Tears and Power

My heart has been heavy. Another morning that I wish would not come. I crawl back into bed and close my eyes. I'm exhausted before I even start.

Life throws you around, sending you sumersaulting right into a brick wall. And sometimes you'd rather not get up. You'd rather lay there and cry. You'd really rather not "pull yourself up by your boot straps" and you certainly don't want someone else to either.

It's a strange feeling - wanting to remain defeated for a moment. Or perhaps what it really is, is a desire to stop striving to do what you've been told day in and day out.

Is it rebellion when you just throw your hands up and say no more? Or is it simply a sign that we were made to be in perfect rest with God and this life is just plain hard. Sin has a way of muddling our vision, and conscience has a way of broadsiding you with guilt.

The house is a mess. I'm a mess. But do I get up? I flail, but it does no good. Just like a sheep that get's stuck on its back. It fights... Then I look up.

Right into the eyes of peace.

No more striving. Giving up. And knowing that it's okay. I don't have to succeed to earn love. Not the kind of love that lasts. All I have to do is be still and let it flow through and around me. I just have to fall into him, because the shepherd knows how to pick me back up.

And I find, as long as I fall out, everything is okay. When my heart falls out, and I call out for help, heart laid bare. When I fall in, I can do nothing. When all I see is my aching heart, and I refuse to call out, I flail longer on my back and exhaust myself. Why don't I call out to the shepherd? Why don't I call out to his people?

My emotions laid bare, part of falling out into his hands is in the crying out. I cry, I yell at God and what's going on, but in the midst of it, I still pray to my sovereign shepherd.  Just like Naomi I cry out "because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty." Just like Naomi, life tosses me around and I ask what the Lord is doing, but my eyes still look into those of compassion, faithfulness and love.

Just like in his anguish David cried out to God "O LORD, I call to you come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you....But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD; in you I take refuge - do not give me over to death...I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way....He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield in whom I take refuge..." (Psalm 141: 1,8;  142:1-3; 144:2)

Sometimes it's best to just fall apart so God can put you back together. I look at scriptures and am filled with joy because the man after God's own heart is one of the most expressive examples in the Bible. Here is a man who spills his heart out to God instead of controlling and masking his emotions.

After I cry, I dry my tears. I know his love. And his love fills me with more power than I could ever imagine because it's the same power that brought about the resurrection and I feel the resurrection in my own heart.