Have you ever experienced a hurt so great you wondered if you would ever get over it, you wondered if the flow of tears would ever stop, or if the deep ache in your heart would ever heal?  The enormity of the pain may have overtaken your thoughts, your words, maybe even your very being?  The hurt can become all consuming.  You may have experienced a time in your life where your very identity was accosted by those you loved and trusted dearly.  These are dark and difficult times, likely encapsulated in a season of crying out to God and leaning on those who you trust and who love you for who you are.

I wonder if you have found that in these hardest of times, God’s love shows up powerfully demonstrating He is ever-present with us.  Perhaps He moved your friends, family, and coworkers to surround you with love and support?  Perhaps He provided you with someone you couldn’t even predict would come to envelope you with such love and protection.  This group orchestrated by God was organized to pick us up when we couldn’t walk, to carry us when the despair was overwhelming, and to comfort us with words of love and hope.  God shows up; indeed, He does.  We never know what that will look like or who He will stir to surround us, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is El Roi – The God Who Sees Us.  The God who hurts when we hurt, which is such a beautiful portrait of His love for us.  God IS very much alive and present in the lives of His children.

Amid the pain, God is present.  When you are at a loss for how to move forward God is present.  When you can’t see beyond the tears and the anger, God is present.  For me the pain felt like a knife had cut into the deepest part of my soul.  The pain was so overwhelming I equaled it to the death of my father passing away, I couldn’t recall a time of greater sorrow in my life.  But pain is never without purpose.

It is in these moments when we want to reach out and grab those scripture verses that comfort us like Romans 8:28  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” .  Here we want to console ourselves and believe everything is going to work out the way that we hope it will.  But the reality is, God’s work may not necessarily align with our short-sighted solutions.  We don’t know who God is going to reach or how various others may be impacted by our season and circumstances.  We don’t know if the end result will turn out how we envision it – it quite simply may not.  But, I know that God has a plan.  See 1 Corinthians 2:9 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love Him.”

We haven’t seen God’s plan, we haven’t heard God’s plan, and we can’t even begin to conceive the plan God has in our situations.  We just don’t know.  We don’t know how He will use it, we don’t know how it will unfold, we are absolutely in the dark about the situation.

We do know that He calls us to wait and trust. It is so hard for us to sit, to listen and to wait, isn’t it?  But isn’t that exactly what God calls us to do? It is not easy, and it is a discipline we are called to learn.  Simultaneously our minds seem to work on overdrive in these times and Satan is happy to stoke the fire raging in our minds with lies.  Satan wants to promote the unrest, the divisiveness, the hostility and anger, the hurt and betrayal.  He will encourage us to defend ourselves, to lash out and retaliate, to inflict pain and hurt, as we have been hurt.

So the question remains as to who are we going to trust in this turmoil?  Will it be our God who has a ready-made, perfect plan?  Or will we trust ourselves to control the situation, to “fix it” as we see appropriate with our tunnel vision?

While we do not know God’s exact plans, we do know this.  God has promised to mold us into the likeness of His Son, Jesus.  John 15:2 “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

Thought of in another way, when you look at an unlit candle, what do you see?  I see a molded pillar of cold, hard wax.  But when the wick is set on fire, a steady flame appears, slowly softening and melting the wax.  As the wax melts, the wick becomes gradually more and more exposed and the flame becomes higher and higher.  And so it is with us, we are the candle.  We as humans are the cold, hard wax that God has molded into human beings.  The wick represents the conduit of the flame – the Holy Spirit.  When the wick is lit, by our own willingness to follow God, it melts away our coldness, it warms us into pliable warm wax, allowing God to mold us.  As the wax melts away, the Holy Spirit within us (the wick) becomes more and more exposed.  As the wick becomes more exposed, the flame (God’s light) becomes larger and more prominent in our life, through our thoughts, our words and our actions.

What does the wick in your candle look like today?  Is it short, barely visible and fighting to stay lit?  Is it a tidily trimmed wick with a steady flame?  Or is it an untrimmed wick, whose flame carves a crater size hole in your candle, creating a pool of melted wax and a flame that is dancing bright and tall, moving in all directions?

The question is, will we open ourselves to being molded by God’s hands, trusting in him?  Or will we hold on to the hurt, staying hardened?  An opportunity always exists in these times to grow, to learn, and to forgive at a level that digs to the core of our being, that requires us to hold tightly to the strength and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  It is up to us to determine what we will choose in the middle of God’s cutting and pruning.  Will we be thankful to God for cutting the unfruitful branches from our lives and for pruning the fruit bearing branches?

Heavenly Father You are our God, our Shepherd, our Everything and in You we trust.  Father give us wisdom to remember that you are in control of every situation, no matter how painful it might be to us.  Remind us that you are the Master Pruner who will mold us and shape us into the likeness of Your Son, Jesus.  Father remind us that in the turmoil, peace is found in You.  Father remind us that our strength is found in You.  As our Shepherd, we pray that You go before us and show us the way we should go.   Might You give us the courage to not sit idly by but let us be engaged and deeply connected to you, hearing Your every word, and moving only in the direction that You point us to.  Amen.

I want to leave with you a few lyrics from the song called “Trust in You” by Lauren Daigle.  I encourage you to listen to the full song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diwAiWtvAQM).

When you don’t move the mountains, I’m needing you to move

When you don’t part the waters, I wish I could walk through

When you don’t give the answers as I cry out to you

I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you.