Have you ever felt like the image above? Have you ever felt like a part of your life mirrored that image?
old?
trashed?
abandoned?
falling apart?
ruined?
I think we all have at different points in our lives, when the demons who haunt us, and the realities of life in this very human world, affect our daily lives, relationships and bodies.
The Psalmist also had such experiences and feelings:
I say to God my Rock,
“why have you forgotten me?
why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by my enemy?”
Psalm 42:9
… A Psalm of David,
my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
Psalm 22:1
Even Jesus, the Son of God, cried out from the cross,
Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
“My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
When our life, in part or whole, seems to be in ruins, we do not sit in the mire alone. Matthew 28:20 reminds us that “I (Christ) am with you always, to the end of the world.”
What comfort to know that we are not alone in our desperate times, in our darkest moments.
“Come to me,
all you who are weary and burdened
and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28
He is always there to lean on, to count on, but he wants to be more than just a shoulder to cry on. He wants us to tell him where it hurts.
“cast all your cares/anxieties on him
because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:7
A few years ago, Amy Grant had a song released called “Better than a Hallelujah” and one of the lines in it describe our need to cast those cares honestly, sincerely, maybe even with tears in our eyes and fist shaking to the skies:
“the honest cries of breaking hearts, are better than a hallelujah.”
Even Job, sitting on a dung heap, scraping the sores all over his body with broken pottery, did not sin with his lips, but did question why God had allowed him to be born. He was (literally) in the dumps, but when faced with God, he confessed his sins, and God put a new dream in Job’s heart.
God is always with us, and he does not leave us in our mire forever.
Maybe, today, you cannot see even a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe your heart is broken into so many pieces that you could never imagine it being put back together. Maybe the energy to have hope is just too much for you. Maybe your hope is only in the foreverland of life after death.
If you have breath, you have purpose, you can dream, you can pursue the purpose that God has placed in your heart. “Do not let your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1)
God has a plan for your life, and if you still have breath, you can still pursue whatever he holds for you in your future.
If you have breath, praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6). If praising God is all that you can do, do it!
God is with you always, praise him with your every breath.