Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Comforting Hands of God

I am slowly recovering from the emotional wreckage of losing one of my best friends and mentors last month coupled with the sale of my father's house, 10 years after his death. To lose the one and leave the other is just brutal. I am in a funk. Usually at traumatic times like this I can feel the comforting hands of God supporting me. It seems like that feeling should be intensified knowing that my father and my best friend are now with the Lord. God lifts me up everyday, but for the first time in a long time I feel lost. Maybe it's middle age kicking in, maybe it's the lack of any concrete goal in my life right now, or maybe it's the constant barrage of imagery from the devastation all around the world (I was awoken this morning at 4 AM by not 1 but 2 nearby earthquakes). Or maybe this is God's way of building up a desperation inside of me that He will use to achieve his will in my life. I haven't written in a long time either. During the times that I use to write, I now exercise. Exercise is another great outlet and tension reliever. I thought that by the time I reached this plateau in my life that I'd have it all together. But I don't. Sure, I've achieved many of my goals, and I am very proud of that. However, I am still just as broken and messed up as ever. Everyday is a struggle, a battle internally and externally. What scares me is that I now have fewer and fewer mentors and sage guides to go to for clarity and context. Of course I read my bible, and of course I know that I should be celebrating the victory of Christ's death on the cross, and not worried about the day to day struggle. But it's still a struggle, and even with the love of my wife, children, family and friends, I still feel alone in that struggle. So right now I tell myself that I am in that unknowing place between adventures in life. I am waiting for the next mountain to climb. I need to rest and be prepared for whatever the Father brings me next. While I wait I will do my best to rest in the comforting hands of God.

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad to see another blog post. I see what you mean by this. When you live for loving others, you lose a major part of your drive and purpose. I'm praying for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This morning I awoke with a phrase lingering in the back of my mind. I went back to sleep and kept it close so I could look it up later. I dreamt about looking it up, finally I just got up. I haven't read much of the bible, but was hoping it would pop up on the net. I Googled "Comforting are the hands of God." All I could come up with was this post. So here I am.

    As far as my own experience with staying in touch with God in my heart, there was a period where I had to rely on my logic. My intuition, my instinct, my "feelings" were numb. I just couldn't draw on them anymore. What I always have had, is my logic. I do believe in God. I do believe that even when I can't feel, God will be there. I kept reminding myelf of this. Eventually, when shock and numbness started to dissipate, I started to "feel" again.

    We have so many talents as humans. We have emotion, logic and whatever else. When one weakens, we can rely on the others to get through.

    Good luck.

    ReplyDelete