I was just reading some old writings from when I was really sick and came across one entitled, The Sorrow Letter. It was a letter I wrote to my family during a time of intense physical challenges. After I read it today, I fell to my knees and wept as I recalled that dark season of the soul. I stayed on the floor crying, saying over and over, "Thank you Lord, thank you." My heart and mind were overwhelmed with gratitude that God had never left me! He delivered me finally by revealing a path to healing! The horrible disintegration of my body and mind that crushed me for so long was coming to a close. Deep waves of love covered me and I felt a kinship with Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, the demon possessed man and all the others that He delivered, feeling one in spirit and gratitude with them toward our Savior.
Upon arising I read Psalm thirteen, which is our study for today and the words were like a sweet friendship that held my soul and whispered to my heart, "I know how you feel. You're not alone with your pain or your tender worship. I understand." This is the letter I wrote from my bed of pain many months ago:
I have been left behind. Friends, family, life goes on and I feel like a forgotten comrade. My body is wracked with pain, my mind feels like it is disintegrating. I have no health left and I just rot in this bed, slowly dying. Am I so worthless that all roads have led to hopelessness? Am I so unimportant that visiting me is not even a thought? Everyone is so busy, too busy for a person dying a slow death. I make no difference in their lives now, so why should I think they would even notice if I was gone? People pour out all their energies enabling the selfish and have nothing left for those who would cry if someone showed them the smallest kindness.
Hurried acts of service are appreciated but intimacy would be cherished and also be a sweet balm for a hurting soul. I’ve become nothing but a liability just as I was told when I was young. Writing was all I had left but I am having a very difficult time even doing that now. My mind won’t work like it used to and now it appears it’s just me, my pain and my bed. I’m grateful that I have a home, and a bed to slowly die in but doesn’t anyone care that I’m dying? All I have is God but I don’t see or feel Him in my darkness and I want so bad for Him to come and sit with me and tell me how much He loves me as He holds my painful body. I remember when I used to feel Him. If only I could feel His arms around me again when I collapse and cry. Jesus......no one is going to save me so why don’t you bring me home????? Please bring me home.
I’m sorry to everyone that I don’t have a perfectly packaged illness that you can all understand! I wish it were a disease that my mind and yours could wrap itself around but it’s not. It is a real and painful and scary reality that is horrible but unexplainable. The doctors diagnose me but have no idea what to do with me. They have no answers. I would rather know that I was dying than to just slowly rot away like this. If I had a choice I would want to live and be able to play with my grand-babies and spend time with good friends and family but I physically can’t do those things anymore and I’m getting worse everyday. Medicating is my only relief but I hate taking it because of how it makes me act and feel. No one knows what’s wrong with me and it appears to be a mystery that causes nothing but fear, shame and confusion! I can’t be alone anymore like this, alone with no hope, in constant pain and no escape. Bring Your forgotten daughter home Lord, be merciful and bring me home. I want to come home.
Brian is such a faithful husband with an incredible servants heart but how can he live this way? How can you watch the person you love suffering and disintegrating each day right before your eyes!? How can you take them to doctor after doctor and keep coming out with no answers! He's scared and lost in this darkness with me. This is a plea to anyone that has any love for me, pray for my deliverance, even if it’s through death. And, if God won’t take me then would all of you just send me greeting cards, so I don’t have to feel so alone. It would mean a lot to me. I'm too weak to talk on the phone and I can't even email or write, but to receive a card in the mail would remind me that there is love out there, a sweet kindness for me, like a cool hand on a fevered head. I can’t keep up anymore but please don’t leave me behind. Your remembrance of me would be such a joy to my heart. I’m only reaching out to my most inner personal circle with this. Please don't tell my son how bad I am.
Dee
This letter was written at my darkest moment, after years of staggering pain and no medical answers. I had nothing left, no where else to turn, it was, to me, my final cry. I don't know why we are taken to such dark places BUT I do know that God is there with us. Others will have all kinds of judgements such as, "You needed to have more faith." or "There must be some sin you haven't confessed!" Well, that sounds a lot like Job's friends! Only God knows why I suffered and I can finally say that I'm okay with that. All those years of pain brought forth files of writings, songs, poems, stories....All those years were to me like the Apostle Paul's years in Arabia.... time alone with Jesus. I learned empathy, kindness, gentleness, divine love...so many things that I did not possess on my own. I rode a Psalm wave that took me from heights of fellowship with my Lord to depths of sorrow that only He could console, then everything in between! No one but Jesus knows our life and heart and no one can fix it but Him! Our job is not to try to fix others, but to bring others into the presence of "The Savior" so He can re-create our sinful selves to His glory. I thought being dragged through the depths of life meant I wasn't worth anything, BUT, I finally heard God's voice say to me, "You weren't dragged, I knew you would follow Me."
Psalm 13....
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O Lord, my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, "I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall. BUT, I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.
I share this personal story with you because I felt so alone during that dark season and I know that hiding this trial will never bring glory to God! Who of you suffers and feels alone? Let me encourage you with this insight....your life is a psalm and although each of your stories begin with lamentations, the Holy Spirit brings a "BUT"! We cry out, BUT God is good, we hurt, BUT God soothes, we feel crushed, BUT God restores, we give up, BUT God picks us up! It's natural and human to question God, Gideon did it, Moses did it, Peter did....BUT we must put a time limit on it and learn to more quickly call to account THE WORD OF GOD! It is only GOD'S WORD that delivers us, for He is the Word! It is the "BUT" that will get you through the dark seasons of the soul!
Exercise:
Write down on one side of a piece of paper all the struggles you have. Then, find a scripture that will be your "BUT" to all of those problems. Make copies of it and put them in your night stand, your car, your purse or wallet, on the frig, the bathroom mirror.....You will make it through dear one, one "BUT" at a time.
