This has been a hard week. A sorrowful week. A week of tears. We celebrated my 40th birthday yesterday, and I was so blessed by the lovely posts by Amanda and Jocelyn and my wonderful family and friends, but the day was shadowed by the sorrow and pain our friends, the Drews, are going through, since seeing little Christian going on to be with Jesus. I know how I feel and how deeply this has rocked me, and I think about Marshy and her husband, and I pray for them, not knowing how I could handle what they are now living.

I have had a few things in my life I consider a tragedy. Nothing like losing a sweet baby. I have felt the deep depression of not knowing why something happened or how I would survive, though, and the only thing I know is that when things happen that sweep over you and overtake you, and you just don’t know how you can survive, there is really only one thing to do: cry out to the Lord.

He expects us to praise Him when we feel like we are blessed. Most people do immediately praise the Lord when we feel blessed; how could we not? It’s when we feel like we had the wind knocked out of us, and we cannot see a clearing in the sorrow or the bills or the trouble we have in life that we must still lift our hearts and praise Him through the circumstances. I believe He expects us to praise Him during the tragedies too.

And that is hard. And it may not come right away. It may come after the, “Why Lord why?”, and the “What do I do now?”, but it will come. Praising Him will come to our hearts, because we are His, and we know who He is, even when we don’t get the why’s and wherefore’s of the circumstances.

I have not entertained the thought of why in this in any depth. Bad things happen. We live in a world where death is the result of Adam’s sin, and I can leave it at that. For now, I have to. For now, I will focus on God the God. The God who, in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth. The God who gave His only Son so that I may live for eternity with Him in heaven. The God who prepared that way of forgiveness for my sins that would otherwise be my eternal demise to an unquenched pit of flames forever. I will focus on His son who endured life, bringing glory to God, even to His own death and resurrection.

At this moment in time, on this Saturday, the Sabbath, I praise the Lord because of who He is. Not because of any circumstances, but in spite of them.

Psalm 8

1 O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

blessings!

Subscribe to Walking Therein by Email

A blog friend is compiling Songs for Marsha if you would like to give a special song of praise for her project.