Friday's Faith
God Answers "A Grieving Mother's 'Day Off'"
To the poem I wrote on Tuesday's Trust, today I bring you on Friday's Faith, God's response... But first, the poem:
A Grieving Mother's "Day Off"
It's a day off ~ you'd think I'd have no cares.
I go to sleep ~ awaken to nightmares...
You needed help ~ there was no help I'd find;
I saw the one ~ who'd always helped... was blind.
Is this my life ~ suspended in mid-air?
What is my crime? For you, I'll always care.
A mommy's love ~ should soothe your hurts away.
But when I look ~ I see you've gone away.
Your heart's at rest ~ may that sink in, I pray.
My God knows best ~ He holds you close today.
Your mommy tried ~ she couldn't reach your heart.
And now you've died ~ and now we are apart.
I guess you know ~ you're always in my heart.
I'll see you soon ~ Would someone tell my heart?
I continue to cry out. . .
My heart's broken ~ Your loss tears me apart. . .
God, come quickly ~ Please soothe this mommy's heart.
God responds . . .
Come to Me, all you who are weak and burdened,
And I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you
and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke
is easy and My burden is light.
My child, I am here.
Here is My heart; it's available to you.
God, I saw my father in my dreams,
and he was blind to me....
I am not blind My child; My eyes ever see.
God, this love is killing me ~
She is not here to receive it.
Like a mother whose milk
Longs to be poured out
And aches when the child cannot be found.
My child, I am ever here to pour
My love out on you.
See that you can be found.
My heart, too, aches when you cannot be found.
God, I draw near to You;
I starve for Your love, I thirst for
Your love. Grief is a barren
desert where no water can be found.
I cannot subsist
without Your sustenance. May I
suckle at Your breast, My Father
and Mother God. You are my
parent ~ You are not blind to me.
You draw near; my every need You see.
Forgive me for my busyness.
Give me new eyes -- Thee to see.
My heart longs for water in this
dry and weary land. Oh Father, come to me!
I John 4:12b
If we love each other, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:9-10
This is how God showed His love among you: He sent His One and Only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
As much as I love Merry Katherine, and long for her ~
she had to leave;
she was taken from me ~
I didn't give her up...
Yet God's suffering love, loved His Son, yet lovingly chose to suffer by sending Him to us, sending Him to die that we, with Him, might live.
Such love AMAZES me!!!
Such love suckles me.
Such love nurtures me.
Such love soothes me.
*****
God’s family is a sorrowing family. “I have chosen you,” he says, “in the furnace of affliction. I will leave in the midst of you a poor and an afflicted people.” The history of the church finds its fittest emblem in the burning yet unconsumed bush which Moses saw. Man is “born to sorrow;” but the believer is “appointed thereunto.”
It would seem to be a condition inseparable from his high calling. If he is a “chosen vessel,” it is, as we have just seen, in the “furnace of affliction.” If he is an adopted child, “chastening” is the distinguishing mark. If he is journeying to the heavenly kingdom, his path lies through “much tribulation.” If he is a follower of Jesus, it is to “go unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.” But, if his sufferings abound, much more so do his consolations. To be comforted by God, and to be comforted as a mother comforts her child, may well reconcile us to any sorrow with which it may please our heavenly Father to invest us!
God comforts his sorrowful ones with the characteristic love of a mother. That love is proverbial. No line can fathom it, no eloquence can depict it, no poetry can paint it. Attempt, if you will, to impart brilliance to the diamond, or perfume to the rose, but attempt not to describe a mother’s love. Who created the relation, and who inspired its affection? That God who comforts his people with a love like hers. And what is a mother’s affection—fathomless and indescribable as it is—but as a drop from the infinite ocean of God’s love!
Did ever a mother love her offspring as God loves his? Never! Did she ever peril her life for her child? She may. But God sacrificed his life for us. See the tenderness with which that mother alleviates the suffering, soothes the sorrow of her mourning one. So does God comfort his mourners. O there is a tenderness and a delicacy of feeling in God’s comforts which distances all expression. There is no harsh reproof—no unkind upbraiding—no unveiling of the circumstances of our calamity to the curious and unfeeling eye—no heartless exposure of our case to an ungodly and censorious world; but with all the tender, delicate, and refined feeling of a mother, God, even our Father, comforts the sorrowful ones of his people.
He comforts in all the varied and solitary griefs of their hearts. Ah! there may be secrets which we cannot confide even to a mother’s love, sorrows which we cannot lay even upon a mother’s heart, grief which cannot be reached even by a mother’s tenderness; but God meets our case! To him, in prayer, we may uncover our entire hearts; to his confidence we may entrust our profoundest secrets; upon his love repose our most delicate sorrows; to his ear confess our deepest departures; before his eye spread out our greatest sins.
“As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you.”
~Octavius Winslow
Isaiah 49:14-16
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.
Isaiah 66:12-14
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
12 For this is what the LORD says:
“I will extend peace to her like a river,
and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;
you will nurse and be carried on her arm
and dandled on her knees.
13 As a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”
14 When you see this, your heart will rejoice
and you will flourish like grass;
the hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants,
but his fury will be shown to his foes.
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