Sometimes there are no words that can mend the pain we bear. Well meaning people, myself included -- want so much to offer some anesthetic, some hope or power to someone in pain but lets face it, sometimes our pain is so deep and so great and so PERSONAL that there is nothing anyone can say that will cut the pain.
Reading my devotion today I thought about this as the writer quoted an oft given "pain shot" from Gods word that says, "God never gives us more than we can handle" from 1 Corinthians 10:13. I agreed with the writer who said this scripture refers to temptation, not to pain from a loss etc. Even Jesus faced a time of great pain and might I say fear -- that night in Gethsemane when he was praying so hard he bled?
He was begging God to take the cup from him aka: Father please isn't there another way to save our people? Do I have to drink from this cup of torture, pain and humiliation that is surely coming my way? Please, please remove it! Please find another way! We have all found ourselves in those dire straights. Our own failures, battling an illness, cancer, financial devastation, barely surviving a tempest at someone else's hands or natural disaster... we have all found ourselves begging for mercy.
I sat contemplating this and my thoughts ricocheted to how amazing it feels when we are depleted and exhausted and we fall back on our own bed. Oh the comfort....the feeling of safety. It's that "ahhhhh" feeling. It's like holding your beloved pet or blanket or how we feel when our "safe person" envelopes us in a huge hug. Think of the embrace of your mother, father, spouse or loved one. During that embrace, the pain eases and there is if only a moment of pain relief.
In all honesty the best anesthetic I've found to my life's pain has been falling back on who God is....who I've experienced him to be --- who I've seen him be to others and wrapping that knowledge about me like a soft meemo (my sons word for his blanket when he was a toddler). It's remembering every time that I've cried out to God and somehow, some way he has answered me -- perhaps not in my time frame but seriously GOD has never left me abandoned.
Yes, my anesthetic of choice has been the word of God that I wrap myself up in.
"The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms". Deuteronomy 33:27
You may say yeah but how does that work? I mean do you feel those arms around you? No. It's more like, I know that I know that I know who God is because of what I've proven is so. One day long ago I came to know Him. I've spent over 30 years learning of Him -- from Him. I've spent time talking to him, questioning him, and waiting and watching not only in my own life but in the lives of others who have entered into the same relationship with Him. And its been in this proving ground...this relating that I've experienced the glory of God.
I've come to know that the words on the pages of my Bible are not just words on a page. They are alive and active still today -- tested and proven. So when I read that passage and it says, "underneath (me) are the everlasting arms" it says to me...you KNOW it...his arms...his truths, his promises, his presence, his power they buoy you!! The comfort that you yearn for...that you search for will come.
And as I look back on my life it is then I realize this --- my greatest revelations of Gods ability and power have been during the most painful seasons of my life. They say hindsight is clearer than foresight and it is true. It is only when I look back that I realize that when I needed God the most -- when I was writhing in pain and uncertainty and my cry to God was "I don't know if I can do another day Lord"....that those arms...carried me to another day and another and another and my dependence upon him grew all the more. And that's when it happened. The revelation of his ability and my need for him in pain and out.
Lord to any who read this and are in pain and need like you were on that night in Gethsemane so many years ago --- give to them that which they need to endure. For every moment spent in pain I ask you would multiply it back to them in the knowledge of you. Use this pain within them to bring life as only you can Lord. Protect them from the lies of the enemy and give them ears to hear your holy spirit. Fill them with comfort and peace O God! For its in Jesus' name I pray....amen.
God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble
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