Dear Friends,
One of our own children had a difficult time conceiving. I suddenly found myself wanting to be a
grandmother more than anything else in the world! I was glad of the feelings I began to
experience on our children’s behalf, because it helped me to understand a
little of their deep struggle. Suddenly
it seemed that everyone around us was getting pregnant and having babies – and
I was buying shower gifts for others’ celebrations! Everywhere we looked we saw babies. The magazines were full of them; the TV
commercials featured them. Everyone was
using cute little babies to sell their products. Even young mothers playing in the park with
their children triggered that yearning feeling. Maybe this is your struggle too.
Or perhaps it is a longing to be married that has engendered
bitterness. Or maybe you have had high
hopes for a career opportunity or have had some special personal goal that has
been thwarted. If this is the case, know
that emptiness can invite bitterness to invade and control you. Suddenly, you can come to the end and find
yourself running on empty. It’s what we do at such times that determines our
well-being and God’s glory!
When you become obsessed with the notion that only the
desired end can satisfy you, and the desired end is withheld, bitterness is
bound to take over. That is unless you
turn it over to God. But how do you do
that, you may ask, when God is the One who has the power to give you your
heart’s desire and has been busy withholding the very thing you beg Him for? That’s a good question! So how do we deal with this tension?
Talk to God about it
– in prayer and in tears. That’s where it has to begin. You need to get alone
and start to tell Him just how you feel about it all. Even if you’ve done that a thousand times
before, you can do it one more time! Tell
Him everything you’ve wanted to unload for so long!
It’s not that God doesn’t understand all of this, and it is
certainly not that God has been detached or forgetful of your agony. It is not even that God is ignorant of the
facts of the case. But it is necessary
that you begin to tell Him what is in your heart. Don’t worry about what you sound like either;
let the angry tears flow. And if you
can’t put the whole sad scene into words because you’re so empty you even seem
to be empty of words, just kneel down and say, “I am a prayer, Lord. Read me,” and He will! You are in fact an open book to Him. Read, marked, and learned, your story has
already been recorded in heaven!
There is a beautiful therapy in this sort of praying, for
the exercise of such heartfelt prayer eventually leads to hope! The final step towards resolution is when we
are able to accept whatever answer
God gives us. We are finally able to
leave it with Him. There’s no more trying to twist God’s arm with enough prayer
to make Him come through with the goods. No more hoping that enough shouting, crying,
and tearing our hair out will touch the heart of God and extract a favor He had
for some reason been withholding.
Once we arrive at this point of abandonment of all our hopes
and dreams, we are able to have a good cry, wash our face, get up and get on
with it. It’s at that point that God can
really work and heal our broken dreams.
In His Love,
Jill Briscoe
Executive Editor
Just Between Us Magazine
