Hello, Ruth here, following on from Becky with the Rectory-ish Notes while Dave is on Sabbatical. I do hope Dave and Dawn are enjoying weather as good as ours has been (at least in June) during their much-deserved break. May God bless you, Dave and Dawn.
Do you ever find yourself in a situation for which a straightforward solution is missing? My husband and I are in just such a situation. Partly because of our own choices, partly because of circumstances outside our control, we find ourselves in difficulty (I’ll spare you the details). There is an easy way for this to be resolved, and my husband and I have been praying for it daily over the past nine months. However, ‘it’ has not happened.
So, where is God in all this? Has he answered our prayers by saying no? Does this mean that turning our lives upside down to cope with our difficulties is part of his plan for us? Or, are our difficulties an issue on the periphery of God’s plan for us, and so our response is ok whatever it is? We don’t know.
Over the months our daily prayers have become more and more heartfelt. This morning we began with, ‘Well, Lord, we have absolutely no idea what’s going on, we’ve done everything we can, and ‘it’ has not resolved. But we want to do your will and so again, we give over our situation to you’. Other times, we have felt angry with God, storming at him – and sometimes we’ve charged him with not being there at all.
In Psalm 22:1-3, King David, who God called ‘a man after my own heart’, sets us a precedent for honesty in prayer,
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.
David doesn’t stop with his charges against God, but continues,
Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel
Knowing we can rant at God has helped my husband and me. It is comforting to know that God is big enough to receive our anger and our doubt when we feel small. I believe he has been and remains beside us through the difficulties, though he has not resolved them for us. He is our God, not a Fairy Godmother to grant our wishes. Though it is hard, I do trust him, and I thank him because in truth, he has endlessly blessed me in my life.
I pray for all of you who are coping with situations that are not easily resolved, and who suffer as a result. May God guide you, comfort you and bless you. And if you figure out how to cope, please do let me know!
Ruth Gwernan-Jones
