"I crave a love that will not let me go when it has come to know me well. I need a love so everlasting it holds no course with unsure human promises."- Calvin Miller.

    I crave a love that will not let me go. An ocean of truth in such a small statement. More and more of late I find myself surrounded by people whose hearts are breaking with lonliness, who walk this world as distant wanderers, unsure, unsatisfied, unknown. I find my own heart wandering these brown, lifeless paths. It is a fact that lonliness is not something the Lord shields us from. Even His own son in the depths of despair was left seemingly alone, sweating tears of blood in an all too silent garden on the gloomiest night this world has ever known.
   My dear fellow Christians, if we are honest with ourselves, we will realize that not one of us has not endured a dark night of the soul. We run to God's arms, we bang on His doors, we shriek and cry for help and all that answers us are the the dead and dying dreams of yesterday and the aching stillness of our own heart. Where is He? King David in his own despair talks of drenching his couch with tears and his own words echo through the centuries at last finding themselves on the tormented lips of a man upon a cross, crying out in the anguish of death "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
    There are times when taking the next breath seems the most courageous effort of your life. Where is He in all of this? He who claims to care about us so very much. When the going gets tough does the Lord get going? "For He has neither despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him for help, He heard."- Psalms
    So, He's there. Then why can't I hear Him? Why does it seem that in these, the most tragic moments of my life I feel so entirely alone? How I wish I could answer this in entirety but there is one thing I do know; it is tested, proven, tried; He does hear you. Your answer may not come in that exact moment, but it does come and the most penetrating, real, overwhelming moments of one's relationship with God are found when you find yourself at the end of your rope, broken and on your knees finding that you just can't stand up again. Sometimes He doesn't say anything but just like a Father holds a sobbing child and uses no words, yet He is there. Sometimes that's all we need isn't it? We just need Him to be there. And then when you think your are finished, kaput, with His arms still wrapped gently and closely around you, He will begin to tell you of all His promises for your life "You have a future and a hope" "You will rise up on wings like eagles" "I have chosen you and not rejected you." "Do not fear for I am with you." "I will gather you in my arms and carry you" "I will hold you by my hand and watch over you" "I will make the darkness as light to you" "I am watching over my word to perform it" "I shall bear you and deliver you" "Those who hopefully wait for me will not be put to shame" "I will never leave you nor forsake you" "See,I have written your name on the palms of my hands".....
     I believe one of the biggest lies I was ever fed was that God doesn't care about my tears or is in some way offended by them. I have so often believed it was a sign of mistrust and that I would be judged harshly for this sign of weakness. What a lot of balderall! Yes, I'm about as far from perfection as one can get but if God didn't judge Jesus for dreading the cross and begging for another way to fulfill His will, then I think He can deal with my pain. The Bible in fact tells me thus: "Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in a bottle; are they not in thy book?" He doesn't ignore. He doesn't forget. He actually writes down "My Rachel cried today" and saves the memory of it. He knows "we are but grass"! He understands our human dilemna. And perhaps in the midst of those tears we come closer to Him than we ever could in all of our joy and strength for in those tears lies a whole world of truth and meaning we are unable to grasp in our contented state. We cannot know the man of sorrows until we are acquainted with our own. A hard gift but a gift nonetheless. "We crave a love that will not let us go".  or to quote Calvin Miller again
    "There is a love not limited by lifetimes- a noble love that shouts through the gales ordering brash thunderheads to spend their roarings and begone!"
May the man who controls the wind and the waves also calm the storms in your heart.
~Rachel