“Remember”

Ya know those seasons of waiting where each day seems unbearably long?

You do everything you can to distract yourself and pray the minutes will go by faster… but you’re still just stuck.

Waiting.

Questioning.

Wondering…

Sometimes it’s about an event you’re super excited for. Sometimes it’s a conversation that needs to be had. Sometimes it’s about a person, or a change, or finding peace…

Regardless of the circumstance, I think we can all understand what waiting on the Lord feels like.

It’s hard!!

It’s so hard.

It can be so daunting not knowing what the future holds.

I have lived through so many seasons of “waiting” in my life, and I am currently in the depths of one now.

I have questioned more than I’d like to admit.

I have fallen to my knees more times than I can count.

I have taken an innumerable amount of deep breaths through tears and heartache, just to make it through the day.

These past few years I have found that I resonate deeply with the believer that Psalms 77 is written about:

“ 2. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.

3 I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.

4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

5 I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.

6 I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.

7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?

8 Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?

9 Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.”

…I read these verses, and memories come flooding back:

Nights I couldn’t sleep.

Days I didn’t know how to get through.

Hours, and minutes, and seconds of fear.

My body breaking, and having to rebuild it from the ground up.

Not knowing if my dad was going to be alive the next day.

Taking on responsibility that was too much for the little girl that I was.

Saying goodbye to souls that I couldn’t imagine my life without.

Disrespecting the body and the blessings that I have been given.

Waiting for the promises to be kept and the respect to be reciprocated.

Waiting on my person.

I have prayed and pleaded and begged for the rain to stop in my life. Just one glance of a rainbow…that’s all I’ve needed!!

It’s all that this believer in Psalms needed, too.

Just a rainbow.

Or even a glimpse of the sun through the thunder clouds.

Something so possible and so easy for the most powerful Being in the Universe to provide… yet it didn’t happen.

It hasn’t always happened for me, either.

Maybe it hasn’t happened for you.

But I have learned so much through the perspective that this believer has in the next few verses:

“10 And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

11 I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.

13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?”

Yes, it would be SO easy for God to take away your pain. He could blink an eye and your entire life could be changed for the better.

So why doesn’t He?

Why doesn’t He always be gracious in our time of need?

I truly don’t know.

But what I do know, is that He has yet to be proven wrong.

He is a God that keeps His promises.

He is a God that loves fearlessly.

He is a God that knows what is best for us- and time and time again- uses trials and patience as a way to truly show us the Majesty that He is.

We wouldn’t have scripture if people didn’t struggle.

We wouldn’t have the need of a Savior if life wasn’t hard.

I am a firm believer that there is a purpose behind everything. The rainbow WILL come and the sun WILL shine through the clouds… in the timing that God knows will be absolutely perfect for YOU.

Even if you can’t see it.

Even if you don’t agree.

I have also learned that sometimes we are given circumstances in our lives simply to just remember;

Remember Who is fighting our battles with us.

Remember the promises that WILL be kept, because He has never broken a single one.

Remember that heaven truly is so close, and we truly are never alone.

Maybe we have certain periods of our life where we need to be reminded of our divine heritage and eternal destiny… simply so that the next hard thing isn’t so hard.

So we have the strength of the Savior at the forefront of our mind.

In this current season of waiting that I am in, I have absolutely no idea how much longer I will be here for. It is something that is completely out of my control. But every day, I have looked at the tattoo across my forearm:

“remember”

and it has given me just enough strength to get through that day. Remembering that all of this will have a purpose one day;

and the blessings will come;

and the sun will shine…

simply because God is good.

And His entire purpose is for us to be happy.

If it is still hard, God is not done working.

Trust Him.

Have faith.

Remember Him.

You are not meant to be alone in the waiting.

Xoxo, Lil <3