I think that the journey of pain is a real roller coaster. There are good days then bad days. Sometimes a few good days string together and you feel like perhaps you are seeing the light. Maybe, just maybe the worst is over. Then something happens, it might be something really small that acts like a trigger, sending you right back into the emotions you have fought so hard to get through. The anger and pain and grief suddenly seem to be all that surrounds you. The memory of the good days starts to dim and you feel like you are right back where you started. When is life going to get easier? When will the pain ease? A friend described this journey like a bungee chord, and at times that is what it feels like. Today’s song is called ‘Sometimes’ by the David Crowder band.
Sometimes every one of us feels
Like we’ll never be healed
Sometimes every one of us aches
Like we’ll never be saved
When you’ve given up
Let your healing come
Till you’re rising up
Let your healing come
I think we all know the feeling of wondering when an unfavorable situation will turn around, whether it’s at work or at home or in our emotional lives. And the longer that things go on seemingly without resolution, the harder we try to force change and cling on to anything that seems like it might help. Yet the harder we try, nothing changes. I’ve been struck this week by how many songs are about letting go, giving up, surrendering to God. I know I’ve written about it before, but I think I needed to hear the lesson again. Often we turn to God as a last resort, when nothing else works then we’ll try prayer. But it is only when we have completely given up, that God will work. How can it be otherwise! We would be too quick to take credit for change, when it was actually God who orchestrated the healing. We would also not learn to depend on God with our life. He would always be the ‘backstop’.
Sometimes, It’s like we’ll never atone
For all the love we’ve known
Sometimes, like in a smile or a song
When you feel love come
And that feeling’s gone
It flies
God doesn’t want to be our last resort, He wants to be the first place that we turn to for help. I have been finding myself in a difficult place again for the last couple of weeks. I knew that I needed to turn my eyes back to God, and I tried. But I was also busy being frustrated that I was back in the darkness. I tried reasoning things out in my head, and I was so angry. I felt a rage inside me and I wasn’t able to shake it. Eventually I needed to acknowledge that once again only God was able to calm the storm inside. In my desperation and distress I needed to find His peace and love again.
It’s your love that we adore
It’s like a sea without a shore
We’re lost in you, we’re lost in you
It’s your love that we adore
It’s like a sea without a shore
We’re lost in you, we’re lost in you
In today’s song, the image of the ocean is used again, but this time it’s in a very different way. God’s love is like the ocean, endless, the shore is not in sight. Everywhere we look is water, and that water is God’s love. In the middle of this ocean is where we find peace, love, hope. And we find ourselves having to make a choice. Do we just stand on the shore longing for the love that is in front of us, or do we dive in. Do we let fear hold us back from wading into the ocean, or do we move forward despite the fear.
Don’t be afraid
Don’t be afraid
Just set your sail
And risk the ocean, there’s only grace
Let’s risk the ocean, there’s only grace
So often we let fear dictate our decisions, we let fear of the unknown hold us back from experiencing life as it could be, in all its beautiful messy real-ness. We let fear hold us back from diving into God, and experience the true peace, love and grace that He is desperate to share with us. And as I once again discovered, when we truly let go of all the pain, darkness, anger and fear, we find peace, we find freedom, we find comfort. Perhaps our questions of ‘how long’ and ‘why’ are not answered, but our focus changes. We are reminded again that we are not on this journey alone. We have not been abandoned, our prayers have been heard. And maybe we can’t see what is happening behind the scenes to make life right again, but we are reminded again to trust that God sees the bigger picture. He knows us intimately, He knows what we need and is providing for us.
Where you go we will follow
I’m on my knees
Where you go we will follow
Oh, God send me
And finally we are able to surrender to God, and follow where He leads us. We realise that perhaps He does know best. If we are feeling bold we say ‘God send me’, now knowing what the journey ahead holds. But we know the ocean of His love and grace, so we know that He wants only good for us.
https://music.apple.com/za/album/sometimes-live/721256750?i=721257117
My Song in the Night 