Five Simple Words

Have you every had a day when you just wanted to sit down and have a good cry?  You may not have know why you needed to cry but knew that it would help.  Today was that day for me.  This has been a full week.  We have dear friends that came to visit last Saturday and we were having a great time catching up.  Our house was filled with the sound of friends again.  Monday evening we went to get our daughter and all of us went out to dinner together when Anna got very sick.  The short of it is that she ended up very sick in the hospital ICU for 4 days. I realized that I just went into the mode of caretaker at that point.  I tried to help out anyway I could but Tuesday I came down with a bad sinus thing and couldn’t go see my friend for fear I would make her worse.  So I tried to lend as much as I could to taking some load off Toby and helping with the kiddos’.  Not sure how much help I was but I felt a little helpless to know what to do.  Things were crazy at work and I ended up putting in overtime this week.  My sister contacted me that my mom’s husband was back in the hospital and the prognosis isn’t good.  It won’t be long before cancer will claim his life.  Then Friday we received a call from another friend from Vermont that was in town and needed a place to crash for a couple of days that wasnt feeling well either.  Of course, we opened our home to him.  It wasn’t even a question.

Today I woke up feeling horrible, tired and emotionally empty.  Lucky for us our church gathering doesn’t meet until 11:00 a.m. so I could sleep in a little.  I felt so weepy but wanted to keep it together.  Even with leaving a little early we were late to service and worship was just beginning as we came in.

 The theme of this day was letting God help you.

Acknowledging your need for him and turning to him for help.  While I couldn’t really sing because of my laryngitis by the second song I was totally undone.  I just covered my face and cried and tried not to look the fool.  I was hoping that the people around me couldn’t hear. I kept telling myself in my head to keep it together.  The last song of worship was My Help by the Brooklyn Tabernacle.  Our worship team tore it up, it was done so well, but It made me a  hot mess.  I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull it back together.

 After Wesley brought the word they sang the song again and as I sat there I remember thinking  Lord I just need someone to listen to me.  Someone to just listen.  I don’t need answers, I don’t need reminded of anything, I just need a real person to be present with me right now.

The service ended and I stood up, blew my nose, and grabbed my coat.  When I looked up I saw Kim, Wesley’s wife walk to me and ask, “Can I pray for you?”  Do you know what healing oil that was to me in that moment?

Five simple words.

Five simple words at the right moment.  She didn’t know what was going on with me.  She just hugged me and prayed fervently for me.  She was “God with flesh on” in that moment.  She allowed me to just stand there and cry.

How is it that one person in the span of a couple of months can see God work out miracle after miracle for them and is walking a life of faith and trust forget in the most important moments that God is my help?  What is wrong with me?  I have been living every day learning to trust him with our home, our finances, our life but in the moment I started leaning on me instead of Him.  It is so subtle.  It isn’t a deliberate choice, more a sliding into old behavior.  I want to be that person who breathes out God I need  you at every moment good and bad.  I want to know that my heart and mind and spirit will turn to Him by instinct.  O what a process this life of faith is.  I hate seeing the journey of the people of Israel play out in my life.  I hate admitting that I have to learn my own way instead of from their example.  I hate that at this point in my life I am still trying to learn this basic principle of my spiritual journey.

O but even in my weakness, He is strong.  Even in my moments of stumbling He knows my heart.  Even in my moment’s of stubbornness He is persistent.  Today he showed me that He is listening and He is speaking and reminding me of how much He loves me.  That He sent one servant to show me that He cares about what I need, not only financially, or physically but emotionally as well.  Five Simple Words communicated more to me about God and His love for me than a thousand sermons could ever say.  God was speaking those five simple words through His servant and was telling me,

“Karrie I see you.  I love you,  I hear you.”