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Peace, Be Still
It’s a wonderful life…sometimes. I think it is more accurate to say that life has wonderful moments… and heart wrenching ones. We would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not encountered varying degrees of pain and unexpected turmoil in life.
We are assured that God knows everything—past, present, future—and nothing surprises Him. Not only that but we are also assured that He is able to make all things work together for our good. So, from His secure, powerful perspective, how does He see our pain as we react to what to us is an unexpected event?
We don’t have to wonder, the Bible tells us—“Jesus wept.” Remember? When Jesus saw Martha and Mary and all their friends crying over Lazarus’ death, He was moved to tears. That fact was divinely recorded in order to assure us that when He sees our pain, He cries with us. I like that this verse is the shortest one in the Bible. It is concise and to the point—“I care.”
In book, The Prophet Khalil Gibran speaks of the potter handing out a bitter drink:
“And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned
of the clay which the Potter has moistened with his own sacred tears.”
That is a powerful image. It helped me to understand that it hurts our
father to offer us or allow us to be served the bitter sip, but it must
be so. Why? Why must it be so? We are not always given to know why. But
we are always assured that it has been carefully measured. Never more
that what we can bear.
“I care.”
That extraordinary love sends a healing touch to our aching heart through unexpected places. It may be a single Bible verse that suddenly comes to mind, or a song that happens to be playing on the radio, or the words of a trusted friend. Whenever something reaches us, giving us a sense of peace and assurance, a breath of fresh air we know that He has spoken …for only He can speak giving us a sense of peace to our heart.
--Maria Lund