Oh life, how bitter, painful and broken it is sometimes. For a vast majority of the past year and especially the past month I have felt so sharply the bitter brokenness of life. I have waited for salvation on the floor of rock bottom as yet again that floor fell away beneath me. The battle in my mind and heart led to the darkest and most lonely lies that I am alone and God is not with me and has somehow forgotten my name. I thought it would surly kill me. I writhed in emotional pain day and night. I was helpless to save myself.
I have found that God so often uses our rock bottom to draw us into himself. I never thought I could be so thankful for being so low. As the ground fell way beneath me, I fell each time closer to the cross. All my hope I had placed in everything I could see was being slowly stripped away. My own accomplishments couldn't reassure me. The roof over my head couldn't make me feel safe. The people in my life who wrapped their arms tightly around me couldn't make me feel loved enough to pull me out of the pit of despair that I had found myself in. Every distraction that I sought out left me more empty and more alone. I wanted something that life could not give me. Every stone that I turned over left me void and desperate. I wanted satisfaction from everything but He who truly satisfies. I needed a vacation or more work to do or more home projects, but I really needed healing that only Jesus can bring.
I knew He could come like the rain washing over all my broken pieces if for no other reason then that he had done it before. If for no other reason than The Bible is full of God's wholly restoration. In the darkest times of my heart, I remembered because there was nothing else I could do. I had no prayers. I had no hope. I only had the memories of God's faithfulness in my life. I remembered times when I could not pull myself out of the pit of sadness, anxiety, and desperation and He reached down in love plucking me away from sin's grip keeping my feet from stumbling. I begged God, with every breath, to do it again. And, like always, He is doing just that. On the lowest day, the kind where you think, " okay this is it. This is the very lowest bottom." And its even lower than you ever thought. That was the kind of day God started a breakthrough in me. I realized everything I have trusted has led me to the pit. Everything that my eyes could see that I had wrapped all my faith up in had led me astray. They had disappointed me. People, places, and things had let me down - but never Jesus.
I recently read Lamentations and I could so relate with the lamenter.
He ground my teeth with gravel and made me cower in the dust. 17 I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18 Then I thought, “My future is lost, as well as my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my homelessness, the wormwood and the poison. 20 I continually remember them and have become depressed. 21 Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! 24 I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him. 26 It is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.
Lamentations 3:16-26
I felt like I was reading the words written on my heart for so long. I noticed the lamenter remembering. He called to mind the Lord's faithfulness in his overwhelming bareness. I would and still do remind myself that no matter what I see, no matter what I feel, the Lord is good and faithful because He can't be anything else. I am not whole. But I am in recovery. I have had to let go of a lot of things that led me to the place so desolate. It has felt in many ways like giving up a drug addiction. I have let go and held on and let go and held on to a trust in things that will only leave me broken. I have relapsed too many times to count, but I wont give up. I won't back down. My own weakness has shown within me the unbelievable strength of the Lord. I am committed to the fight for freedom in the loving arms of a perfect father. I am committed to remember the savior that once found me, rescued me, and his faithful love that will see me through.
16 Therefore we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.
17 For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.
18 So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
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