Last night was the first night of our annual cookout in Smithville for North Lake Church. We talked about faith, coming out of Sunday when Jamie introduced the subject, and about where we are in our personal walk of faith.
Going around the group it varied from highs to lows, most of which was situational, but by the time it got to me I couldn't even come up with a good lie, which I wanted to desperately. Instead, I sat there and cried.
I told the group that a couple of months ago I had started studying James and I never got past verse 2-4 in chapter 1. "Consider it all joy..." just ate at me. In the last year and a half I have been at my absolute lowest and then found myself a little lower than the day before, and then lower and lower....you catch my drift? I haven't felt real joy about much of anything in a very, very long time.
I laid all this out before my friends, my church, the people I lean on, and they all sat there and let me cry. My husband, my very sweet husband, reached over and held my hand while I cried and explained everything and how I had been feeling - hopeless and lost. At the end of the discussion, after the last person had talked about their faith walk, and Jamie had started the discussion for this evening, Jamie asked them all to come and pray for me.
I sat there in my camp chair, sobbing, while these people, who love my husband and I so very much, laid hands on me and prayed. Prayed for my health, my level of joy, my feeling of hope, for strength, for the loneliness to leave, and just asked God to bless me.
I still hurt, I'm still injured, but prayer has its power and I can feel hope. Before I had dug down in the depression and pain so far that I had actually buried myself in it. I've not been fully excavated but I can see light peeking through all the muck.
Thank you, God, for putting James and I in the place and situation that we're in so that I could see Your mercies through these people. I still have my Reason to Smile.
Deo Volente
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