Turning to another face…

Dear Friends

When you are under pressure and uncertainty all day long, it can leave you with a sick feeling in the morning. Yes, God is sovereign, and He is a good and He is a God of love. But many folks do wake up sick, or in pain, or with a broken heart and with an uneasy stomach about all that’s got to be done. God permit pain and suffering——just look at the cross, the suffering of the saints and prophets throughout history, et al. His “goodness” does not prevent us from suffering at times.

But I have learned that financial pressure (suffering) is a pain unlike any other. There’s no medication you can take for it and the anxiety of financial stress even invades your dreams at night. It’s a cancer that is relentless and unforgiving and it breeds fear about the next morning, the next phone call, the morning texts or a visitor.

But the truth is we are all afraid of different things at times we don’t see anyway out of the maze of that hurt, challenge or set-back—it can be a bottomless pit. As you sink deeper into the mire, you are reminded that there are any number of things could alter your life forever—-and for the worse. When all is done and said, you can never be fully bullet proof, well enough insured or totally prepared for disaster or ruin or pain—it just happens.

All things that are important to me are at the same time fragile, and all things in nature seems to want to undo or harm me. We are some all small, finite, limited and, in the scope of vast universe, quite insignificant (“Who is man that you consider him, oh God?”) What are we to do?

I have found that only one thing staves off depression, anxiety and alarm: Keeping my eyes fixed upon Him. If my eyes are upon Him, not only for what I need but also on what my soul pines for and what my spirit hopes to see, hear and feel, I will be satisfied and at peace; at the same time I will not being bitter at family or friends for “letting me down” and being unable to give me what clearly only the God who designed me can. Most of humanity goes through life expecting “things” and fellow humans to satisfy what only God Himself can provide.

“O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see?

There’s light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face,

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.” Helen Lemmell