“When a door opened . . . that let the future in”

“There isn’t one of us,” writes dear Frederick Buechner, “whose life hasn’t flamed up into moments when a door opened somewhere that let the future in, moments when we moved through that door. . . .” (A Room Called Remember)

 

That day—the one I’ve been telling you about, day three in Lomalinda—has always stood out in my memory. After more than forty years, recalling it still pains me. But let me hasten to say the memory of that day also amazes me, it makes me smile, it warms my heart.

 

Here’s why: Even though I was shattered—broken, stunned, scared—on that afternoon, a door opened—God Himself stood on the other side of the door, and He opened it—even if I hadn’t fully grasped that yet.

 

Since that day, I’ve long taken comfort in what the Bible tells us: God goes before His children—He is the vanguard—in the lead, on the front line. (1 Chronicles 14:15, Isaiah 52:12).

 

God was already in Lomalinda when I arrived. He was there, welcoming me, opening a door to my new life. I was a nervous wreck, but He was unflappable. I was disoriented, but He was steady, focused.

 

God also goes behind his children—he is the rear guard (Isaiah 52:12). He brings up the rear, protecting us from what might attack from behind. Rearward also means to gather up—God gathers us in His arms when we are weak. He comes along behind and helps gather up the messes and broken pieces we left along the way.

 

So our wonderful God goes before us to lead

and He follows behind us to protect and help.

Front and back, we’re wrapped in His loving arms.

 

If I’d have listened to God, I might have heard Him welcoming me, smiling, and saying something like He said to Habakkuk: “Look, watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something that you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it” (Habakkuk 1:5).

 

On that steamy afternoon in Lomalinda,

standing—in my sweat-drenched clothes—

in that little red brick house,

thanking God for strong breezes

blowing through the window slats,

and listening to parrots and crickets

and an occasional dog bark on a nearby hill,

God opened a new door for me

and welcomed me into my new, good future.

 

And I stepped through that open door.

 

It was as if He was saying, “My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

 

And if I had been thinking clearly, if I could have found words, I might have answered Him something like this:

 

“Holy God of love. . . You love me just as I am

and in spite of what I have done.

Most of all, I know that

You are involved with me to enable me to be

the person I was created and destined to be.

I can trust You because

I have found You utterly reliable

each time I have trusted my needs

and problems to You.”

(Lloyd John Ogilvie, Quiet Moments with God)

 

Waiting on God: a good thing, “a vibrant contemplative work”

Later I’d look back and recognize that I’d turned a corner with God and my husband that afternoon. 

But the fulfillment of that would take months. In the meantime, I was exhausted—drained, shattered, feeling my way through a fog. 

I could do nothing except carry out my duties like a robot, but—and this is the most important—at the same time, I was keenly aware that I was waiting on God. 

The Bible tells us, often, to wait on God. But what does it mean to wait on God? 

It’s not giving up. Neither is it being aloof. Waiting on God is not being in denial. It is not an escape. It’s not about keeping our distance from God. 

Waiting on God is not being passive, though it can involve a degree of passiveness. 

Sue Monk Kidd writes, “I had tended to view waiting as mere passivity. When I looked it up in my dictionary however, I found that the words passive and passion come from the same Latin root, pati, which means ‘to endure.’ Waiting is thus both passive and passionate. It’s a vibrant contemplative work.” (When the Heart Waits) 

Waiting on God is a deliberate undertaking, an alone time of seeking intimacy with God. Jesus did that at the Mount of Olives (Luke 22:39-44). He waited on God for forty days in the desert wilderness (Luke 4:1-13). Another time he sent his disciples away on a boat, disbursed the multitudes, and, alone, traveled a mountain to pray—all night (Luke 6:12). 

It’s a time to do what God asks of us: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). 

It’s a time of saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9). Waiting on God is talking less and listening more. It’s quieting our own voice and, instead, actively listening for and to Him. 

