I’ve been walking with Jesus a long time. I love Him. Completely
But, even with this foundation of deep commitment and love…last year I went through a storm, and I did not weather it well.
My tender heart was still healing from a very bitter trial when the waves of another crashed over me…and they took me down. Ever felt like that? Trial upon trials have a way of demolishing you. I believe that’s why the enemy uses that tactic so often.
As the waves toppled me over, I chose anger. Real, gut-wrenching, ‘you’ve let me down’ anger. And not anger at the people in my life…
…Anger at my God.
{photo credit, Jessica Gantenbein}
Oh friends, I was so angry at Him. My husband, had been jobless for months, and door after door of potential new jobs had been closed. Desperation began to set in. He then had an incredible potential job that we felt like God had brought to us. Things seemed to be looking up. He flew to Chicago and had a great interview. He was qualified. And then the phone call came that said no. As fragile hope was obliterated and I stared at an uncertain, impossible, dark future, I chose anger. It was a tempting fruit that falsely promised to make my raw heart feel better…and I took it. From my human perspective, my God had allowed this pain and left me.
In Psalm 22, David begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning? My God, I cry by day but You do not answer…
I so identified with those pain-filled words. I was there, crying at the kitchen sink, crying in the school pick-up line, crying with no answer.
But the psalm doesn’t end there. Something happened between the beginning and end of these prose. David ends with awe-filled praise. “I will proclaim Your name to my brothers; I will praise you in the congregation…For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He did not hide His face from him but listened when he cried to Him for help.”
He did not hide His face.
He did not hide.
How did David go from feeling that God had forsaken him to proclaiming that He had not hidden His face??
It felt like He was hiding His face from me. But that was because I had picked up anger like a hooded cloak and it blocked out His face. I chose to look at my anger rather than deal with the pain. I trusted anger to hold me together, because the enemy whispered that I had been wrong about Him all along. Whispered that maybe He was going to leave my life in shambles. The lies of fear shackled me to the anger that kept me from seeing His un-hidden face.
But my story doesn’t end there. Just like David, something happened to my heart between the hurt and the healing. At that time I was captive. I had chosen anger and it had bound me up. Here’s truth though: He comes for the captives. Always. It’s who He is.
It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Galatians 5:1
A good friend, prompted by the Holy Spirit, gave me this note…
If we are faithless, he remains faithful-for he cannot deny himself.
2 Timothy 2:13
I read that verse and, still very angry at God, was tempted to throw it physically in the trash. I didn’t agree with it in my pain. But love for my sweet friend kept me from such an act. I did however, push it back on my counter, hiding it under other papers. The verse, now tumbling around in my head, felt like salt on an open wound. He is faithful??? NO. NO. NO.
The next day, standing in my kitchen making peanut butter sandwiches for my kids, my God drew near to me, spoke to my spirit, and asked me to surrender. To lay down the heavy anger that I was carrying. I resisted, telling Him that I didn’t know how. But as I wept all over those pb&j’s, my heart gave way, walls cracked a bit.
I took the post-it note and put it on my refrigerator. That was all the surrender I felt capable of. Truthfully, I didn’t really want it there. Every time I would go to open the fridge I would see it. And, at first, my reaction was bitter. Every time I would think “God, How is this being faithful??” But the beautiful thing is that once we surrender, even a little, we allow God to reveal to us how faithful He really is. He showed me that. I believe that is what happened to David in that psalm. Surrender, which then brought freedom to see our God’s un-hidden face!
I learned that I did not have to get over my anger. I just had to surrender it to Him. He was the one who took care of it. My anger did not scare Him, or make Him love me any less. Your anger doesn’t either. He is the ALMIGHTY. The King of Kings. Our anger doesn’t scare Him, it just separates us from Him. His faithfulness is not contingent on ours. He is always faithful because it’s who He is. But you and I do not get to see that faithfulness in our lives until we surrender. Until we release our hurt hearts. Our anger.
So, the post-it note stayed on my fridge. And the Living Words on it began to work in my heart. It was slow work, but friends, I began to see Him in the small graces of my days, finding Him to be a comfort on hard days, realizing He was the source of some incredible blessings. He was and is so good to me. I see Him now, I see how He was faithful to me even when I was not.
{photo credit, Jessica Gantenbein}
That verse is now written on my heart in a way that only He could do. His tremendous love for me, for us, continues to amaze me. Continues to heal me. Continues to sustain me.
He restores all things.
He is faithful, AND He did not hide His face from me!
-Kallie