Heavy Heart

The following post appeared on Lori's It's All In The Heart blog recently.  It's one of those instances where she was writing exactly how I was feeling...if you know what I mean.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share it with you.

Lori writes:

I wonder if heaviness is the cloak we wrap ourselves in when we find we cannot change the mind or the heart that is going down a path that we see is not good.

Often when wandering down a path, we know where we are going but our view of what is ahead is blocked. Still, we press on. It would be easier if we could see the outcome, but we don’t always get to. If the path is short, it seems easier. If the path goes on so that you walk it many days without seeing the end of it, you might get tired and forget the end. 

A cloak of heaviness comes and sits on shoulders, wrapping you up in only what you can see and not in Him, in what He is doing now, and up ahead on the rest of the trail. It is hard to see and hard to go on when all you can see is short term and in your face, like branches that slap you in the face as you move forward.  Thank God we can’t see all that He is doing. It may be right before our eyes yet we miss it because somehow we can’t see beyond the next bush in our face. We have a “down here”  perspective but thank God He sees it all.

That cloak can get even heavier as we look circumstantially, or it can be a cloak of choosing to believe that He has wrapped us up in His love and is doing His will and purpose in our lives and the lives of those entrusted to us.

I suppose we have all wanted someone to see what they needed to do, but they didn’t or don’t. That cloak of heaviness carries that heavy burden on our shoulders. We want changed hearts and circumstances. We say things like, “some things never change,” but chiseling takes time. God works, we look for some change but we see nothing. Maybe that is because the one being chiseled and the one watching the chiseling don’t know what the Artist is doing or what He has in mind. The work of the Artist doesn’t always appear as it will in the end. It may look terrible in the making but God knows what He is doing.  Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. We are His work of art. The process often is pretty messy in the making. Sometimes we just don’t want others to feel pain. We can’t make people see or change, but we can pray, wait, and keep looking ahead and walking.

God handles the details of our lives and the lives of others just as much as He handles the growth of bushes on the path that smack us in the face as we walk along the path and block our way. Maybe our job isn’t to make someone see or even understand. Maybe we are just supposed to try and love them and trust God with the outcome. That cloak of heaviness can turn into a cloak of thankfulness and blessing with each step. God takes care of the preparation of the heart and He takes us in the way we should go.

When your heart is broken because you see heartache, it is an invitation  to trust. Being called to rest always seemed to happen in the midst of heavy things in the bible. It is work to enter into His rest. That is how we get from here to there, by resting in Him.

  

 Thank God we can’t see all that He is doing. It may be right before our eyes yet we miss it because somehow we can’t see beyond the next bush in our face. We have a “down here”  perspective but thank God He sees it all.