Back Story - Part 1

This post is a testimony of God's kindness.
Back story: The past month (at least) has been an excruciating time in regards to my walk with the Lord. The culmination of a long journey of unemployment and its effects on us, personally and collectively as a family. It is as though the Lord was saying, "You like XYZ? You enjoy XYZ? Hand it over." I have had to have conversations with our bank, our mortgage provider, our children's preschool, and several government agencies that I had never dreamed of having. There is an emotional toll that comes with submitting to the Lord. The discipline of trusting Him, re-directing my heart and thoughts to Him, and honoring Him despite my natural instincts to throw my hands up, scream, and have a pity party - is flat out exhausting and hard. Not that I have a perfect record over the past two years, but I would like to believe the journey has shaped me to reflect Him better. I have discovered/decided that there is no other way to be before the Lord than to be honest. In my case, to share with Him how raw I felt. I took/take great comfort in the cries of David in Psalms and the pleas of Jeremiah in Lamentations. And, if they could say their heart before the Lord and it make it in the Bible, then I can be transparent before Him too! Not questioning His sovereignty, but being honest before Him. David and Jeremiah always ended their cries with praise and affirmation of who He is - and I did my best to follow in their footsteps.
Back to my state of being during this time...when I thought of Jesus, I could see Him near me, but his back was turned to me. I knew He loved me, but I did not see his goodness towards me. (Listen, I know that even through all this I have much to be thankful for. And, in deed I am. This is an effort of a mere imperfect person sharing how the One perfect person met me where I was in my time of need.) My scariest thought was just how low he would take me before turning towards me again. Not pretty, is it? I had a very deep desire for Him to speak, to show me relief. Our church hosted Beth Moore's simulcast a few weeks ago and here was my challenge- if I really wanted to hear from the Lord then I was going to have to submit my frustrations/longings/angst to Him and LET Him touch me. That's hard because some days I felt as though I had the right to be mad. I was walking back to my seat and Beth said, "When you think that God is not good, know that He is great." Do what?! Did I just hear her say what I thought she said?! I quickly captured that in my Bible- numb that she just addressed (all the way in Lubbock, TX) exactly what I had been struggling with. She also said, "In your darkest moment you may be in the cleft of the Rock and He is hiding you there with his hand." Another hard Truth to allow to penetrate my weary soul.
I share all this because you too may have a weary soul. Keep reading...the good stuff is soon to come!