Oswald Chambers wrote of something of what that’s like, of the person who “meets God at every turn, hears Him in every sound, sleeps at His feet, and wakes to find Him there.” Chambers goes on to describe it as the person “developing his power of knowing God,”—such a vitally important pursuit. (Christian Disciplines) 

Waiting on the Lord implies an active back and forth with God: “Out of the depths I cry to you. . . . O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry” (Psalm 130:1-2). 

It’s characterized by hope. “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning. . . .” (Psalm 130:1-6) and “. . . put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption” (Psalm 130:7). 

Waiting on God is trusting Him—it’s a confident expectancy. “We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name” (Psalm 33:20-21). 

That means that waiting on God is an act of faith. 

Sue Monk Kidd writes of being in a “place of fertile emptiness” (When The HeartWaits). I like that: “Fertile emptiness.” Waiting on God can be rich with possibilities. It can be a creative time, a transformative time, a productive time leading to fruitfulness. 

But that takes time. And it can involve growing pains because it can require us to humble ourselves, question ourselves, and then reassess what we believe and expect and assume and hope for. It requires us to be content in an in-between time, in transition, not knowing how things will turn out. That means waiting on God can be tumultuous. It can be scary. 

But it can also be a sacred time, a time of the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2), of being teachable, of softening the heart; a time of increased clarity—all of them can inspire hope, direction, and peace. 

Waiting on God can close one chapter in life and open a good, new one. 

I would later find out

that on that sizzling afternoon in Lomalinda,

standing—in my sweat-drenched clothes—

in that low, little house

that I was committed to making into our young family’s home,

listening to wind and crickets

and an occasional motorbike in the distance

and maybe a haunting whooshing cry

from a howler monkey,

God had already begun leading me to a good place,

a firm place on which to stand—

and on which to live and thrive.

He was already working to help me mature as a wife,

mother, and His daughter.

 

The giver of new songs to sing

I had engaged in one horrific battle with my husband and God. And I didn’t win. 

Even though I’d refused to unpack, I now had to unpack. 

Even though I’d shouted at my husband, “We are leaving,” we were not leaving. 

Yet big things, good new things, were going on behind the scenes, stuff I didn’t recognize that afternoon or even in the weeks to come. 

Those good, big things would become clearer over time. In the meantime, I just had to keep doing the next thing, and then the next thing. I had to keep unpacking, putting one numb foot in front of the other numb foot. 

Let me tell you some of the lovely things God was doing behind the scenes: 

He stood beside me there in that hot little brick house under blistering sun in the middle of nowhere in South America. If I could have heard God’s voice, I’d have heard him say, “Look at this new thing I am about to do. It’s already happening. Don’t you see it?” (Isaiah 43:19, NCV) 

Because of what He was doing, in only a matter of weeks I’d be able to say, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire; he set my foot on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” (Psalm 40:1-3, NIV) 

To get me to that good place, that rock, that firm place to stand, He had to help me mature as a wife, mother, and Christian. It would take hard work on my part to cooperate with Him. 

When I think of my need to mature, I think of Jesus’ words, “I am the true vine; my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit. And he cleans and trims every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.” (John 15:1–2, NCV)

 

Yes, some of my “branches” would have to be cut off—the worthless ones. I’d have to:

• let go of unreasonable expectations
• get rid of incorrect assumptions
• recognize untruths I was believing and reject them
• stop saying “I can’t do this, I won’t do this.”
• stop saying, “God, You got this all wrong!”
• get rid of my bad attitude

 

Yes, those were some of the dead branches God would have to prune out.

 

And then let’s look at those other branches Jesus spoke of—the good branches. I take comfort in what Tim Challies points out: that “the Father trims every branch that bears fruit. Suffering, then, is not a sign of God’s disapproval but his approval, for it is the branches that are already bearing that he carefully cuts.” It’s comforting to think that, apparently, I was not completely rotten to the core.

 

Tim also says, “He looks after us with all the attentiveness of a gardener who longs to see His vine bear fruit. He tends us, He nourishes us, and when necessary He prunes us. And though we do not welcome those times when pains cut deep into our souls, we have this confidence: No hand but His ever holds the shears.

