Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Even in pain

Let's be frank. Sometimes it is very difficult to praise God. Sometimes things aren't what we hoped, thought, had prayed for and all the good stuff just dries up and we find ourselves out there seemingly alone, so alone that being thankful for what we're going through would dang near be sacrilege.

But we can praise.

Meredith Andrews' amazing tune You're Not Alone goes like this:

I searched for love when the night came and it closed in
I was alone, but you found me where I was hiding
And now I'll never be the same
It was the sweetest voice that called my name, saying

You're not alone I am here
Let me wipe away every tear
My love, I've never left your side
I have seen you through the darkest night
And I'm the One who's loved you all your life
All your life

This morning I had the miserable task of visiting someone in the emergency room. This dear soul, like many, too many,  before her, had fallen. She was coming off weeks of rehab of a shoulder that had needed rotator cuff surgery. She was just about done, just about okay, just about rehabbed, just about what would pass for normal, and she fell. Didn't know how, but she fell.

As I offered a prayer for her, her family, her doctor, her coming rehab, her struggles, her pain, for her, tears stained her sweet face. "I'm so tired of this," she said when I had finished.

And I know she is, and what's more, I know I would be as well. My mistakes, when I fall, I am tired of. My sins, when I fall, I am tired of. My failures, when I fall, I am tired of. My pains, I'm tired of. My illnesses, I'm tired of. My sorrows, I'm tired of. My lack of faith, fullness and fire, I"m tired of.

A difficult teaching is this (from 1 Peter)" 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

When all else fails, rejoice, the writer is saying. Against all odds, against all joys, against all happiness and healthiness, rejoice.

I must say that is exceedingly difficult, this notion, this morning, of rejoicing about all this.

But I say to all who read this, one can still, still praise.

David spends psalm after psalm with the idea.

"Praise the Lord, who is my rock.," he writes.
"Praise the Lord from the heavens!" he writes.
"Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song," he writes.
"Praise God in his sanctuary," he writes.

Praise God not for the pain, the suffering, the loss, the worry, but instead, praise Him for simply being what we are not...broken. He is above it all, us all, and we must praise Him.

In the home, and in the emergency room. Maybe especially in the emergency room.


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