I asked God for bread and He gave me a stone. I'm not the only person to ever feel that way. Last year was the most challenging year of my life.
Until this year. After 2015 (a year filled with agony), I thought for sure that my Father in Heaven was going to give my family a time to heal and recover and be built up. I was on my knees asking Him to give us this much needed time to heal up and even get to see "beauty for ashes". In January I read Ecclesiastes famous chapter three and believed that just as there is a "time to destroy" that there is also a "time to build up". And 2016 was going to be that time to build!
Was I ever wrong! It felt like I had gone to my Father and asked for bread to feed my hungry soul and He looked at me with cruelty and handed me a big, ugly stone. I have shed more tears this year than all the previous years of my life combined. That is no exaggeration. Every day I break down in tears. And at night I have drenched my pillow in the heaviest of tears. It's not self pity. It's pain. No one knows the depths of my sorrow better than my Father. He sees every tear and hears it when I cry out from the pit. I have been surrounded by darkness and have begged for some light.
Today I read two verses in my Bible. Just two. One was the final verse of the third chapter of Matthew and the other was the first verse of the fourth chapter of Matthew. These two verses seem to contradict and putting them right there next to each other makes that stand out even more. In the final verse of chapter three, God says about Jesus, "this is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased". Immediately there's the first verse of the next chapter in which Jesus is sent into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
How can a Good Father Who is so pleased with His Son send Him off to the wilderness to be tempted? Yet, this section of scripture has opened our eyes not only to the ways of the evil one, showing us what a liar he is, but it also gives us an example of the power that comes through Jesus. He knows exactly what it's like to be tormented by the devil and He knows exactly how to deal with him.
For months we wondered why we had to deal with incredible horror in our lives when we were living right. We were doing what God wanted and behaving ourselves appropriately. So, why did suddenly everything we love get taken? Why did we get thrown out into the wilderness for Satan to have his way with us?
Because we've been blessed. That's why. We are experiencing the joy of being beaten and abused and lied to and stolen from. Our Father has been pleased with us (and sometimes not so pleased because we are not quite as good as Jesus), but He has also loved us enough to send us into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. We are blessed because we get to suffer and experience a tiny bit of Jesus' suffering.
Our Lord wants our heart. Our whole heart, not just lip service. He doesn't want us just to love Him because He's made life easy. He wants us to love Him even when it's dark. Even when it's painful. Even if it means being tortured to death. I do not know what plans He has. I just know that whether I'm in the wilderness being tormented by that Serpent the devil or I'm in a safe, peaceful place, I will love Jesus. I will honor Him and praise Him and thank Him forever.
Thank you God for the BLESSING of pain.
