Words of Comfort from Psalm 31

In Your justice deliver me; incline Your ear to me! Be my rock of refuge, a stronghold to save me. You are my rock and my fortress; for Your name's sake lead and guide me.

Free me from the net they have set for me, for You are my refuge. Into Your hands I commend my spirit, You will redeem me, Lord, faithful God.

I will rejoice and be glad in Your love, once You have seen my misery, observed my distress. You will not abandon me into enemy hands, but will set my feet in a free and open space.

Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am in distress; with grief my eyes are wasted, my soul and body spent. My life is worn out by sorrow, my years by sighing. My strength fails in affliction; my bones are consumed. I am forgetten, out of mind like the dead; I am like a shattered dish. I hear the whispers of the crowd; terrors are around me. They conspire against me; they plot to take my life.

But I trust in You, Lord; I say, "You are my God." My times are in Your hands . . .save me in Your kindness. How great is Your goodness, Lord, stored up for those who fear You. You hide them in the shelter of Your presence, safe from scheming enemies.

Blessed be the Lord, who has shown me wondrous love, and been for me a city most secure. Once I said in my anguish, "I am shut out from Your sight," Yet You heard my plea, when I cried out to You.

Love the Lord, all you faithful. The Lord protects the loyal, but repays the arrogant in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Being Uncommon

In my teenage years I always told myself that I was different, and there was nothing wrong with it. I liked my individuality and stuck to it. But when I started to reach my twenties I kept comparing myself to others. Wishing that I can connect with others because that person or persons was like me.
Today as I read (In) Courage - one of my favourite blogs - I realized the gift of being uncommon. According to Lysa Terkeurst going all out and being uncommon is more than just being yourself. It's straining to hear God's call to be different - to let Him fill out all the spaces in your heart.
Lysa lets us know that being uncommon means "to rise up" from the ordinary. Or more like what the world labels "ordinary".

P.S. Always feel free to leave a comment.

Pain and Loneliness

I'm going to mostly start my blogs with quotes from a song or a book. On this topic two songs come strongly to mind.

Adam Gregory's "Could've fooled me" started with "I'm fading like the tallilights/ of a car that you pass in the middle of the night, man it's lonley out here/ There is just not enough gasoline/ to put the distance I need/ between the hurt inside."

No matter how much this peace that surpasses understand flows over me, the pain still remains. Yes I feel that "All shall be well" as Julian of Norwich would say- but the pain is there.

And more than lately it has been sitting there - cutting deep making me catch my breath a few times.

We are born social beings. But I don't think that fact helps me at all. I have many people to turn to. Yet I feel I'm still seeking for that place to call home, that shoulder to cry one. That someone that I can ring up at 3 in the morning. That person/persons that will come rushing in when they suspect trouble.

You see I still feel like I'm hiding myself from others. I have come a long ways regarding trusting others. However, deep inside I wished people can see through me. I wish they can see that pain I so desperatley need adressed, yet I'm afraid of being exposed.

Sarah Mclachlan's Fallen song says it to. "Heaven bent to take my hand/ and lead me to the fire/ Be a long awaited answer to a long and painful fight. ./ We believed that we change ourselves/ the past can be undone/ But we carry on our back the burden time always reveals/in the lonley light of morning/ and the wound that would not heal/ " That lonliness is like "The bitter taste of losing everything/ That I have held so dear." I feel like that wound, that wound of pain, of being rejected, will not heal. It sits there with me. Sometimes it will be forgetten but it still remains.

St. Augstine said that "we are restless until we rest in God." That we are made for God. And I continue to seek my Lord for all time. But what I beg - "my prayer without ceasing" - is that I find a home on earth I find Jesus "in the flesh". A walking Jesus - someone to hold me - someone to understand where I'm going and where I've come from.

I pine for something that I have never had. Because of it - I chose my friends carefully. And even more carefully do I open myself to them. Because of it- I'm harsh on my family. I feel that they should be entitled to know how I feel. But that is a wrong stand. I know that we cannot assume people to know ourselves. The truth is we don't even know ourselves 100 %. That's where God stands.

And so I continue to battle with God. I feel like in this manner He is silent. Before I could hear Him say - "but I'm here for you." Lately though I scream back "but where are the hugs the arms to hold me when I'm slipping. . ."