Alone in the darkness: I knew I was at war

John 16:33 I have told you these things so that in me you have peace. In this world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world

Sisters, we have dark days.  I’m not talking about tough days, I’m not talking about bad days and I’m certainly not talking about bad hair days.  I’m talking about dark days – days when you sit in the darkness of a corner chair or even curled on the floor and sob because you just don’t have it in you to do or be anywhere else.

These are the days where you’ve been betrayed, you’ve been fired unexpectedly, your friends or family turned against you or you lost them suddenly.  These are the days when the work, the husband, the house, the bills, the kids, the guilt and the pain are just too much for you bear and simply reading or reciting 1 Corinthians 10:13 is not enough.

These are the days when you know that God is the light of the world, yet you feel comforted by the darkness.  The days when you know there is Joy and Hope in the Lord, yet you can’t open your eyes to see it as your lids are so heavy with the exhaustion of fear and dread.  The days when you wonder how you can be a Christian and a believer yet think the thoughts that cross your mind.

These days exist for me, and well, I’m really putting it out there if they don’t exist for you too, I guess. But, I feel pretty confident that while there may be things about me that are unique, that moment on my knees with my face buried in the carpet begging for deliverance, is not one of them.

I had one of these moments the other night.  A really rough day, that turned into a really bad day that turned into a really dark day.  I can’t tell you how frustrating it was to sit among the notes, devotionals, bible studies and spiritual reminders I have collected in my bedroom to remind me of my renewed spiritual journey and closeness to God, but to feel so low. The agony of the Holy Spirit calling me to hold on tight, that the storm was brewing, while I also heard the human cry in me to just stop fighting.  The mere fact that I wasn’t able to leap in faith to one of my underlined passages and immediately experience the power of God was dragging me deeper into the dark.

I prayed, desperately. I called my husband who was out of town to pray for me.  I called out to my music player to play my Christian Music playlist to fill my home with Worship music and I know God surrounded me – but I still felt the storm.  I knew I was at war.  I curled up on my couch, my dog curled up next to me and we watched faith movies on TV until I could fall asleep. I fell asleep at 4:30 a.m (two acceptable doses of Unisom later).

I was awakened at 8:00 with a notification on Facebook that my first ever blog post had been posted here at Created Woman.  I was in a fog, pool of drool on the leather arm of the couch, trying to figure out where I was and what just happened.

The experience was almost unreal.  I swiped open the phone and opened the link.  My post spoke to how one simple step in obedience to God had begun working with me on my spiritual journey.  It was filled with my own promise of the joy God had in store for me and bizarrely, it was almost like I was giving myself my own morning pep talk.  But this wasn’t something I had done, of course, it was God.  How perfect was his timing that when I woke from a night of warfare the first thing I saw was my own words speaking about the journey.  How miraculous is God’s delivery of the message that sharing my battle was helping others.  It was just enough faith, courage and strength to get up and make it through the day.  I was still exhausted, but God reminded me during my time with him at morning that a soldier doesn’t return from the battlefield well rested and completely healed.  They walk home tired from battle, and I was tired from battle, but they had victory in their hearts.

I’m led to the verse from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:7)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven”

I am not a theologian and my research shows a lot of interpretations of the intent of this statement – but I believe that if you are aligned with the Lord, when he delivers his scripture to you , its in specific answer to something you are facing.  So to me, this means that God knows that we are weak in spirit.  He knows that there are going to be dark days when our spirit is under attack.  But if we accept that, and we turn to our Father to fight the battle, he will win – because he is the King.

Lord, I pray for any of my sisters who may be fighting their own battles.  I pray for all of those that find themselves on their knees or alone in darkness in weakness.  I trust as we give the fight to you that you will deliver us from battle and lead us through the storms.  As we emerge, tired but victorious through you, renew us, and may we always be thankful to you, our mighty and powerful King.

Jennifer Hill

SUMMER SHAKE UP SERIES
GATHER HER || 07.13.17
FAITH + FASHION + FRIENDS + FREE

TOPIC: PURUSING YOUR DREAMS IN EVERY SEASON OF LIFE!

Enjoy an evening with women just like you who want to explore their faith and love all things fashion!

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Panel: Elaine Mingues, Jan Goss-Gibson, Rachel Davis
Topic: Pursuing your dreams in every season of life

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