I don’t know if you have felt despised, like a loser or just simply abandoned. You may be facing death itself with terrible pain. You may have had your heart broken so many times that you just want to quit trying to care. You may have lost loved ones that should not have died so early and were so full of life. You may have been diagnosed with an ailment that is a slow killer and so you become depressed and just decide to give up. You may live with a monster for a spouse that only cares about themselves and when the chips are down...you can't count on them to lift you up! In fact they may beat you up verbally, physically, emotionally. If you are called a human being you should be able to identify...I have had some of those feelings. As a teen, like may other teens, I’d wished that I’d never been born more times than I could count. But some time ago something wonderful had transpired. I learned that Almighty God covered me and took me to himself. I wasn't anyone special, but I was his child. He is my best friend; he has healed my broken heart more times than I can count and he is binding up my bruises that life has left me with. This is not just something to write to have something to say...it's true! When I was young, I used to hear older Christians say stuff like that and I thought they were delusional or senile! But the Lord does keep his promises, even when we don't feel like responding. However we have to take the first step and read HIS WORD in order to understand how it all works.
He heals the broken-hearted And binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3
“The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.” Isaiah 30:26
“Jesus said this himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised…(oppressed).” Luke 4:19
We get bruised just by living in this world, a world involved in the war between good and evil. Bruises and broken hearts come to all of us in one way or another. There is no way out of the misery of a broken heart, or trials that come our way, but through it, and it is infinitely better to go through it with God holding us by his right hand. Going through it alone only brings on debilitating depression and an attitude of "feel sorry for me." There is NOTHING WORSE THAN A CRY-BABY WITH WHISKERS IN THE CRADLE WHINING OVER THE PAIN or LOSS! I know that sounds harsh but I have seen so many grown men and women who feel so sorry for themselves because life handed them a couple of raw deals...guess what? We are all going to be handed raw deals in our life-time. If we are smart, we learn to trust God to bring us through it without whining. Whining gives you nothing, depression only brings you more misery!
What is the solution you ask? Simple and true...COURAGE! The courage it takes not to let things take you down and keep you there. It's easy to give up, the streets are full of homeless who have given up. The mental wards are full of people who just stepped off into the abyss because things got too hard. Suicide is on the increase because it seems the only way out of a life of misery and pain. Prisons are over-populated because crime and preying on our fellow man seemed to be the only answer to our pain! According to the latest physician reports, there are more people using OPIATES now than ever before for pain, they feed their emotional and physical pain with a DRUG! COURAGE to change the pain in our lives into something useful and make it a springboard to a better way of living...chin up, face the problem, take a few baby steps in the right direction, through the terrible pain and ask God to get you through it. YOU CAN! Blessing is right around the corner if we will only learn to trust Him! God, our Father has promised it! If this sounds naive, I know some people who didn't give up and give in the ailments that almost killed them.
I know a woman right now who was terribly scarred by boiling water as a baby, had breast cancer, vaginal peritonitis in child birth, a rare, cancerous sarcoma that took out everything connected to her uterus, and she was told she was probably going to die. She felt like she would never see her kids graduate high school...but God! Yes, God brought her through it all and she is eight years out of cancer. Her own husband betrayed her by calling her names when she chose to sit in the quite and read the Bible for comfort. She chose to trust her God when the facts said it's all over! If you ask her friends what she is like they will all say the same thing...she always has a smile, and a word of encouragement to offer.
David was acquainted with grief, he probably committed some of the most heinous sins in the Bible, but he knew something about his God!
Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
This is one of the most intimate passages in the Bible. It speaks of a God who knew us before we were even born. KNEW ALL OF OUR SINS, DISAPPOINTMENTS, STUPIDITIES, FAILURES, TRIUMPHS AND TRAGEDIES AND CHOSE US BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD! WOW!!! The TRUTH is that nothing comes to us but that God already knows and will WALK with us through it and bring us to the other side!
“Yes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.” Psalm 23
I’m reading through Isaiah now, and came upon the above scripture. It reminded me of a sermon I heard of a parable of how much God loves us and wants to help us. God is speaking in this parable about the children of Israel, but the same love he had for them thousands of years ago he has for everyone.
So GOD, through a prophet gave them a story of an abandoned baby:
“On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
“ ‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.
“ ‘Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.
Ezekiel 16:4-8
Young man, young lady or you adults facing difficult times...God has not forgotten you but you may have forgotten Him. It is time to renew that first love and begin to trust Him to put your broken heart back together and start fresh. His help is a prayer away but you have to start the relationship. He never moved...we did!
In his love,
Ted
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