 

"If it is our loving gardener who does the pruning,” Tim continues, “we can be sure there are never any careless cuts. Though we may not know why this branch has had to be trimmed or that one removed, we do know the One who wields the blade.” (Click to read Tim’s post, No Hand But His Ever Holds the Shears.)  

 

I had to be willing to let God prune my branches, both the ones producing fruit and those that were not.

 

I had to once again—as much as was humanly possible—let God take first place in my life.

 

And, as Sarah Hilkemann so wisely points out:

 

"You will have to reach this point over and over,

this willingness to just say, ‘Here I am, Lord.’

Here I am, to do what feels impossible,

to stay when [I] just want to leave. . . .

‘Here I am, Lord’ will not be a once-and-done call, 

but a daily surrender to love right where you are."

(“No Strings Attached”) 

Hope. Hope is what God asks of us. Hope in Him. Hope in what we can become in Him, hope in what He can do even when we’re in our darkest hours. 

Though I could barely sense it, God was at work. In His loving grace, He can do His profoundest work in our biggest struggles. 

Even on that shattering afternoon,

God was putting a new song in my heart.

Hooray!

 

 

“Growth suffering”

I recall that day with deep regret. And pain.

 

You, too, have regrets. You remember suffering the pain of them.

 

But did you know there’s good pain and bad pain? Did you know suffering the good kind can be helpful?    

 

Dr. Henry Cloud explains the difference between bad and good pain—between destructive and valuable pain.

 

We can suffer bad pain for various reasons. One is the pain someone else inflicts upon us.

 

But there’s another pain that we bring upon ourselves because of our own “character faults,” Dr. Cloud says, the pain that comes from “repeating old patterns and avoiding the pain it would take to change them.”

 

Dr. Cloud says we need to recognize the pain we bring upon ourselves is “a wake-up call,” otherwise we are wasting that pain.

 

Wasting our pain. Think about that. Are we wasting our pain?

 

For several decades now, I’ve cherished five little words Chuck Swindoll spoke on his radio program. The words changed me. He said, “GOD DOES NOT WASTE YOUR SUFFERING.”

 

So, if God doesn’t want to waste our pain and suffering, we’d better not fight against Him by choosing to waste our pain!

 

Dr. Cloud says that wasted pain “is the pain we go through to avoid the good pain of growth that comes from pushing through. It is the wasted pain we encounter as we try to avoid grief and the true hurt that needs to be worked through.”

 

With God’s help, our job is to “face the growth steps [we] need to keep from repeating [our] mistakes.” This is how good pain can help us mature.

 

“We all have coping mechanisms that cover up pain, help us deal with fear . . . and help us hold it all together,” writes Dr. Cloud. “Trials and suffering push those mechanisms past the breaking point so we find out where we need to grow. Then true spiritual growth begins at deeper levels. . . . Righteousness and character take the place of coping.

 

“This kind of suffering is good,” he continues. “It breaks down the ‘weak muscle’ of the soul and replaces it with stronger muscle. In this suffering, the prize we win is character—a very valuable prize indeed.

 

“Suffering is the path Jesus modeled for us, and he modeled how to do it right. He went through it all with obedience and without sin. This is the difference between those who suffer to a good end and those who suffer to no good at all.” (Click on Dr. Cloud’s article, “When Suffering Helps and When Suffering Hurts.”)

 

The good kinds of pain and suffering lead us to ask ourselves (a) what is God trying to teach me, (b) what God is trying to help me do now, and (c) will I cooperate with Him?

 

James 1:5 says “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

 

The Nelson Study Bible (NKJV Version) says this about James 1:5 “The wisdom God gives is not necessarily information on how to get out of trouble but rather insight on how to learn from one’s difficulties. . . . It is not more information about how to avoid times of testing but instead a new perspective on trials.”

 

So there I stood on that blistering hot afternoon in the middle of nowhere in South America, feeling like an utter failure as a wife, mother, and child of God.

 

And I had choices to make.

