The Trials of Testing

August 9, 2016 by Naphtali 1 Comment

Do you feel beat up by life?

Do you feel your world is crashing around you only to engulf you with its demise?

Well, you’re not alone.

Many of us are being tested to the hilt.

Many of us are barely holding on to the next second.

Many of us are weary, worn out and sad.

Getting slapped over and over not only becomes old but it hurts.

And we who believe in God wonder, “Where are you?”

For me, it has been the last 6 years especially.

My father became very ill and then passed away in 2014. I was very close to him.

My mother has Alzheimer’s. She will be 87 on August 31.

It was time to move mom out of the house I grew up in. I had no idea receiving some of her prized furniture and possessions would make me so sad.

The lack of close family and friends has been partly due to where I live; otherwise it’s just the way it is.

And then my allergies to dust have been at times debilitating to say the least. If it’s not the reaction itself that makes me miserable, the meds make up for it. I have jokingly blamed my mother for making me grow up in an immaculate house.

This is a short list of my life and its deteriorating factors.  Add to that the surrounding world mess and it’s been a recipe for depression and anxiety.

The truth is I wouldn’t be writing this if God wasn’t pulling me up every second out of this grief.  Finally admitting to myself how sad I have been over the many different kinds of losses was a step God wanted me to make because without a doubt it led me to understand how He is in control and manages everything.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Arriving at this conclusion erased most of the past 61 years of thinking. In other words, my mind is being renewed to a constant awareness of His presence and that I really can’t do anything without Him.

Our dear friend Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 1: 9
“Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

I feel Paul’s pain.

I feel his words ripping through me like a sword.

I feel his gripping fear of the next move.

But as he found out, so am I that God is faithful.

I may not have arrived, but I left only because God is with me to make the next step or the shift into the next minute.  In the literal sense, God is holding me together.

Jesus is our hope.

Jesus is our future.

Jesus is the answer to our misguided efforts to get through anything.

Jesus is.

 

 

 

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