Scriptures for thought:
2 Corinthians 2:14, BUT thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him!
2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ...Do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us eternal glory that far outweighs them all!
Read Job :) especially when God speaks! If He can calm the storms, He can calm YOUR storms!
Upon arising I read Psalm thirteen, which is our study for today and the words were like a sweet friendship that held my soul and whispered to my heart, "I know how you feel. You're not alone with your pain or your tender worship. I understand." This is the letter I wrote from my bed of pain many months ago:
I have been left behind. Friends, family, life goes on and I feel like a forgotten comrade. My body is wracked with pain, my mind feels like it is disintegrating. I have no health left and I just rot in this bed, slowly dying. Am I so worthless that all roads have led to hopelessness? Am I so unimportant that visiting me is not even a thought? Everyone is so busy, too busy for a person dying a slow death. I make no difference in their lives now, so why should I think they would even notice if I was gone? People pour out all their energies enabling the selfish and have nothing left for those who would cry if someone showed them the smallest kindness.
Hurried acts of service are appreciated but intimacy would be cherished and also be a sweet balm for a hurting soul. I’ve become nothing but a liability just as I was told when I was young. Writing was all I had left but I am having a very difficult time even doing that now. My mind won’t work like it used to and now it appears it’s just me, my pain and my bed. I’m grateful that I have a home, and a bed to slowly die in but doesn’t anyone care that I’m dying? All I have is God but I don’t see or feel Him in my darkness and I want so bad for Him to come and sit with me and tell me how much He loves me as He holds my painful body. I remember when I used to feel Him. If only I could feel His arms around me again when I collapse and cry. Jesus......no one is going to save me so why don’t you bring me home????? Please bring me home.
I’m sorry to everyone that I don’t have a perfectly packaged illness that you can all understand! I wish it were a disease that my mind and yours could wrap itself around but it’s not. It is a real and painful and scary reality that is horrible but unexplainable. The doctors diagnose me but have no idea what to do with me. They have no answers. I would rather know that I was dying than to just slowly rot away like this. If I had a choice I would want to live and be able to play with my grand-babies and spend time with good friends and family but I physically can’t do those things anymore and I’m getting worse everyday. Medicating is my only relief but I hate taking it because of how it makes me act and feel. No one knows what’s wrong with me and it appears to be a mystery that causes nothing but fear, shame and confusion! I can’t be alone anymore like this, alone with no hope, in constant pain and no escape. Bring Your forgotten daughter home Lord, be merciful and bring me home. I want to come home.
Brian is such a faithful husband with an incredible servants heart but how can he live this way? How can you watch the person you love suffering and disintegrating each day right before your eyes!? How can you take them to doctor after doctor and keep coming out with no answers! He's scared and lost in this darkness with me. This is a plea to anyone that has any love for me, pray for my deliverance, even if it’s through death. And, if God won’t take me then would all of you just send me greeting cards, so I don’t have to feel so alone. It would mean a lot to me. I'm too weak to talk on the phone and I can't even email or write, but to receive a card in the mail would remind me that there is love out there, a sweet kindness for me, like a cool hand on a fevered head. I can’t keep up anymore but please don’t leave me behind. Your remembrance of me would be such a joy to my heart. I’m only reaching out to my most inner personal circle with this. Please don't tell my son how bad I am.
Dee
This letter was written at my darkest moment, after years of staggering pain and no medical answers. I had nothing left, no where else to turn, it was, to me, my final cry. I don't know why we are taken to such dark places BUT I do know that God is there with us. Others will have all kinds of judgements such as, "You needed to have more faith." or "There must be some sin you haven't confessed!" Well, that sounds a lot like Job's friends! Only God knows why I suffered and I can finally say that I'm okay with that. All those years of pain brought forth files of writings, songs, poems, stories....All those years were to me like the Apostle Paul's years in Arabia.... time alone with Jesus. I learned empathy, kindness, gentleness, divine love...so many things that I did not possess on my own. I rode a Psalm wave that took me from heights of fellowship with my Lord to depths of sorrow that only He could console, then everything in between! No one but Jesus knows our life and heart and no one can fix it but Him! Our job is not to try to fix others, but to bring others into the presence of "The Savior" so He can re-create our sinful selves to His glory. I thought being dragged through the depths of life meant I wasn't worth anything, BUT, I finally heard God's voice say to me, "You weren't dragged, I knew you would follow Me."
Psalm 13....
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O Lord, my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, "I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall. BUT, I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.
I share this personal story with you because I felt so alone during that dark season and I know that hiding this trial will never bring glory to God! Who of you suffers and feels alone? Let me encourage you with this insight....your life is a psalm and although each of your stories begin with lamentations, the Holy Spirit brings a "BUT"! We cry out, BUT God is good, we hurt, BUT God soothes, we feel crushed, BUT God restores, we give up, BUT God picks us up! It's natural and human to question God, Gideon did it, Moses did it, Peter did....BUT we must put a time limit on it and learn to more quickly call to account THE WORD OF GOD! It is only GOD'S WORD that delivers us, for He is the Word! It is the "BUT" that will get you through the dark seasons of the soul!
Exercise:
Write down on one side of a piece of paper all the struggles you have. Then, find a scripture that will be your "BUT" to all of those problems. Make copies of it and put them in your night stand, your car, your purse or wallet, on the frig, the bathroom mirror.....You will make it through dear one, one "BUT" at a time.
Scriptures for thought:
2 Corinthians 2:14, BUT thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him!
2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ...Do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us eternal glory that far outweighs them all!
Read Job :) especially when God speaks! If He can calm the storms, He can calm YOUR storms!
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