yearning

Friday, February 26, 2010 (8:33 a.m. CST)

Liberty Park Hilton Garden Inn #626

Birmingham, AL

Good Morning Blessed Lord ~

This is all very unexpected. I am feeling sad. Desperately sad. On the verge of tears. Repeatedly. And just by admitting that to You, they are starting to form. My fear is that if I allow them to fall, they won’t stop.

I don’t want to go there. Instead I will thank You. Thank You for thirty-three years of marriage to a man who truly loves me. Thirty-three years of mistakes and “I’m sorry” and laughter and loving and learning and yearning.

Yes Lord. “My heart yearns within me” (Job 19:27 NKJV) “I am overwhelmed at the thought (of seeing You with my own eyes)!” (NLT).

Psalm 84:2, “My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”

Oh Most Dear and Blessed Lord ~ You are so good to us and we fail so wretchedly. Isaiah 26 sings a song of praise to You. Verse 9, “My soul yearns for You in the night; earnestly I seek for God.” Oh that we would, Dear Lord! Oh, that we would truly seek for You!

And as if that weren’t enough emotional food for thought ~ now the tears are streaming down my face. Speak to me clearly here Lord. As I read “Rachel’s Sadness Turns to Joy” starting at Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel wept for her children. Refusing to be comforted.

See? I KNEW this was going to happen! Here come the sobs!

Lord ~ You are SO good to us! Verse 16, “But now the Lords says, ‘Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you. Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy. There is hope for your future,’ says the Lord. ‘Your children will come again to their own land.’”

Blessed God ~ I am not going to read ANY thing into this except the reality that You knew my mommy heart was breaking for my babies this morning and I turned to You in the midst of it.

Thank You Lord! Thank You that the biggest blessing to me along with verse 32, which speaks of the love You have for Your errant people ~ “…as a husband loves his wife” (Happy Anniversary!) is found in verse 20.

All the other verses this morning have related to us yearning for You. Here instead I find YOU yearning for me!

Jeremiah 31:20, “‘Is not Israel still my son (Laura still my daughter), my darling child?’ asks the Lord. ‘I had to punish him (her) but I still love him (ME). I yearn for him and surely will have mercy on him.’”

Oh Dearest Lord, I read before and after this verse of turning back to You and being restored “for You alone are the Lord my God” (v.18). Verse 21 tells of setting up road signs and guideposts. And a path well marked.

Dearest, dearest Lord ~ as my tears stop and start again. As my heart and soul grow stronger with hope ~ I put all my fearful “What if” and “If only” on You. I bring them to You Lord. Every mistake of the past I offer back to You Lord, with Your promise to Your people (of which I AM one!) “How long will you wander my wayward daughter? For the Lord will cause something new and different to happen ~ Israel will embrace her God” (v.22).

Lord, how I pray that Your “something new and different” translates to something wonderful and exciting! How I pray that the mistakes I caused in my own understanding of things can truly be ‘worked together for the good of those who love you and are called according to Your purpose for them’ (Romans 8:28).

Be SO much bigger than my mistakes Lord. Use them. Use me! I love You Lord. Thank You. Amen.

(661 words ~ 9:55 a.m. CST)