When Life Feels Awash...

...and you're swept over with waves of unrelenting force, one by one...

• the kids get sequestered to their rooms because you can't take one. more. sibling. spat.
• the child who doesn't follow the 100 boundary lines you already established decides to break something (or a couple somethings)...and somehow you are the one who gets yelled at. 
• your hormones are so topsy-turvy you are crying for hours over what? 
• your brain floats in such a distracted fog you can't grade, or write, or hardly put two coherent words together. 
• you don't feel motivated to do much of anything, but still feel the guilt and pressure of your defective type-A personality.
• you look at all the money going out for healthcare and wonder, is it enough? Is it even helping? Is it just draining us?
• You can't seem to accomplish anything but sub-par referee status for your kids. They don't like you...and quite honestly, you're not your biggest fan right now either. 

And to put it ever-so-bluntly, sometimes drowning altogether doesn't seem like such a bad option. 

You start to wonder if what you do makes a difference? A good difference? If it's enough to outweigh the damage you do? The resources you take? 

Sometimes there aren't fantastic solutions; sometimes we are just stuck in the funk of what's imperfect. Our society doesn't embrace that idea very well; we deny our fallen state and declare "we can do anything we want to." But, we need to acknowledge that we can't fix everything, and honestly, God doesn't fix everything either (He will one day). For now, we function in a dysfunctional world. There aren't perfect answers to every problem, nor can we eradicate everything that is broken.

As much as the "good guy" does, there will always be evil. In fact, it will get worse, as time catches up to the end. (2 Tim. 3:12-14). 

The temptation to cynicism allures us into a fatalistic complacency. Despite the growing heat of battle, we are still called to fight. And when the fight rages within us, we rally ourselves and we need to be humble enough to ask others to help fight with/for us ("Encourage one another daily [...] so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" Heb. 3:13).

My husband is reading through Psalms right now, and read Psalm 130 this morning. Leaving it up on my screen, he encouraged me, "You should read Psalm 130 this morning." 

I did...and again, I am amazed at how David's feelings so often mirror my own. Yesterday, I felt alone in a pit, overcome with the disease of my spirit, desperate for someone to reach down and say, "He hears. He cares. He forgives. He will speak. Keep moving forward." 

And a man who died thousands of years ago reassured my heart: He hears, He forgives. Therefore, wait, hope, and rest in His unfailing love.

I'm thankful for how true community reaches out into the darkness and shines a light, how sisters-in-Christ pray and support and give us a glimpse of the Father's love. 

So, if you feel like the darkness is winning, remember that dawn does come. It always does: it may take longer for some than others, but He who called us is faithful and He will not abandon us (I Thes. 5:24).


(photo credit: stmarkedmond.org) 

Psalm 130

A song of ascents.

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
2     Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
    for with the Lord is unfailing love
    and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
    from all their sins.