• Would I recognize this as a wake-up call?
• Would I embrace the pain and regret and suffering and would I learn from the experience?
• Would I push through? Would I climb up out of this low point with a change of character? And a deeper, more mature faith?
• Were the battle and perseverance part of the training for what God planned for my future?
• Would I choose to mature as a person?
• Would I let the experience bring me into a more intimate relationship with God?

Often it’s difficult to see any good in our failures and suffering, but God asks us to not waste those times. He holds out His hand and says, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

 

Today He’s offering His hand to you. 

It’s a strong yet gentle hand. 

Go ahead. Grab ahold of it.

 

“Failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts”

I don’t remember much about the rest of that afternoon. 

I stumbled about the house in a fog. 

It was like living in an other-worldly experience. Maybe God was inviting me into a “Come away, my beloved” moment (Song of Solomon 2:10, 13). 

Life moved in slow-motion. But at least I was moving. I was living what Elisabeth Elliot had once experienced: “Sometimes life is so hard you can only do the next thing. Whatever that is, just do the next thing. God will meet you there.” 

Yes, He did meet me there. As the Old Testament saint, Micah, said would happen, God heard the cries from my parched heart. Though I’d fallen, I would arise (Micah 7:7-8). He offered me a hand up from the rock bottom I’d hit. 

The Bible records an utterly desperate time in Elijah’s life—he was running for his life, exhausted. When he hit rock bottom, an angel of the Lord came, twice, to encourage Elijah, saying, “The journey is too much for you. Get up and eat” (I Kings 19:7). 

Many years ago, Amy Carmichael wrote about Elijah’s dire circumstances, but she didn’t let the old guy stay stuck down there. She also pointed out God’s grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16). 

Amy wrote of the times you and I fall into despair, when the “journey” has become too great for us. She wrote: “Is it not good and comforting to know that the angel of the Lord came again the second time? We never come to the place where we pass out of reach of the compassion of our God. ‘His compassions fail not. They are new every morning,’ never tiring of us, always strong for our help.” (Lamentations 3:22-23; Edges of His Ways) 

Though I could barely sense it, God was at work. In His loving grace, He can do His most profound work in our biggest struggles. 

Looking back now, I recall that day with a great deal of pain. No doubt you, too, recall pain from the past.

But did you know there’s good pain and bad pain? That suffering pain can hurt but it can also help? 

Come back next week—we’ll look at both destructive pain and valuable pain. 

In the meantime, take courage, get up, and get on with life. Remember Winston Churchill's words: "Failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."  And find comfort from God’s words to Joshua: “I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous. . . . Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:5-9).

 

“God does His deepest work in our darkest hours”

Dear Henri Nouwen wrote, “Our inclination is to show our Lord only what we feel comfortable with.”

How true that is.

But how foolish we are to believe we can hide anything from God! He knew all about my ugly messes and desperate struggles during my first few days in Lomalinda. (See several recent posts.)

Nouwen continued, “But the more we dare to reveal our whole trembling self to Him, the more we will be able to sense that His love, which is perfect love, casts out all our fears.”

We can be vulnerable in God’s presence. We can’t be anything else!

But—oh! Being vulnerable with God hurts. It hurts our pride. We feel ashamed of our failures and weaknesses, ashamed of our sins—ashamed of ourselves, ashamed before God.

And yet, when we feel the bonds of guilt overwhelming us, God brings us dear encouragers, people like Marie Chapian, who points us to God’s words in Isaiah 44:22, “I have blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.” (Amplified Bible)

Then Marie writes this, as if God were speaking to us:

“Confess your sins so I can forgive you, relieving you of the painful burden of sin and failure.

“You tend to see yourself as unclean, as far removed from all that is heavenly. I see you as My precious child.

“You tend to see yourself as a hopeless backslider, a poor refugee. I see you as Mine.

“You can never dig too deep a hole for Me to pull you out. . . .

“Do not think of your Lord as a man, quick to anger, vengeful and spiteful. . . .

“The Father abundantly pardons. . . .

