When You Can't Sing

The notes to "It Is Well With My Soul" hung in the air and I stood with the rest of the people and began to sing.

That's what you do when you're in church and everyone around you is singing.

You sing.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll...

Such a beautiful song

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say. It is well, it is well with my soul.

 But Lord...

 it is not well.

It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul.

It is not well, Lord. And I don't think it can ever be well again.

I quit singing. I stood there, trying to quiet my thoughts and focus on the power, might and love on the The One for whom the song was written. I listened to the people around me as they sang. I briefly wondered if anyone was looking over at me...the preacher's wife who should be singing.  

I did not sing another word that day. Instead, I quietly told God how afraid...no, desperate I was. I recalled to Him all that had happened and I reminded Him that I was small up against this mountain.

As I begged Him to miraculously fix what was broken, I remembered the clichés I had heard over the years:

"The God of the mountain is still God in the valley"

"If God brought you to it He will bring you through it"

 "Don't tell God how big the storm is, tell the storm how big your God is"

And I held to scripture passages that over the years had become by best friends.

John 14

Psalm 119

Matthew 6

I just don't feel it, Lord. You have the power, please just fix this. Just fix it. Then it will be well.

But you know, months turned into years before God's work--that was taking place all along--became evident. Oh, there were moments when I thought I saw a glimpse of sunrise. And there were days when I knew the sun had to be shining just above the angry clouds. God Himself was the only One who knew my thoughts and the tossing and turning going on in my distressed heart.

Satan tried to tell me I was alone in the fight, that no person understood or cared. He tried to tell me God was off somewhere else in the universe, working in the lives of others...you know, the ones who deserved His care.

I knew it then and I know it today. God was always, always holding me. I may have struggled in His embrace as I tried to understand or change reality, but my battling didn't change His grip on my soul.

The strength of my faith doesn't change the power of my God.

Is it you?

Are you the one?

 Are you the one this little blog is for?

Could you be that person who has no name and yet you are heavy on my heart?  

It is in the most difficult of days that we learn the most about God.

God is not

superman,

a good luck charm,

a deep-pocket grandfather,

or multiple-choice buffet.

God is

holy,

all knowing,

loving, patient, kind and just.

GOD IS FAITHFUL.

He is always working in the lives of His kids.

It is on the longest and darkest of paths, that we would never choose to walk, that God's character is revealed.

Perhaps you're tired of hurting.

Maybe, today, you can't see the possibility of a ray of light.

The strength of your faith doesn't change the power of God.

Keep asking.

Keep searching.

Keep knocking.

For in Jesus' own words "The one who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, to the one who knocks the door will be opened.

There's a verse in the song we skip over. Sing it with me:  

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait, The sky, not the grave, is our goal; Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord! Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!