Here's a song relating to this:
I'm trading my sorrow;
I'm trading my shame;
I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord.
I'm trading my sickness;
I'm trading my pain;
I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord.
When I hear young people sing this, I can hear the pain in their voices - many times. It is real for them - and in their youth!
Pain does touch us - and at very early ages. Sickness, sorrow, shame and pain are all there in this life. Sometimes they seem to overwhelm us.
We need to 'trade up' to the Great Healer. Exodus 15:26, God says, . . . I am the Lord who heals you.' Sometims I need to hear that again.
This theme of the healing aspect of God is throughout the Scriptures. Why, how, when, where does God bring healing into our lives? How do we access this healing that we so desperately need? And what level of healing are we talking about? Just physical? No, total healing.
Here's the Scripture passage for today:
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits -
Who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases
Who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
Who satisfies your desires with good things . . . (Psalm 103:2-5a)
What is your 'dis-ease,' your lack of shalom today? God can heal that.
He not only lifts us up out of our pits, he crowns us with compassion. His healing is based on understanding and pure love.
He wants to heal us today. Let's let him - let's 'trade our sorrow.. .
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3 comments:
My dis-ease is my job situation. Just this morning I prayed, asking that God help give me the faith that He is in control of these working issues and is keeping my best interests at heart. It troubles me and stresses me out more then my boss thinks these changes are. I feel as though I am a square peg being forced into a round hole. When your job is not making you happy, your daily peace is greatly effected outside the office.
As a father who believes in Divine healing and who has a child that lives in continual pain, we pray for a full and complete healing of that pain - trading her pain for joy. While we wait for that day, we trust, even when sight seems to deny faith. Emily Dickinson wrote of the problem of pain in her poem:
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
The trading of sorrow waits in the blanks of pain. God does fill in the "blanks" with his presence, but there is truth in the words of Solomon, "hope deferred makes the heart sick". Shalom.
We'll pray for you, too, Erin. That sounds rough and it does affect your shalom.
Howard, thanks for sharing so deeply. And thanks for the poem. I guess Emily Dickinson knew. Living with pain, but God is in the midst. Shalom to you, too. Our prayers and thoughts are with you.
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