It's Migraines. They damage the soul. A lot of people don't know that. What is shirked by most as "a headache", is horrible nerve pain and darkness. It's constant fear of when you'll have to do it again. Pain that blinds your eyes to see. Keeps your mind from remembering. Remembering what God can do. What He HAS done. All the love... All the gifts... People don't realize the havoc it does to a family. How it makes a man's heart bleed, because he can't save his wife. How children cry, laying beside their mama, asking when God will heal? Baby girl pounding on closed door, aching to have her mama put her to bed. And there you lay. In the dark, mind and heart throbbing. Soul bleeding. Asking questions with no answers. Analyzing again what caused this one. Fighting to figure out how to make it all stop. The pain so shrill you can't stop the puking. The anger of man because he doesn't know how to help his woman. Children in tears, because they just want mommy back. Darkness. You just fight to survive the darkness.
So I walk. Mind spinning so fast I can't get clear thought thru. I have just had 7 migraines in 11 days.
Seven.
Seven days making my soul leak. All hope pooling at my feet. I am raw from watching my agony make my family bleed. I am tired of asking questions with no answer. I am exhausted trying to figure out what causes "these ruts". I am tired of making sure I do all I can "right" to grapple for the assurance that maybe I have bought time till the next one. I don't want to be my own savior. I am not strong enough.
So. I start praying. Not clear thoughts, just this jumble pouring out. Cause it's all I have. These lost thoughts and raspy cry.
I repented of fear, of not calling out sooner. I confessed worry and anger. I asked Him to please take this burden off my heart. It's just too heavy.
He said I can trade. That He'll take my bloody one, and give me a load full of lighter. So I open hands, there in road's middle, giving up. Burden for burden. This trading. Mine for His.
He told me to forget.
"Forget what lies behind".
Permission to forget. A commanding to forget. I am always forgetful. But oddly enough, not when I need to be. I heard it. "Forget the last 11 days. They are done. Gone. Forget "the rut". Forget. Forget."
The one thing good about the desperate, is that they are ready.
I am ready to forget. To let "survive" roll over and die. To look forward. To live!
So I straightened up. Took a deep, clean breath...And I let go. Of all the yesterday migraines. Of all the yesterday dark. All the yesterday hopelessness.
Because analyzing the dark doesn't turn on any lights.
Only One is light. There's One Light that can't be shattered, snuffed out, covered, or swallowed up. Only THE ONE LIGHT that never leaves me alone. Alone to this darkness. To this suffocation. He won't stand for it!
Because. I Am His.
What is your darkness? What is it that haunts your days? The thing you drag into all your tomorrows... Physical pain? Relational let downs? A bad choice?
You don't have to figure out this way to make the dark a home. Don't hang pictures and put out this attempt to accept ebony as normal air. Darkness is no companion. It can't be decorated into do-able. It just is. This reality of thick. This air toxic. But you don't have to let it prey upon your today. Your tomorrows.... There is a Light. There is ONE who will say, with fight in voice,
" No! This one is My child. I will never leave them!"
God fights for you. Do you know that?
I went out to photograph His moon. She was full and high...the clouds her glorious companion. When you take that shot, and He shows up art...He is telling me a story.
The love of the cross said "No" to darkness and seperation once and for all. And the Man, the Son of God who won you to light...He got off that cross.
He overcame. Defeated death. He knew we needed to see the most final thing we could imagine... The most heavy thing.... The most impossible thing...DEFEATED!
If my God defeated death...if death could not hold Him in the dark... My black is not to much for Him. My need for a miracle is not a ridiculous request. Oh! I needed to hear this again!!
Your darkness does not have to stay. Oh friend... There is still a Savior. One who has already conquered the greatest enemy.
So you too, are given the invitation. To forget.
" Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: FORGETTING WHAT LIES BEHIND and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:13-14
Light waits for you.
A burden trade.
Yours for His.
And His is this load of light. This load of so much love to taste. So much grace to know. A home to have. This one glorious Friend of heaven from whom you shall never be seperated. Not by darkness, pain, rejection, or fear.
You have permission to forget about this darkness. Remember the light!
Open your hands and be of the receiving. Clenched fists only have darkness inside.
Forget. And look up.
We can carry promises into tomorrow. Sunlight on the skin of a new day. His glorious light. The only light that's warmth reaches soul.
" Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matt.6:34
You know what I love about that verse? It's telling us not to be anxious over what we can't touch. See we only ever have today. THIS day of moments. This day of trading burdens and feeling light that will spill over into more todays. Tomorrow is only in God's reach.
Do you feel it like soft wind... Can you see it coming on horizon....
God has you sandwiched in by grace. All this grace. Forget yesterday... Don't worry about tomorrow. What's left? Now. All these now moments with a God who has conquered our past and holds our future.
Now moments.
There is so much to be had with Jesus now. Such stories of love He will spin. In sunsets and bird wing. Laughter of your children and smile of a stranger. Photos that show He still is Savior. That song that plays at just that moment.
He orchestrates for you.
Like this glorious invitation to dance. Him writing this song that defeated your dark and fills your tomorrow with hope... Because you STILL have a Savior. And not even death held Him back from coming to you.
Forgetfulness that opens the eyes to live. Trust that frees up tomorrow. A now that has love in it.
All these glorious todays. Sandwiched by grace.
Open your hands. Oh friends, open your hands!
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