A thought and a prayer

There are moments in life that transcend, moments where the fog of routine lifts and there is somewhat of a view of the grand plan. As eyes open you are either refreshed or depressed by visions. Things truly valued show fourth and things neglected hang there, forming a pit in the stomach. Oh what a blessing, eyes that can see and ears that can hear the calling of the Savior, and can see the truth of His love in trials. Lord help my unbelief.

“Oh my God you have blessed me. From the moment I was born you sought me out, you pursued my heart. Why you chose me I do not know. You gave me wisdom that was not deserved. You lavished me with a family who loved me wholly.  Then you so tenderly and gently blessed me with trials gradually increasing in weight. As my faith grew, you gave me more but they never truly hurt me, never left an open wound. You let me taste deep sorrow and fear without having to actually swallow…. Until now.”

 I wondered in prayer several weeks ago when He would actually start hurting me to change me. “Lord you have given so much, when will you start taking from me to tend my heart?” The answer was “today my child”. I begged on the floor “I don’t want to learn this way, Jesus I want to learn, but I don’t want to learn this way.” My mother came to the floor with me. She stroked my face and hushed me, “it’s ok, I don’t want this either”. That day left an open wound , a thorn in the flesh that requires me to fall on my knees daily and ask for a bandage, a salve to stop the bleeding for the day or the moment. Sometimes something someone says or does crashes into me and while in the past I was able to brush it off and forgive, the crashing causes my wound to ache and bleed and I have no strength but what God gives me. My knees bend and find the floor more quickly today, now that I have this piercing. I see it at a gash in my side, ever causing me to be hunched over in prayer, applying pressure to stop the flow. No stitches that I place will hold and so it is ever breaking open at the worst moments. Youth fails to understand this pain and the wisdom that comes from it. It is only feared and it confuses but there are few for fellowship, those who have wounds much like mine. They are my nurse maids, them with their own bleeding sides. Their wounds are older, their bandages more neatly laid than mine. They spread salve with their kind, careful words and their working hands. They remind that only Jesus can bind up this kind of wound and heal. They remind that He is making me new. That He is making in me an eternal weight of glory. Weight meaning gravity, importance, glory meaning praise, worship lifting up of the King. Through my trails and my blood, my pain, God is making in me a new heart that has eternal importance. My heart is being made into an instrument of immortal praise of the immortal King and is to be realized and weighed at the beginning of eternity where real life will begin and death will end. Oh my heart, be encouraged by these things, that you are not alone, you have a fellowship of wounded saints and that your souls together will sing a mighty chorus in eternity that will be heard as such a joyful noise to your Love, to your great, high King. What great reward. What great rest we will see.