I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the LORD's unfailing love
surrounds the man who trusts in him.
I think that we are rarely honest about our "actual status". Facebook is so funny, because it allows us to share with others what we are doing, thinking, saying, feeling --- however I really think we just say what we want people to think about us in that venue. My friend and I were talking about our "actual status" the other day, and here are a few of our favorites:
*Lindsey is in full dress clothes, sans pants, laying in bed eating marshmallows.
*Beth is still wearing a swimsuit from this morning, sitting on the living room floor, eating expired food.
*Beth just pulled a tshirt out of the clean laundry basket that she wore on May 5th and still hasn't gotten around to folding (this one would become FB appropriate if I added "haha too many fun things to do to get to laundry!")
*Beth is PMS-ing and feeling like a caged animal.
*Beth is thinking that if she reads another post about lactating or dilating she may delete FB altogether.
Isn't honesty rare?? I struggle with it, as I tend to side with the People-pleaser team. My fear is if I tell someone what I really think, or what needs to be said in honesty, they won't be happy or like me anymore. Which sounds ridiculous when I say that out loud, but seriously. I've been trying to work on my honesty when I pray too.
God, I feel like you don't care.
the LORD's unfailing love surrounds the girl who trusts in him
God, I feel really alone.
the LORD's unfailing love surrounds the girl who trusts in him.
God, life is way harder than I thought it would be.
the LORD's unfailing love surrounds the girl who trusts in him.
It doesn't matter what we throw at Him, the answer comes back the same everytime. The trust part is the tricky part of that statement.
I've been meeting with some friends to study Ruth this summer, and I told someone this last week that my bible study went for almost 3 hours last night --- and they acted sympathetic, but I was quick to correct and just beaming from how much we got to talk about in that time. One of the things we talked about was weeping or crying, and how that looks in scripture. For me, honesty and crying are so so closely related. Here is what i've decided since hashing this out with my friends:
Weeping is everywhere in the Bible. It's not a bad thing. Our study challenged us to "weep forward" and use the times of sadness to still find God and still keep going.
Crying gets more mileage when you do it with someone else. Crying alone invokes self-pity, and in my experience it just makes me feel the same on the other end, if not worse sometimes. Crying with a friend is a humbling experience, but I think that might be where it counts. I remember one time in college where my best friend and I were living in separate towns, and she came to visit me, and at two totally separate points in the weekend we both cried while we were sharing parts of our lives that were hard at the time. I remember her telling someone else that she spent the weekend doing some crying, and that person telling her she was lucky to have a friend she could cry with.
For me, crying has two factors that make it difficult:
Admittance:
Oh man, here's where it's hard for me. When I get to the point where I feel like crying, I'm usually admitting that something is bad wrong. I'm admitting that I can't fake it anymore, I can't keep up the happy face and I don't even care how it makes me look, I'm going to cry. If you can somehow find someone you trust to do this with, how much more beneficial the process. I think this is what Jesus wants from us. His power is made perfect in our weakness, and I feel like what I just described is really his specialty to redeem. I think if we admit to him that we can't fake it anymore, and we need to show that we feel broken and are broken, His grace and gentleness is so so ready for us at that point.
Acceptance:
Oh man, here's where it gets really really hard. When I cry with someone else, I'm admitting that I need help usually. I've been hurt, or I'm confused, or discouraged and I need someone's support. Accepting support and accepting advice are hard, cause it seems like maybe we didn't know everything after all and we can't do it alone. Here's another part about acceptance that gets me, sometimes when I finally get to a place where I can accept someone's kindness it often makes me cry. There's a woman at my church who can make me cry just by hugging me. Sometimes I avoid her, cause I know if i'm having a bad day, and she hugs me, I will lose it and i just don't have the energy. That woman has hugged me on some really hard days in my life and I know her kindness and understanding are so present and it just makes me cry! At my bible study the other night, my friend told me I had been on her heart a lot, and it just made my eyes fill with tears because accepting kindness and help is humbling, but so so necessary. Jesus' unfailing love surrounds the person who trusts in Him. Accept it. Whole-heartedly.
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