“Hear Me in the wrestling of your mind. . . .

“I shall lift you up above guilt and shame. . . .

“Confess to Me your wanderings. . . . Feelings of guilt do not make you holy or clean. . . .

“Yield all your guilt to Me. In return I’ll give you a new and cleansed heart.” (from His Thoughts Toward Me by Marie Chapian, based on Isaiah 55:7, 8, 9; 54:11, 14) 

What loving, healing, hope-filled words! Heart-changing words! Life-changing words!

Indeed, from personal experience, AW Tozer knew the truth of those words when he wrote: “God does His deepest work in our darkest hours.”

Henri Nouwen knew the truth of them from personal experience, too: “Lord, I promise I will not run away, not give up, not stop praying, even when it seems useless, pointless, and a waste of time and effort. I love you . . . and . . . I hope in you even though I often experience despair. . . .” (A Cry for Mercy)

Hope. Hope is what God asks of us. Hope in Him. Hope in what we can become in Him, hope in what He can do even when we’re in our darkest hours.

 

Longing to get over the bad stuff

 

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going,” wrote Thomas Merton. “I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.” 

Merton’s words sum up my state of mind that afternoon at Lomalinda, our out-of-the-way mission center. I’d been fighting to survive the next few minutes, and then the next few minutes. 

“Nor do I really know myself,” continued Merton, “and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. 

"I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

“Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost. . . . I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone." (Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude) 

Merton penned such encouraging, hope-filled words for desperate times.  I didn’t know him or his words back then but reading them now offers me comfort. 

Back on that unforgettable afternoon in Lomalinda, in my distress—flustered, discouraged, troubled, lost—somehow God impressed upon me what Elisabeth Elliot discovered and then shared with the rest of us: “Sometimes life is so hard you can only do the next thing. Whatever that is just do the next thing. God will meet you there.” 

So I kept doing the next thing, one baby step at a time—unpacking, arranging, cleaning, caring for the kids, and planning what I’d cook for dinner that evening.

And just as Elisabeth said, God did meet me there. Sometimes He remains very quiet, settled calmly in the background. He was on that day—but He was there. Oh, yes, He was there with me that afternoon. 

He was not angry with me. He would not reject me. I was His child in need of comfort and grace. A weary child of His in need of a new perspective that would lead to hope. 

To arrive at that new perspective and grab hold of that hope, perhaps I needed to grieve—grieve my loss of home and family and country, grieve my inability to properly, healthily carry out my responsibilities in my new house and to nurture my husband and young ones. And to grieve my meltdown and angry outburst at my husband. 

Even grieve the loss of who I had thought myself to be. “Nor do I really know myself,” Merton wrote. 

Dr.Henry Cloud says when we voluntarily enter into grief, it can lead to resolution. 

He says grief “is the most important pain there is. . . .  It heals. It restores. It changes things that have gone bad. Moreover, it is the only place where we get comforted when things have gone wrong.

 

“. . . Grief is the way of our getting finished with the bad stuff in life. It is the process by which we ‘get over it,’ by which we ‘let it go.’ . . .

 

“. . . It is the process by which we can be available for new things. The soul is freed from painful experience and released for new, good experience.” (Dr. Henry Cloud, “Why Grief is Different from Other Kinds of Suffering”)

 

Yes, looking back now, I believe I needed to grieve. Though I couldn’t have put it into words, I longed to move on, ready for new, good experiences in Lomalinda. I longed to be a happy wife, mother, and missionary. 

I think again of Thomas Merton’s heart-wrenching cry and how it captured my state of mind that afternoon: "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.”

But that’s not the end of the story. 

When we are disoriented, unable to look to the future, when we flounder, fail, and fall apart, we have many promises of God’s unfailing love and patience with us. One of them is this: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:8).

With the Lord going before me, I just kept taking one little step after one little step, doing the next thing.

 

“Do the next thing”

 

I was only twenty-nine years old—young as well as immature—and now, decades later, I still remember that day as one of my darkest, most desperate days. (See Fighting to survive the next few minutes.)

