What a presence you’ve been in my mind, my heart, my prayers these past weeks. There’s simply no other explanation than it’s the Holy Spirit moving and working in artful ways far beyond my comprehension.
As a rather selfish individual by nature, I too commonly pray for myself and my needs, often to the exclusion (or at least severe abbreviation) of prayers for those outside my immediate circle of influence. Embarrassing, but nonetheless true.
This, however, has not been the norm of late.
You - my brokenhearted friend, weary sister in Christ - you have overridden my thoughts, and have quite literally, overwritten what I have been fruitlessly laboring to write. Well, I’ll correct that - you haven’t directly done those things, of course. But I’m convinced that the Lord has, because until He sat me down to write this right here, it’s been like battling up a south-facing hill against a north wind just to put a few friggin’ words together in complete sentences that make any sense at all, let alone to write something anyone should waste their time reading. For weeks, this has been the case. My pen’s been dry.
As I went to bed in defeat last night, slidden back down to the base of the hill, I asked the Lord to help me, to give me words again. And then He led me to pray for you. The next thing I knew, I was awake this morning and laying some serious pen to paper about…not this. But in the matter of a single paragraph, what I had begun to scribble down about wound management was tearfully turned to writing this letter to you.
The free-flowing ink for which I’d been praying for weeks was finally loosed, and the words for which I’d been struggling no longer evaded me. It seemed I had no choice in the subject matter, however. So here we are. I guess you could say this is still about wound management, in a sense. But certainly not the type of wounds I’m qualified to address without great heavenly help.
And so I submit this letter to you, under the watchful eye of the Great Physician, with the prayer that it will somehow prove to be a balm to the rawness of your pain, and with the hope that the Holy Spirit will make sense of my insufficient prose, for your good and His glory.
This comes not from a place of empathy, but of sympathy. I’ve been faithfully shepherded through such similar trials in my life - both self-inflicted and otherwise - that I know your agony, simply because I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt the sting of that pain, that sin, that guilt, that lie, that emptiness, that “Oh God, what have I done?”, that fear, that loneliness.
So as I see the fire you’re passing through, I can feel the flames in the scars I bear. I can thank the Lord for them as He shows me how what was meant for evil, He ordained for good. And now, looking back from the other side of many of those tempests, I can say with honesty that I wouldn’t change what the Lord brought me through - as I could’ve never experienced His nearness, His compassion, His power, His forgiveness - had He set me on smoother seas. Dear sister, this is my prayer for you, too.
I’ve likened such times in my life as you are experiencing as being eyeballs-deep in a muddy sinkhole, like Christian in the Slough of Despond, where you’re saturated to your soul with:
“…many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.”1
You can’t see out of it, you’re in too deep. You can barely get your head high enough to breathe, and it takes the last of your strength just to keep air in your lungs. You’re barely functioning day to day at the most baseline, survival-mode level. Trouble seems to come wave upon wave, and with each billow you’re driven further into the isolation of your own worry, a solitary place of anxiety, dark and lonesome.
It seems hopeless to even try to hope because you’re utterly powerless to change anything about your situation. This is where the lies of the world expose themselves as such. There’s no amount of “believing in yourself” or “finding inner strength” that can assist you here. You might be momentarily buoyed by a page of self-help BS or human-centric therapy sessions, but you know as well as I, they too will ultimately fail and back up to the eyeballs you’ll sink. You’ve descended to a depth in your soul that you know in your heart of hearts, nothing short of the arm of the Almighty can pull your exhausted frame from such mire.
It’s a petrifying place to be. I know it well, and I know you do, too. From here we can say with King David:
“my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.” -Psalm 32:3-4
But please know this my friend: THIS place, at this most dreadful hour, is where Help will find you and set you back on the narrow way. When you are at your most helpless, the help you’ve needed all along will prove the most powerful. Never are do the stars shine so bright as when laid across the backdrop of the blackest night.
Cast yourself upon Jesus.
You may not be able to do anything else, but your heart is still beating and it is in your heart this battle is won. Heave every burden onto Him, “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”2
Did you hear that? He cares for YOU. He loves you, friend, you! You say you know that, but do you really believe that? Do you live like you know that to be as true as your reflection in the mirror? He loves you, dear one, with an everlasting love that will bind up every wound of your heart that the world has so viciously left bleeding.
You must grab hold of the horns of the alter here. Don’t let go until you know He loves you.
He stepped down from His throne for you. He bore humiliation for you. He died for you. He has forgiven you. And He lives for you, that you may cast every care, every worry, every fear upon his strong shoulders and find rest for your weary soul.
