Between Christ and Me

Isaiah 38:2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,

I remember one time when we were living in the prophets chamber above the gym of my home church.  I had younger children and there wasn't anywhere I could get alone and be by myself it seemed.  Small children can find you ANYwhere you try and escape for quiet time! Well, our family was going through a particularly hard time and I snuck out the front door that was just a wooden platform with a wooden staircase that led down to the church parking lot.  I sat down with my back against the door and looked up at the sky and started crying.  I cried and prayed for what seemed like hours.  I did not know if God was going to answer me, but I prayed on.

That has been many years ago, but I can still feel the heaviness in my heart that I experienced that day.  I remember I just wanted to disappear.  Have you ever felt like that?  You would just like to be erased from the pages of existence?  I didn't even know how to express that to God, other than to tell Him what I really felt and really wished He would do.  I think that is what King Hezekiah was feeling when he turned his face toward the wall and prayed.

When we find ourselves in these times of "aloneness" we can take comfort in the fact that what we pray is between Christ and ourselves.  What has the conversation between you been like lately?  Are you in a season of pleading for answers in your family? It could be you are so bitter you don't want to talk to God but AT Him.  Or maybe you are interceding for a friend?  Maybe you do more crying than actual speaking, but I want to encourage you today that God is listening.  He wants to provide you with the rest your body needs.  He wants to give you wisdom on how to pay your bills and control your finances.  He wants to help you be the right kind of mother to that wayward son or daughter.  He is listening as you pray for that husband that is off in sin.  He is paying attention to you as you labor in physical pain with no earthly reward or kind words.  His ear is open to your prayers and pleadings, so don't stop praying. Abraham didn't.  Hannah didn't.  David didn't.

Hard times are part of life.  Difficult seasons are going to come and the devil will just about make you lose faith in the One Who is High and Lofty and inhabiting eternity.  But don't stop praying!  Ask God to show Himself mighty in your life.  Endure in prayer.  Paul talked to God and served Him, yet suffered more than any of us ever will, but that did not change the fact that God had His perfect will performed in Paul's life and you and I reap the benefits through much of the New Testament because Paul was a willing participant in the sufferings of this life.  His joy now must be unimaginable. 

Let's not give up when bad news comes our way.  Let's Talk to Him, Let's get to know Him better and put one foot in front of the other one and keep going. 

My prayers as a young mother that night on the wooden platform were heard by a real living God.  He answered and although a miracle did not happen that night and I went to bed heavy hearted, I can look back and see He heard that night and the process had started.  He moved the pieces in my life that needed moving and taught me a lesson in faith.  I can praise Him for it and will until I die.  He was faithful to hear, faithful to see and faithful to answer.  All because of a conversation between Christ and me.

Talk to Him.

Until next time, Lord willing,
Sheri