The Real Story



2:50 a.m. Friday.

July 23, 2017, I shouted something into the atmosphere.  I have repeated it often since that moment.  “My Jehovah Jireh is going to show up and show out!”
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I’ve had almost 8 months to sit back and watch God do what he does for his children.  This bold proclamation of faith wasn’t born out of anything other than my experience with God in the past.  I’ve had about 25 years of experiencing God work in my life in dramatic ways.  Often these have been at times when I was my absolute weakest without anything to offer.  Often I was begging for strength or rescue from some mess that was 100% all my fault. 

How is it that with this rich history of God’s fingerprints all over my life I can still struggle with depression and anxiety to a crippling extreme at times? Flesh? Sin? Trust issues?  I guess the list could go on and on. 

The past couple of months I have struggled to sit in sadness.  Happiness and joy I have no problem embracing.  I can even become extremely angry with ease.  But sadness?  No thank you.  I’ve avoided dealing with sadness most of my life.  Sadness is usually born out of pain, which I chose long, long ago to avoid acknowledging

You would have thought that during this time of sadness I would have opened my bible and discovered some beautiful Psalm of David to comfort me.  Or at the very least I’d been spending quiet times with God journaling about my sadness.  Nope, instead I have let my flesh bully me.  I’ve effortlessly slid into old, comfortable was of coping:  Lashing out, eating my pain, sleeping, denying truth, and that tell-tell sign I am trying to be in charge—a regular uncensored amount of profanity.

Meanwhile, God continues to do what he does, show up, be faithful, be true, be sovereign. He doesn’t throw his hands up at me in exasperation.  He doesn’t distance himself from me because I’ve been too offensive.  He isn’t shocked by my thinking or my mouth.  He created me.  He gave me free will.  I am his daughter and he knows me and continues to love me. 

I’ve let myself be drug around by my feelings all week, dreading today and tasks that lie before me. Finally a still quiet voice says, “Are you really going to let the enemy steal your joy?  Are you really going to just let your peace be disrupted?  Hell no!”

I realized this morning that wanting to honor Josh’s life by becoming my best self is nice goal, but really overlooks the most powerful truth God is teaching me. “Forgive me God. Forgive me for not being as moved by the knowledge your son’s death.  Christ came and died so that through him I could become the person God had created me to be.  A life in Christ is a life thriving, not just surviving.” 

Josh is with God, not because he died, but because Christ gave up his life so that Josh and all of us could have life eternal.

Though Josh’s story can inspire and encourage, it can’t offer much more than that.  Christ’s story, on the other hand, is a life changing story of salvation and redemption.  That’s the story that needs to be told over and over.

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