Sometimes Life is Hard -- Revisited

I'm planning to write a mini series on the topic of forgiveness and am in the process of praying, researching, and organizing the million thoughts that are running through my head on this topic. So I've been in a quandary. I don't like to let too much time pass before I share a post, but I want to very carefully handle the Word while sharing from my heart with pure motives. Because of this I am not quire ready to share what I am learning about forgiveness. Generally, I share what I am currently learning and what applies to my own life. This month marks the eighth anniversary of Passionate Heart Ministry and we graduated 37 women from our support groups this week. These beautiful women had the courage to feel deep pain, come out of denial about their relationship with food, examine their painfully dysfunctional families, or explore the confusion they had in dealing with their emotions. These courageous women stayed the course so we planed a graduation ceremony. I shared some thoughts with them that were originally from a post I wrote last year. I made some changes for the talk and thought I might post the talk even though it is similar to last year's post. We have added a lot of readers this year and hopefully it will bless you if you are new. I will share some thoughts on forgiveness in the next couple of weeks but for those who were reading last year, I hope you will revisit with me and maybe even leave your thoughts below on how God sees you through the hard. 

"Sometimes life is hard. Life is hard because we experience losses—the loss of loved ones to death; the loss of relationships to conflict; loss of marriages to divorce; loss of things stolen, loss of homes stripped by floods, fires, or wars; loss of sentimental items, representing loved ones no longer here. 

Life is hard due to loneliness we experience. Maybe we married someone who is unwilling or unable to connect at a heart level. Maybe we took a risk and asked for changes in a friendship and the friend ignored us, leaving us feeling more invisible and unheard. Maybe we are dealing with painful issues that must remain private, leaving us feeling so alone. Life is hard when we lose jobs or struggle with poverty face the loss of a home or the fear of not being able to feed our family. Life is hard when we end relationships to preserve our integrity or because a relationship causes pain too deep to bear. Life is hard when we experience abuse. It doesn’t matter if the abuse is sexual, physical, emotional, or spiritual—all abuse robs us of innocence, causes us to feel unsafe in our homes, community, church or our own bodies. Abuse leaves us struggling with injustices and judgments—sometimes others and sometimes our own. Life is hard when we realize we can't fulfill dreams or we face limitations because our bodies or our emotions are wounded. Life is hard because we sin and hurt others. We say unkind words we can’t retract and they hang between us and the person we love like a heavy, dark curtain. We hurt others’ reputations through gossip and slander. We say things in haste that deeply wound the hearts of our children. We lose friendships because we are selfish, self-centered, or hurtful. We may regret it, we may repent, and may apologize many times, but sometimes forgiveness isn’t granted and restoration never takes place.

Ironically, the more we love, the more we will experience hard. But, the hard is not always bad. Pain can create a thirst for change. It can create a humility that leads to repentance. It can create a thirst for our heavenly home where there will be no more death, no injustice, no sin, no abuse, and no more tears. The question we need to contemplate in the here and now is, “How do I live in the hard and remain faithful to God?”

There are a couple of things we can do that will help us remain faithful in the hard. First, though simple, is very powerful. We can choose to look for God’s daily blessings and acknowledge them and give thanks to God for those even in the midst of the hard

Second, we can follow the Old Testament example of building monuments. When Israel experienced the hard followed by God’s miraculous intervention, they were instructed to build monuments so that they wouldn’t forget what He had done. When they crossed the Red Sea, they built stone monuments and when their children asked what the stones were about, they told them the history behind them and what God did for them. Each of our monuments might look different. One of my friend has monuments. She planted plants when her four children were born to mark the gifts God had given her. After one child, she planted a sprig of bamboo that grew into a grove. She recently lost the son that the bamboo represented in an accident and she has survived the great pain of grief by praising God and by remembering the gifts God gave her through her son. She can see the grove of bamboo from her window and will someday be able to share with her grandchildren about the son she lost, the lessons she learned through grief, and about his faith in Jesus.

When our granddaughter was born 12 weeks too early, our women’s director gave me a prayer quilt for her. It covered her incubator as she slept and grew. In my mind the quilt is a monument to the God who created this beautiful little girl and saw her through a rocky start. I also planted a yellow rose to celebrate the life of one of the most precious friends I have ever had. She was a woman of grace and humility and a very giving and loyal friend. Its growing rampant by my front door, and every time I see it I think of her and the friendship God gave us and how that friendship created a hunger to know the God she knew so well. 

But most of my monuments are found in my writing. Not only do I keep a running lists of things, I am thankful for, I have published curriculum for support groups that testify to the work God has done in my life. I also publish this blog, sharing the lessons God teaches me so I won't forget and so others can learn from what I have learned.

