There is a time for everything,
& a season for every activity under heaven.
a time to be born & a time to die,
a time to plant & a time to uproot,
a time to kill & a time to heal,
a time to tear down & a time to build,
a time to weep & a time to laugh,
a time to mourn & a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones & a time to gather them,
a time to embrace & a time to refrain,
a time to search & a time to give up,
a time to keep & a time to throw away,
a time to tear & a time to mend,
a time to be silent & a time to speak,
a time to love & a time to hate,
a time for war & a time for peace.
(ECCLESIASTES 3:1-8)
Some things need to be said.
{ IF I MIGHT BE REAL FOR A MINUTE, THANK YOU. }
I love my grandfather. He thinks I am the most incredible angel to walk the earth (God bless him) & I think he is one of the most remarkable men. He would give the shirt off his back for anybody. He not only asks me about everything I'm going through, but he listens to me when I respond, hanging onto my every word. I see his adoration for me in his eyes. I see the Father's love for me through him. & he's not the most holy man on the face of the earth- but that's okay. In his latter years he came to know Christ on a more real level, & as he'll tell you he doesn't know much, he does know the Father's love. He loves his garden & his lawn. When I was younger I remember taking note of where he would tuck away his binoculars he used to bird watch, pulling them out when no one was around. He's my definition of a handyman, & the world's greatest carpenter. The silence & simplicity is enough for him. He's a loyal friend & affectionate husband. He's an overcomer, having survived more surgeries & health scares than most people have seen in a lifetime. & now, he's on oxygen 24/7 as prescribed by the doctors, following a new diagnosis of emphysema & cystic fibrosis of the lungs. He's depressed, within reason, & my grandmother cries all the time. So much pain, & my grandmother's walking around the kitchen, through the tears asking me why God would do this to him? He's a good man. As she pleads with me, I plead with God. God why though? If you can give me understanding, I can give it to her. But I can't hear an answer. Only a verse that I'm afraid to share with them, because the verse doesn't hold any answers & doesn't numb the pain. So I stand silently, trying to pull my emotions out of the situation. Trying to numb myself.
Within a month everyone of my friends I loved have disappeared. I can't figure out if they left or I gave up. But either way, no voices fill the silence, & no faces fill my quiet days off. A co-worker told me in a fit of rage that I was the worst sales associate on the floor & I deserved to be fired. All the while another friend who comes & goes as he pleases has taken the emergency exit again, actions telling me what the voices in my head tell me everyday. You're not worth it. & this is where I'm at. I would not prefer your pity, I simply wish I could see the beauty in this. Where is your goodness, Lord? I don't want kind words. I want answers.
Turning my radio off, I've asked the girls in my Sunday night study group for things I can pray for them for. Their prayer requests take up half the drive, my petitions the second half. Last week during this time the verse the Lord kept laying on my heart comes from the book of Judges. A man & a woman were unable to become pregnant. An angel of the Lord appeared to the wife, telling her about a child that God would give her.
You will become pregnant & give birth to a son, & his hair must
never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth.
He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.
(13:5)
After exclaiming to her husband what she had seen & heard, her husband Manoah prayed to the Lord, asking him to send the angel back again to give them more instructions about the son to be born. So the Lord sent the angel to the wife again, & when she saw the angel, she ran to tell her husband. After a little while, Manoah asks the angel of God his name. The angels response?
Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful for you to understand.
(V.18)
It is too wonderful for you to understand. Job came to the same conclusion after petitioning his case with God, asking him why He allowed so much destruction on a righteous man as himself. Even in Psalms 139, we hear David praising with the same words.
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
(JOB 42:3)
You hem me in- behind & before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
(PS. 139:5-6)
A timeless beauty.
The struggles that we go through are sometimes way out of our league to diagnose them with a proper Bible prediction of 'well it appears this is the direction God is going with this'. Our problems are real & life has its cliffs. You're allowed to feel hurt. There is a time for everything. Following Solomon's wisdom on there being a time for everything, he concludes:
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet
they cannot fathom what God has done from
beginning to end.
(ECCL. 3:11)
Sorrow is beautiful in its time. Anger is beautiful in its time. I've never understood this verse as well as I do today. God gave us emotions to feel, & to reach for his arms to carry us through the crippling waves.
His thoughts are higher.
This is what God has been speaking to me through the silence. It is too wonderful for you to understand, child. I feel His warm embrace as He repeats it. & although it is not an answer that can heal my wounds, it is the comfort Christ has given me where I place my hope. I trust that in these trials when I don't understand, God is still good & His promise still remain. I trust that if I can't understand His reasoning, it's simply because it is too wonderful for me to comprehend.
I encourage you to press into Him & to hold to his promises. In instability & shifting grounds, He is our firm foundation. He cannot be moved & is faithful to the end. Trust him, love. Believe.
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