What greater love is there than this? If this truth does not so open the floodgates of your tears in gratitude, that you would wash His very feet with them were He standing before you3, then dear woman, please pray and I will pray with you that He would so open the eyes of your heart to His infinite love that you would rise from your death bed just to serve Him4.
And when you’ve caught a glimpse of this great love God has for you, abide in it.5 Live in it, walk in it, bask in it. Pray, and pray often. Find yourself alone with God every day, as much as possible. Turn off the world, find a quiet place somewhere in His creation, and just be still before him. Find Him in the morning before anything else. If He wakes you in the night, talk to Him. Listen for whispering voice of the Holy Spirit. Let Him lead you in prayer, and you will find you receive the desires of your heart.
Though He may seem afar at times in order to teach you to seek Him in His Word, you must trust what “He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”6
Be much in the Word.
Be much in prayer.
He will meet you there.
Though you may have to wait, He will answer you. And there will be other times, especially in your brokenness, that He will fill you with such a sense of His presence that you’ll feel as if the sinews binding your spirit to your flesh would snap under the strain of your soul being drawn toward its Maker.
Paul Washer, a preacher and missionary who’s greatly influenced my walk with Christ, recently said, “God is a god who answers prayer. He delights in vindicating even the smallest confidence of his children. You can trust Him.” I cannot echo this loud enough! You can trust Him. And He will honor even the smallest grain of faith expressed in the weakest of prayers.
And prayer is how the monster of anxiety, that so plagues you, is vanquished. I say this as a woman who has over and over again dishonored the perfect faithfulness of my Savior by the sin of worry, it’s my Goliath, and I battle it to this day. I think women like us somehow try to twist persistent worry into some sort of badge of honor. It is anything but, and must be exposed for the sin it is, against the dearest of friends and most loving of fathers. It must be dealt with. He’s told us exactly how to deal with it, we must lovingly obey, and so reap the blessings:
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”7
Peace. Beautiful peace. Is it not what our hearts so desperately need?
I’m going to beg a little here…please, PLEASE read (or listen to) the testimonies of George Müller (Autobiography of George Müller) and Brother Andrew (God’s Smuggler). They will encourage and light a fire in you to pray in ways only the Holy Spirit can explain. I have found friends in these dear, old men of God, and I hope you will as well.
With your cares cast upon Jesus, abiding in His love, go forth.
One step at a time, one day at a time, worrying not about tomorrow8.
Go forth courageously, because the God of the universe is with you, He goes before you and behind you. He’ll never leave you.
Go forth obediently, for Jesus promised that His “yoke is easy and [His] burden is light.”9 Seek not to bear the burdens the world has placed on your shoulders, but ask the Lord to take it from you and give you His in its place. He is kindness and gentleness know no bounds. In your day to day life, you may see this play out as freedom from what you think others think your life should look like.
It doesn’t matter how well intentioned your parents’ expectations are, or your colleagues’ perception of you, or your friends’ opinions, or anyone’s criticisms. Just obey God. And ask Him to help you. That’s it. Do what He says and forget the rest of the noise. He will sort out the details of your life as He’s promised, and you will have rest for your soul.
Go forth thankfully. There’s something profound in that little Sunday school song, “Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done…”
The fears, doubts, and discouragements that feel as if they’ve settled into your bones, have a way of creating a cataract of sorts within the eyes of our hearts. They so cloud vision of all the good in our lives, that I think we often forget there’s any there. So it takes work and focus, but regain our sight we must, for we are abundantly, undeservedly blessed. From the sun that rose on our homes today, to the food on the tables, to our beloveds asleep in the next room, to the very Savior who made us, dear sister, let us offer our sacrifices of thanksgiving.
Daughter of the King, you are loved. Deeply, dearly, with a love infinite, perfect, present, sacrificial, without end. This too shall pass. Though the dark days may drag by slowly, Christ is there with you in every one, and they will not last forever. He will cause them to work together for good10, and you will yet see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living11.
So take heart, precious soul. The brightest days are yet to come.
Please, reach out if you need an ear, or a hand to hold in prayer.
May the kindness of our Father follow you this day, and bear witness of His love to the very depths of your spirit.
Praying with you,
Amanda
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim's Progress. New York, G. H. McKibbin, 1899. Get the audiobook here.
1 Peter 5:7
Luke 7:38
Mark 1:29-31
John 15
Hebrews 13:5
Philippians 4:6-7
Matthew 6:25-34
Matthew 11:30
Romans 8:28
Psalm 27:13
Love this sister. Praise be to our glorious God!!