By AbbyA

Stuff comes a knockin’  all day long.  I’d like to characterize much of it as static.  But that is not the case.  It is stuff that . . . Chips at the heart of who I am.  Who I work very hard to be.  The who in me that tries her best to be just like Him.

Someone said to me just the other day – – in the same sentence where she described her loss – – that she needed to move on.  That comment has stuck with me all week.  There is such a fine line between what has happened to us and where God wants us to go from there.  There is so much evidence of God dividing our past from His remembrance.  So much evidence of Him sending apart East and West.  So much burying at the bottom of His Sea.

At the same time, we are defined by the floods that floor us.  The quakes that shake us.  The roaring winds that bring us to our knees.  At least it feels that way.  We are defined by loss and suffering and death.  Our own mistakes.  Intentional sin.  We all, at times, have heavy tears and even Scarlett Letters.

My friend’s need to move on statement has stuck with me.  I recall saying something similar about myself some time ago.  I remember thinking, Lord, I just need to move on from holding accountable or even holding against my disappointments towards a particular person that I love.  I remember wanting to move on so badly.  Really grappling with why I could not just move on.  Wanting to be like Him – divide, send apart, bury.

But, really, what I learned more than a year later, is that He is the Divider and the Burier.  I can’t do the Majestic and Supernatural.  I can’t be crushed by a wave and then separate my own injuries and pain from who I am.  He is the Interceder.  He is the Time Keeper.  His depth surpasses even eternity.  He knows my injuries and pain.  He is the one who allows floods, and waves and quakes.

But He is also the one who piles up sand bags around my heart to stop the bleeding.  He is the one who does not stand afar.  He is the one who catches tears in jars.  Allows me to wipe my tears off His feet with my hair.  He is the one who marks spiritual time and measures how far I have come from my injuries.  He is the Healer who knows when it is time to divide the Red Sea and put Egypt behind me.

I don’t know about when to move on.  I just know that, without notice, it happens one day.  Without the knowledge that He has divided and buried.  Without the knowledge that the sand bags have been replaced by spiritual strength built into your foundation.  Without full knowledge of what He has done, you wake up to His Glory.  And, according to Him, that is new every morning.  Lamentations 3:22

I have become a wonder to many, But you are my strong refuge.  Let my mouth be filled with Your praise.  And with your glory all the day.  Psalm 71:7.