My Story - October 2003

This is the story of the most difficult time of our lives. May the telling of it bring hope to others and help me to heal.

10/19/03 Sunday 8:30 pm

It’s been a rough weekend. I knew church would be hard but it was harder than I thought it would be. I asked for prayer and it didn’t work out. I don’t understand. Does God want me to only look to Him or am I inept at communicating my needs? I felt so very lonely and it was so painful that I could hardly stay. When I got home I looked up hidden and it said “invisible”, which is exactly how I feel.

10/24/03 Friday 8 am

O Father, please help me! Help me to rest in You. Help me to stop struggling with this and enter into Your rest and peace. I need You. I love You and I miss You when we’re apart. And when You don’t speak to me, then I feel like we’re apart. Father, I submit to You. I yield to Your will and Your way. I give myself over to You. I say that You know what’s best. I love You and I trust You. Please give me grace for this time of separateness and aloneness.

See, I have refined you ...

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

For My own sake, for My own sake, I do this.

How can I let Myself be defamed?

I will not yield My glory to another. Is. 48:10-11

Father, I accept this part of Your refining fire. I accept this. Do whatever You have to do. I give myself to You. I bow to You. I will keep talking to You anyway.

God sees my suffering and calls it affliction. He is teaching me and directing me through this time of refining. It’s not that something is wrong with me. I am perceiving what is happening correctly. It isn’t that I can’t hear - it’s that God isn’t speaking. So I can relax into it and let Him have His way.