 

Living at that isolated mission center in the middle of nowhere in Colombia was not what I pictured, not what I expected, and I was not prepared for living there.

 

While I hold no hard feelings for our mission organization, I now realize that our pre-field orientation course in Dallas was not sufficient when it came to cross-cultural living and the possibility of culture shock.

 

I had taken notes during our training and I‘d written in my journal that I appreciated the information but, in hindsight, I wish our instructors had emphasized a couple of critical points: (1) that we should expect to experience at least some culture shock, and (2) that we should reach out to others—our administrators, our neighbors—to help us through culture shock and to settle into our new lives in that foreign land.

 

But there I was on the mission field, unprepared and unraveled. Dumbfounded. A failure. Numb, broken, and weary to the core of my being. I don’t remember much about the rest of that afternoon.

 

And I felt terribly alone.

 

Yet, God was at work. Only later would I recognize that I’d hit bottom and that with God’s help and the prayers of family and friends back home (who had no way of knowing my circumstances), I was on the way back up, out of the desert wilderness and its despair.

 

The reality of that—of being on the upswing, of arising from the ashes—was out of my sight, out of my thoughts, out of my grasp. I didn’t realize that words of hope from Micah in the Old Testament were already working out in my life that afternoon: “My God will hear me. . . . When I fall, I will arise; when I am in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:7-8).

If I’d listened carefully, I could have heard God say, “I am holding you by your right hand—I, the Lord your God. And I say to you, ‘Do not be afraid. I am here to help you’” (Isaiah 41:13).

When we hit rock bottom, God whispers things like, “I love you. Together we’ll get through this. You have doubts and questions and worries, but trust Me. You don’t need to figure out everything this afternoon. Together with Me, you’ll survive this.”

God’s Word encourages us with assurances like Isaiah 40:29, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.”

 

The legendary missionary Elisabeth Elliot, newly widowed with a ten-month-old daughter, returned to Ecuador and the work she and her murdered, martyred husband, Jim, had originally started together. But she was overwhelmed with carrying out huge programs and projects underway. She said, “I had to learn to do all kinds of things, which I was not trained or prepared in any way to do.”

 

As she described it, she was trying to do the work of what I estimate to be four people! She wrote, “You can imagine how tempted I was to just plunk myself down and say, ‘There is no way I can do this.’ I wanted to sink into despair and helplessness. . . .”

 

Elisabeth continued: “I remembered a verse that God had given to me before I went to Ecuador in Isaiah 50:7: “The Lord God will help me; therefore, shall I not be confounded. Therefore, have I set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed.”

Then Elisabeth had a brilliant insight: “Then I remembered that old Saxon legend, ‘Do the next thing.’”

Then she said something profound, “You don’t have to do the whole thing right this minute, do you?”

Elisabeth Elliot also said, “Sometimes life is so hard you can only do the next thing. Whatever that is just do the next thing. God will meet you there.”

And that afternoon God did meet me there in my little brick house in South America. He helped me do the next thing. He helped me keep breathing, performing like a robot, unpacking, organizing the house, and figuring out what to prepare for the family’s dinner that evening.

I will forever be grateful to Him for that.

Elisabeth asks you:

“Have you had the experience of feeling as if you’ve got far too many burdens to bear, far too many people to take care of, far too many things on your list to do? You just can’t possibly do it, and you get in a panic and you just want to sit down and collapse in a pile and feel sorry for yourself.

“Well, I’ve felt that way a good many times in my life,” Elisabeth writes, “and I go back over and over again to an old Saxon legend, which I’m told is carved in an old English parson somewhere by the sea. . . . The legend is ‘Do the next thing.’ And it’s spelled in what I suppose is Saxon spelling. . . . ‘DOE THE NEXT THYNGE.’”

Finally, Elisabeth asks: “What is the next thing for you to do?”

 

 

 

When you really make a mess of things

 

I had really messed up. Maybe you’ve messed up, too. If you’ve ever lost hope and felt desperate and then blown it, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

 

I had yelled at my husband, refused to unpack, and insisted we leave for the States immediately.

