God Lifts Us Out and Sets Us Free

It is raining today. A chilling kind of rain, that you can almost feel seep in to every pore of your body and settle there, leaving you wanting for warmth, all day.

As I walked through my back yard today with the dog, I noted a low spot. The grass reaches out towards a path that wanders through the woods, but at the opening of the path, the ground dips down. When it rains, water almost always pools there.

There was something about it that reminded me of my own heart. It has a low lying spot, too, where the tears of my sorrow seem to all flow and pool. When the rainy days of life stir up my tears, they seem to all run in to this place of grief; grief from the past and grief from the present, mixed together, they accumulate.


The spot in my yard can get pretty sloppy, slippery and slimy. The water dries up eventually, but for awhile, it stagnates, only slowly seeping in to the ground or evaporating, producing a miniature swamp of sorts, muddy and stinky. It's a mess to step in, and easy to get stuck in.


More and more as I grow and mature, I realize that I can get stuck in the pool of my tears as well. The tears come for a reason, and they are good, but sometimes they begin to gather and pool and instead of soaking in to my heart and nourishing it, they can stagnate. I get stuck in the mud and the mire, and I need help to get out.


Psalm 40:1-3 says, "I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to my God."


I know that there is a time and a season to grieve. It is important and it serves a purpose for our hurting hearts as it drives us to call out to and depend on God, the only One we really can depend on. The problem is that sometimes I, and perhaps you do to, dear reader, get stuck there. We feel hopeless and helpless. We lose sight of Who God is and what He is doing in our lives. We think that all of life is going to be muddy and sticky and yucky, and we forget that God is right there standing with an outstretched arm to pull us out and rescue us. He has a rock for us to stand on, a place of great strength and stability, Jesus. And not only that, but He has a song for us to sing, that only we can sing for Him.

As I look at my back yard, I see that beyond the path where the muddy mire sits today, are two chairs. I can almost hear the Lord beckoning to me, "Grab hold of Me, I am here to lift you out and to set you on solid ground where you are free. Remember I am your strength and in Me you are strong. Come sit with me awhile, child, and let me sing to you the song I have for you to sing. It is a song of great beauty and of great joy, not of sorrow. You do not need to be stuck in your grief, but free in my love. Have hope for I am here to help."

And so, again, I chose to trust God and hold tight to Him -- no matter what, no matter when, no matter how, no matter where. I will trust in Him alone.