If pain is temporary and suffering doesn’t last always, then why does the new pain seem so familiar to me? It makes me wonder if the old pain ever really left at all. Was I ever free? Did I truly heal, because this new pain somehow feels like a disease that has woken up from remission? Just when I thought “finally.” Right when I was about to celebrate that “finally,” like the Israelites, I’ve found myself at the edge of the Red Sea.

On one hand, I want to have hope because I have the luxury of knowing how that story goes, but on the other, I have the fear of being stuck in the wilderness of my promise. In panic, I checked to see if I’ve been ungrateful for my “manna.” Have I been worshiping any idols unknowingly? I went down the list of everything and couldn’t find the “why” of which my promise has yet to be seen. I guess I’m feeling perhaps how Job felt, even though I don’t feel I’m half as righteous as he was.

It just seems like it’s been pain on top of pain, suffering after suffering. “Why hast thou forsaken me?” My heart, mind, and soul ripple with those words. Again, like the Israelites at the Red Sea, I know what happened after Christ uttered those words that resonate so deeply in my spirit. Yet, the pain is so overbearing that I feel as though my hope and faith are held in the jaws of a lion in which nothing and no one but the Father can deliver me. #faith #hope #friday #grace #thoughts #wilderness #deliverance