One monument I wrote about started being built when a counselor asked me to give her one word that described what I felt growing up. Without hesitation, I said, “Invisible.” Several months later I was going through a healing prayer and the prayer director told me she sensed God wanted me to renounce something she had never heard of. I asked her what it was and she said it was “the spirit of invisibility.” I had not told her I felt invisible and was overwhelmed by God’s love in telling her to have me renounce that spiritual stronghold. God then reminded me of the story of Hagar who was Sarai’s servant. After she had become pregnant by her mistress’s husband at her mistress’s request, she developed contempt for Sarai. Sarai became enraged and sent her away. Pregnant and alone in that desert, life was hard for Hagar. She sat down and wept. Genesis 16 tells us the angel of the Lord responded to her. 

“And He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going/” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angle of the LORD also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.”…so she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “El Roi”—You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me.”

God saw Hagar and met her in the hard. Hagar called God “El Roi,” the God who Sees! The God of Hagar let me know that He also saw me even when others didn’t. El Roi has many implications for us. He sees children abandoned by parents—either physically or emotionally. He sees a child, belittled and abused at school. He sees a girl trying to scrub away the shame of the perverted sexual violations perpetrated against her. He sees a girl trafficked for sex—drugged and held against her will. He sees a family displaced by war, earthquakes, and floods. He sees those grieving the violent deaths of loved ones. He sees parents whose children are starving, sick, or dying. He sees moms struggling with lost babies and those who couldn’t conceive. He sees babies born so small they fit in the palm, struggling to breathe while parents beg God for the life of one out of the womb too soon. He sees those saying good bye to loved ones as they slip into eternity and those grieving because they didn’t get to say goodbye. El Roi! What hope there is in our God who sees.

God gave me another monument through a Bible study I attended. The pastor asked what was difficult about waiting on God. I wasn’t sure why it was hard for me until the pastor shared a verse that pricked my heart. The verse said that God has His ears turned towards those who wait on Him. I was such a compliant child, that when I spoke someone’s name and they didn’t respond, I gave up. I assumed that when God wanted me to wait, that he wasn’t going to respond either and would withdraw from Him. That night I realized God’s silence didn’t mean He didn’t want to hear me. It meant that His ears were turned toward me and it was an invitation to keep talking to Him:

• Talking until the buried pain in my heart was healed and replaced with joy
• Talking until the compassion that had been stifled was resurrected and my heart grew passionate again
• Talking until the lies I believed were exposed and replaced with His truth
• Talking until my unbelief grew into faith
• Talking until my hidden sin was exposed and I cried out for His mercy to be fulfilled in me
• Talking until the desire to know Him became bigger than my desire to experience His gifts
• Talking until He fully had my heart, God is my Jehovah Shama--the God who hears.

God hears the cries of those facing injustice. He hears the cries of those abandoned or betrayed by parents, spouses, or friends. He hears the cries of those disappointed and those with deep wounds left by those who should have loved them, but didn’t. He hears the cries of those beaten down and trod upon. He hears the cries of those who have been lead to believe they’re never good enough, never smart enough, or never pretty enough and too much at the same time. He hears the cries of those who have born burdens way too big for their shoulders. He hears the cries of those who long for peace and freedom from abuses, freedom from pain, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from addictions, and freedom from hatred. He hears the cries of those who hate their sin and want to be forgiven.

He hears the cries and the questions that rise from the depths of grieving souls and understands that those questions reveal broken hearts. He hears every prayer spoken aloud and every prayer muttered deep within the heart—even the prayers so full of anguish they are heard as nothing more than a groan. Oh, what hope there is in Jehovah Shama who is the God whose ears are always turned toward us.

God is not only a God who sees and hears, He is a God who acts! In response to the cries of the people He created and the pain He saw them in, He came to earth to reveal His great love. He took on a body of flesh and lived among people just like us---people in bondage to sin and people paralyzed by deeply wounded hearts. He spent time with those who had overwhelming needs no person could fill. He chose to die a horrible cruel death—suspended between heaven and earth to bear our shame, our guilt, and our ugly sin. We must never lose sight of the fact that our sin wasn’t placed on a cross, It was placed on the LORD Jesus Himself! He was the One who faced the wrath of God in our place. He died so that God’s unending grace, precious peace, unimaginable goodness, and extravagant love could be poured out upon us. He bore unspeakable abuse so that He could exchange His perfect righteousness for our sin. He came so that we could truly know that God is a God who understands when life is hard.

In the moments when we are overwhelmed by the hard, we can look to the monuments we have built and believe in a God who sees and who hears and who will act in ways that show us His love and His faithfulness.

We must always remember that the painful cross preceded the glory of the empty grave. We must remember to embrace the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, who leads us to repentance and to a deeper connection with our Savior. Jesus took our sin away and He is the One and only one who can heal our hearts and give us hope. Remembering what He has done will help us remain faithful in the hard.

We are blessed that the hard causes us to long for the completion of our salvation that occurs when we are face to face with our Jesus--when our pain and suffering will end and the tug of sin on our hearts will dissipate. We want to live in such a way that we can be used by God to reach people who are lost in the hard! We want to show them that His resurrection speaks of hop, power, and joy. We can only do this by remaining faithful and trusting Him in the hard. Do you believe in your heart of hearts that God sees you? Do you believe that He hears you? Can you trust Him in the Hard? I hope so, because He faced the hard for you and He faced the hard for me."