Need

All though it's a reminder I give myself often, I fall prey to the lie all too often: no one cares and no one could even begin to comprehend what I'm walking in.

Having the perspective of distance and seeing now with lenses I didn't before, it's been a challenge to learn how to grieve well and without anger or bitterness.  So I carry around the fragments of a broken heart, not trusting anyone to enter into my sadness with me because they can't possibly understand the depths of my pain.  Right?

The Lord challenged me on that today.  I went to minister to someone in a trying season and ended up being ministered to.  All she did was listen.  But it was enough.

At any given moment, the trial we are facing is what the Lord has seen fit to draw us close to Him.  And what draws us close to Him involves the breaking of our pride, the unclenching of our tightly held idols and shattering our carefully constructed and concealing walls.  It's always painful, rarely pretty, until you're on the other side when you can see the beauty that comes out of the ashes.

Satan wants us to believe there is no one that can walk with us.  There is no one to hold our hand or listen to us.  Because when we're out of community, isolated,

all by ourself...

That's when we get entrenched in the muck and mire of our worldly thinking.  The enemy takes aim and it's difficult to rise back up if someone isn't there to help you.

A single strand cannot hold our burdens, our hurts, our shame.

But a three-fold cord?  That is not easily broken.

So take heart in Jesus's example.  In His grief, on the very night of His betrayal, He asked His friends to pray with Him.  God Himself did not do life alone.

Invite someone into the mess that is your life.  Give someone part of your pain.  Let the church be the church and the body be the body and allow yourself to be vulnerable.  It takes humility to be humble.

He knows.  He sees.  Let Him use His own to pour out mercy and compassion on you.  Don't fall prey to the lie that no one can understand or even cares.

1Peter 5:9 ...know that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

Ecclesiastes 4:9  Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall one will lift up his fellow.  But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!