Finding Rest
The past few weeks have been interesting ones. I think whenever we have trials in our own lives, it makes us more sensitive to other people in our lives. I find myself able to read other people easier, or when I reach out and ask for prayer, I get a list back of things to pray about for the other person.
I am learning to see what a great blessing this has been for me, while I have been experiencing pain. I have found great rest in community of saying, I too have been hurting. It has allowed me to take my eyes off myself for a moment and push my arm under the load a friend is carrying and try to make it a little lighter.
Over the past three weeks, I have made a new friend who has received an atypical pregnancy diagnosis, who knew about my own because of a prayer group she is a part of with my sister. My heart leapt at the opportunity to love on this acquaintance of mine because we instantly had a connection in brokenness that I have not been able to create with others who have not walked this path. I found myself wandering around TJMaxx just hours after I received a text from her explaining her situation, looking for small comforts in a candle, a journal, a fluffy blanket. All things that I know could not fill the instant heartbreak she was experiencing, but something I hoped would let her know, I saw her, and I wanted to be there for her.
I have had another friend quietly ask for prayer in return after I asked her for prayer. I have a feeling it was hard for her to ask feeling that her experience and heartbreak was somehow less than mine. Again, my heart instantly latched on, though her experience is vastly different, her mama heart was still hurting for her baby. We talked and cried and held each other. She has been my great confidant in this whole experience and again, that connection blessed me.
Yet another friend casually made a joke about not being in a good “head space” about her self-confidence, when we were out to dinner with a large group. Normally I think my mind would have pushed this off as another sarcastic remark, not worth my time to investigate. But my heart again reached out. I pushed her to tell me more and she reached out a few days later and explained. We talked again, I cried for her and tried to send as much encouragement as I could.
In all of these situations, I can’t help but turn into my faith that I know has much stronger merit, love and encouragement than I could possibly have on my own.
Galatians 2:20 reads, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.
I am able to be MORE than I can be, not because of extra efforts on my part or because I TRY to be a good friend, but because He is infinitely more than me. My faith allows me to surrender all of these things that are brought to me, along with my own trials and say, “Not me, Lord, but you.” I live by faith, faith in the one who loved me so much he gave himself up. He is my ultimate comfort because where I fail, he stands. Where I am tired, He persists. Where I hurt, He heals.
Because He lives,
I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives,
Every fear is gone.
I know He holds my life, my future in His hands.
I pray in your own trials you are able to find great peace in the one who lives. I pray you are able to seek out other pain in the world and point to the cross and say “That is my strength and my hope. He is the reason, I can be more than who I am when I am broken.” Find rest in that, friends. He is infinitely more.