First, I dealt with my old friend, Fear. God strengthened me, and we've dealt Fear a deadly blow. But now, several new enemies--Sadness, Blame and Regret--raise their ugly, pitiful heads. "Why did you take your mom in?," they slyly ask, and "You knew this would happen...it's all your fault," they hiss. I feel the storm hitting me, wind pushing me, rain and hail pelting my face, soaking me and chilling me to the bone, and just when I feel as if I am going to give up, exhausted, I remember I have someone behind me. To lean on. To hold me up. To keep me warm and dry. So I lean on Jesus, and I scream out against the storm, and I cry, sometimes sobbing, as I pray His name out loud. And when I am feeling very, very weak and cold, He holds me in His Hand, and comforts me with His breath, and soothes me to sleep. I am safe, in His fortress. No waves can topple me.
But then I wake up, startled, because there is a new twist, and the mountain suddenly looms larger. Maybe I need to "do" something. I mean, someone has to "do" something, right? So I start to walk toward that mountain, I shake my fist at it, I start to run. But no matter how fast I run, it gets bigger, and bigger, and the air gets thinner, and harder to breathe, and my sides are hurting, and my feet hurt. I can't make it. The mountain is too big. It is too far. And then I remember the mustard seed in my pocket. And I know that with just my tiny, teeny weenie little mustard seed of faith, I can make that mountain into a molehill. With Christ. For His glory. Not mine.
Tonight my emotions are raw, bleeding, and throbbing. In my soul, and in my mind, and deep inside my heart, I know God has this latest tribulation, this manifestation of evil and sin and selfishness. But in my humanness, my heart, I ache. Oh how I ache. I am in shock, in disbelief, over what the woman who gave me life has done, the things she said in the summons we received. And I am hurt, and saddened by the betrayal of at least one, if not both sisters. I feel as if I have had a living, beating piece of me cruelly ripped out of body, and thrown in front of me, then torn to shreds as if it never mattered. That part of my life--all those memories, whether good or bad--mean nothing to them.The future memories we were to make together as old ladies? Gone.
Do I forgive them? Of course. Will we ever reconcile? Only God knows. For now, I am dealing with one huge mountain of hurt. I cannot hide from, run from it, or cover it up. It looms large and ugly and casts an ugly shadow, a jagged scar on my life. But God and I are going to whittle it down to a molehill, one spoonful at a time. Regardless of the outcome, God will be glorified. What began as something evil, intended to hurt, will bring glory to the one true God. For I have a brilliant light, in the shape of a cross, behind me and over me, to cancel out any shadow and to heal any scar, regardless how big or dark or ugly they may be.
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