Beloved – dear to the heart.
One such person came to mind as I stared at a midnight ceiling, devoid of sleep. Beloved dwells in a situation well past anything in her control, far beyond what a normal human could or should endure. Yet as each broken piece threatens to fall, she rummages through the junk drawer for a paper clip, or a drop of glue in dried up bottles, settling on a piece of string to hold things together for another day. Deep relentless prayer for healing and wholeness tend to return unanswered though each answer not seen exposes another piece of string to again tie tightly.
Certainly blessed with strength and intelligence, she had the world on a string, until her body began to fail, small cracks turning stone into feet of clay. Other broken people gravitated her way as if she knew the answers, even if it was to be patient and hopeful.
My struggles with her plight mirrored visions of Job, who had everything taken from him, yet the Lord did not allow it to cause his death. I wondered why such a gentle soul would be burdened with so much. She is a child of the King, and Jesus holds her heart, soul, body and mind. Perhaps her perseverance in the face of constant struggle is a beacon to the broken that cannot find hope. A painful realization for one that I hold so dear.
It is not a place I want her to be. I don’t understand and it hurts to know that all I can do is pray. It took a great fish to get Jonah to a place he did not want to be, but God needed him there. Jesus certainly did not want to face the cross, but God needed Him there (so did I).
God has always placed Beloved in paths of His choosing because He needed her there. As with Job, when God needs her elsewhere and her time of trial has ended, she will be fully restored, even two-fold. Lord, please hold here closely until then. Still, it causes my heart great pain in the meantime, longing for those days to return sooner than later.
In the depths of my diatribe, the skies rumbled and storm clouds opened their floodgates, appropriate for my current state of heart. In the corner of my eye, a note emerged on my computer screen:
The Rain Will Stop.
Look there. Another piece of string.
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