Before we knew Jesus, and I mean really knew, we’d been in church for years without truly knowing him, well, before all that my husband and I went through a really tricky patch in our relationship. I’ve written about it before I’m sure, but at the time out youngest 2 kids were very young, I was running my own business, my husband worked full time, we basically had no time for each other, and on the rare occasion when we did we were simply exhausted. I craved having time to be by myself, and he craved time with me. It was a recipe for disaster to be honest! But we knew it was bad and we managed a few days away ‘sans infants’ to talk about it all, a ‘relationship summit’. It was a pretty rough time and we came away from that weekend knowing that nothing could really change in the near future, but that we both wanted to hang in there for each other.
Over that weekend we wrote a song together (not an unusual thing as he’s a total muso) and this evening I was going through some old notebooks and I found some notes for that song. Got to admit it’s hardly the world’s best song but what amazed me is that it was like a prayer that God answered.
These are some of the lyrics…
Early one dawn, the light starts to stream in
Across the bed covers, it cuts through the din
Radio blaring, it’s 6.09
Everyone’s wanting a piece of my time
School books are missing, socks inside out
As the days starts unfolding, I’ll go without
I’m still here, under the shade
I’m still here finding my way
I’m still here just carrying on…
I’m here as well
Over 10 long years it’s been this way
The rewards there to see for all every day
My beautiful life and all that I have
children husband, dogs and a cat
Amongst it all somewhere I’m free
as I feel my own soul drifting away from me…
I’m still here coming out of the dark
coming out of the dark
I’m still here, is it wrong to want more?
I’m dead on my feet as another day’s done
have to keep fighting the urge to run
Outside the world’s sleeping, all is at peace
Where is my sanctuary, when will it cease?
I also wrote on another page:
As we pull up to the junction, the irony’s not lost on me, the crossroads of my life and the decisions there to see.
This journey we are taking, like a lead weight in my heart, to face the demons stalking us is the hardest part…
I read this all and it transports me back to a place of pain. But I read it now with new eyes and I look at it and think, wow, this was a prayer! We didn’t even know it but all these pages of notes, of heartbreak, of anger, of songs, they were a prayer. A prayer of pain, of searching, of a desperate desire for something more. And the spirituality of it is just so obvious as I look at it now! The line that struck me most of all is ‘as I feel my own soul drifting from me…’ and the line about the demons stalking us – we didn’t even believe in that stuff then but as I look back they truly were stalking us… I can’t quite put into words how I feel right now, it’s like the realisation that God knew we were truly crying out from our hearts for something different and without us even realising we were praying, he heard and he answered…
And answer he did because just a few months later in that same year we had an amazing encounter where we finally came to realise what Jesus is really all about! And at the exact point when we both committed our lives to him, God literally healed our relationship over night. Something we were desperate for and yet just couldn’t do ourselves, and God just did it for us.
My husband wrote as an add on to a chorus as you can see above, ‘I’m here as well’. I don’t even remember why he wrote it now, maybe it was about him but as I look at it now, I feel like it was God saying I was there too, I was with you in that pain, I stood by you and I heard your tears.
I just look back and I actually can’t believe it. I just feel like a wave of God’s love is washing over me, in the realisation that even when we walked away from him, he was right there, and not just that he was there but that he loves us so much he just took away all that pain. Not because we deserved it (we didn’t) but just because he loves us.
#Overwhelmed
3 Comments
UKViewer
January 9, 2015 at 9:37 pmI've just written a blog post for #digidsciple on Lamentations. Different context for my post, but the Cry of Lament is self evident in your poetry/prayer.
You mention demons. Which today people believe are banished and don't exist. Perhaps we make our own (invent them by ourselves) but intrinsically, I feel that we are being tested, taunted, pointed out as not be sufficiently human (as Jesus was) or sufficiently pure or holy to be 'good enough' so perhaps the exit is the best way to banish the demons.
I believe that evil exists in the absence of Good(God) and if we allow God to die or wither within us, than perhaps we're creating the demons y allowing that emptiness that God's absence causes?
I know that it all sounds a bit fanciful, but each of us arrives at places which are uncomfortable and somehow work our way through it – as you did together.
I've given that Cry of lament, more than once to God about why or how he has allowed/is allowing this or that to happen. Sometimes in anger, sometimes in anguish, but hopefully always in the faith and belief that he will respond, perhaps not immediately, but in his time and place.
Jules
January 10, 2015 at 10:52 amThanks Ernie.
yes Lamentations is so often overlooked but actually I think we all need to do it. In a recent preach I talked of God wanting to know all of us, not just the bots we choose to show him. Of course I think he can see it all anyway, but there is something so powerful about us revealing our inner hurt and pain to him and allowing him to be with us in it.
On demons, people do believe different things but essentially yes I think the absence of God allows them or evil to come in to our lives.
I'm reflecting again this morning on the words and what I wrote last night and again I'm just so overwhelmed at what God did for us. There was some funny stuff going on there too and as I look back with spiritual eyes I think there was a spiritual battle going on in that place – for our souls (as I wrote 'my soul drifting from me') might be slightly melodramatic, but at the end of that day thats exactly what was going on. Perhaps God used the gifts he had given us in words and music to form a prayer in the midst of it all. I don't know, still pondering but still amazed at what he does for us…
suesconsideredtrifles
January 10, 2015 at 11:42 amThank you for sharing this. I have also found that time gives us new insights on past events. Sue