I’d yelled at God, too. “God, You got this wrong when You sent us here! What could You have been thinking?!?!”

 

Exhausted, suffering from several days of culture shock, and feeling trapped, I’d crashed into a “fight or flight” mode. Dr. Henry Cloud explains: “When we’re in a crisis and need help, our brains have instantly changed.

“When we are under threat,” he continues, “our higher brain’s ability to think clearly, make judgments, find solutions, solve problems, and calm down is being interrupted by a bath of stress hormones that take us to a ‘fight or flight’ mode.”

Dr. Cloud described me perfectly.

But my husband, seemingly unable to empathize with me, insisted we stay, pointing out he’d committed to teaching those missionaries’ kids and he wouldn’t let them down.

And he was right about that. He’d made a commitment—we’d made a commitment—and should not back out.

But knowing he was right didn’t ease my despondency.

The wilderness. I was in it—a parched wilderness. I couldn’t have put it into words that day, but somehow, deep down, I knew that despite my hollering at God and questioning Him, He was not angry at me. No, He loves us “even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us,” writes Frederick Buechner. “He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. . . .

“And rise we shall, out of the wilderness, every last one of us.” (Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember)

That reminds me of these words of hope from Micah in the Old Testament: “My  God will hear me. . . . When I fall, I will arise; when I am in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.” (Micah 7:7-8)

Lloyd John Ogilvie penned this prayer: “Father, help me take life’s . . . defeats as a part of a bigger process on the way to final triumph. Give me a faith that defies defeat. Help me get up and press on. . . . Nothing is more crucial than trusting You. . . . Lift me up when I get down. . . . I rise to fight again!” (Lloyd John Ogilvie, Quiet Moments with God; emphasis mine)

“We have a [Heavenly] Father who understands the weakest and most foolish of His children,” wrote missionary Amy Carmichael. She was talking about the likes of me—weak and most foolish.

“So,” Amy continued, “scattered throughout His Book, we have little simple prayers. . . .” (Edges of His Ways)

Prayers like: “Lord, hear me when I call; have mercy and answer me. . . . Do not turn away from me. Do not turn [me] away in anger. . . . Do not push me away or leave me alone, God, my Savior. . . . Lord, teach me your ways and guide me to do what is right. . . .” (Psalm 27:7-11, NCV)

Prayers like: “O Sovereign Lord, deal well with me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy. . . . my heart is wounded within me. I fade away like an evening shadow. . . . My knees give way. . . . Help me, O Lord my God; save me in accordance with your love.” (Psalm 109:21-26, NIV)

At that remote mission center 

on that afternoon of mental, physical, 

emotional, and spiritual distress, 

God my Father understood. 

That’s staggering, really.

In the chaos of unpacking, setting up a home, and acclimating to extreme weather, He was capable of being my one stability.

While navigating through a new culture and meeting dozens of new people (as lovely as that is, as an introvert, the experience overwhelmed me), He was capable of holding me together, sending me a little dose of stamina, giving me the tiniest measure of courage—just enough to keep me going from one minute to the next.

And He was doing all that despite my inability to feel Him genuinely close or hear His voice. My deep angst did not keep Him from doing His work.

“Your faithfulness, Lord, is my peace,” writes Lloyd John Ogilvie. “It is a source of comfort and courage that You know exactly what is ahead of me. Go before me to show the way.

“Here is my mind; inspire it with Your wisdom. Here is my will; infuse it with desire to follow Your guidance. Here is my heart; infill it with Your love.” (Lloyd John Ogilvie, Quiet Moments with God)

But let’s talk about you for a minute: We all have days of weariness and discouragement. We all feel broken at times. Occasionally we all lack the will to keep fighting the good fight.

When that happens to you, when you feel alone and misunderstood, when you feel like you’ve really blown it, remember the words of Micah 7:7-8, “My  God will hear me. . . . When I fall, I will arise; when I am in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.”

Go in peace.