastness of God’s heart. It’s in our faithfulness that we know God’s faithfulness. He is strong and mighty. He saves. He redeems. He triumphs.
When we’re at the end of ourselves, we see the power of God displayed in our lives. You see, God has promised that we will rise in His victory. Our triumph will unfold, but it won’t be because of us and our efforts. Our triumph will unfold because we’ve held onto hope when hope seems lost. We will experience victory when our hearts don’t waver in our belief in God’s mighty goodness and faithfulness.
We may not be able to see around the next bend, but God is there. He is with you in the thorny path and he is ahead of you around the curve that you cannot see. He is behind you protecting your back from the darts of the enemy of our souls. And he is beside you whispering direction and encouragement.
You will rise in victory. You will rise in His victory because he holds the stars and knows them by name and he will surely keep his promises of finishing the work he has begun in you. Take courage. Hold on. He is loving and good and steadfast. He is faithful. He is power. And as you hold onto your Hope, he holds onto you.
The best stories make you cry, laugh till you cry, scare you, anger you, and then make you glad again. These are the stories I return to over and over again. I crack the cover, knowing the ending, but wanting to savor the middle.
My life is a story. Your life is a story. I know how my story will end, but I don’t know the details of the middle. Your middle is a muddle too. Sometimes it’s hard and beautiful and ugly and impressive. Even the parts of life that make us sad and mad have a place in our life. If we want to live life well, we must learn to embrace the beautiful hard.
Sometimes I want to be the hero and sometimes I want to be rescued. Recently, however, I wasn’t the hero or the rescuer nor an observant bystander, but I had an opportunity to love the “least of these.” The “least of these” are those children whose parent’s are unable to care for their children and it’s the children whose hearts have known too much pain and known burdens they shouldn’t bear.
Last week, God intersected my heart with two other hearts. My heart shattered into pieces and in the shattering I saw grace in action. I saw the power of love. I saw the power of time. I saw that despite the pain in this world, God is still with us.
For five days, I poured life and love into the dry parched places of their hearts. Their eyes lost the wary look and gained laughter for a few days. We splashed in a lake, made tu-tu’s, played dress up and participated in a jungle safari including snakes, bearded dragons, and turtles. And yes, these snakes hugged necks and crawled up arms and elicited squeals and giggles.
My heart broke into a thousand pieces as I watched these two little girls laugh with abandon and then in the next instance pull the curtain down over their heart.
Trust: It doesn’t come easy once it’s been broken.
Hope: It flickers and sputters.
Joy: It’s foreign and fleeting.
But for one week out of the summer, these children–the ignored, the forgotten, the hurt– experience safe relationships with safe adults. For some of these, the memories made at camp will be their only good memories from their childhood. For one week, these children were told they were special and worthy of time and attention. This one week of love and laughter and carefree living changes lives for the better. It breaks cycles and starts new ones.
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1:27
It’s far too easy to reduce religion to where we spend our Sundays and how we worship. It’s easy because running smack dab into the hard awakens us to pain. And we’re a society of pain-avoiders. But Jesus ran toward pain for you and me. He suffered so that we might know joy, and hope, and trust. If he can do this for us, how can we not do this for others?
Yes, I was uncomfortable. I was hot. And the lake was green and smelly. I wondered if I made a difference in these girls’ lives. I remembered things I’d rather forget. I grew reacquainted with tears. I felt inept, ineffective, and ingrown. But God called me to love. He called me to reach the children’s hearts and so I ran toward the suffering of the hurting and wrapped my arms and heart wide around them.
We can reach out to the kid next door whose mom is working three jobs to put food on the table or we can volunteer in children’s ministry in our local church. Often there are children who feel orphaned because of the lack of involvement of their parent’s in their lives and a kind word is like a cup of cold water to a dry heart.
God gives us opportunities to plant seeds of hope, love, and trust in children’s lives and then he takes the seeds we’ve planted and he waters them and makes them grow. I had to say goodbye to my campers and I don’t know their tomorrows, but I know who holds all of our tomorrows and he’s amazing at his job.
