“When I walk into the thick of trouble, keep me alive in the angry turmoil. With one hand strike my foes, With your other hand save me. Finish what you started in me, GOD. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now.” Psalm‬ ‭138:7-8‬ ‭MSG‬‬
Good morning, DearHeart.
Yesterday, a friend of mine sent a text. We had been praying for a couple who are friends of hers – the wife had dropped her husband off at the hospital, he had the virus, and could not go in, so she had to leave him to go home to self-quarantine. A couple of days later, the wife got a call that he had passed. Because of our current pandemic status, the funeral home will bury the body with no one present, and the wife can go to the cemetery after they leave. I cannot imagine this kind of solitary grief. A funeral will take place sometime in the future.
We forget that we live on a bubble.
That every minute …
every minute …
every minute is a gift.
There is something about loss that creates a gaping wound … a wound that challenges us to do better for each other … to nod and allow questions to come that are not part of our usual days … and, to greet one another in life-affirming ways. It’s in the shadows of life, just beyond the curtain – on the edge of the stage, watching, helplessly, hopefully – it is there when there is nothing left to do that surrender happens, and the Source of Life takes over.
God Almighty responds to empty.
He streams Himself in like a very gentle white light through one heart, straight into another. Healing energy. The trauma must stay fluid, and moving through as only God can do. The enemy wants it stuck so we live in defeat. The Holy Spirit moves through whispers and songs. All around. He moves through the pens and the voices of others when they use words like: care, gentle, love, healing, grace, deeply held, I’m here, hope, and peace, and more peace. Wounded hearts grieve with certain raw tenderness when loss happens. It is every kind of right to sob, to feel hot tears. Feel all the impact and power of loss that reminds us how deep love drives. By feeling the sickness and swirling of everything wrong, God clears us to see Him and to burn brighter in His love and in life. This is the power of His Light in you and me. His Light wins over dark. People begin healing when the force of pain is allowed to shudder you to the core. We meet that pain together with our faith, and our love for our Savior. His capacity to transform far exceeds ours to move from pain into healing. So we wait.
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance, for no godless person would dare come before him!” Job‬ ‭13:15-16‬ ‭NIV‬‬
Wake up.
Let His Holy Whisper flow.
Go.