After The Fire

After the last paycheck is cashed and spent, after the nursery is emptied, along with your heart, after the door slams and silence bounces in your face, after the body is lowered into the grave, or the ashes are scattered, after the whirlwind, where do you turn?

After “why” is no option.

After hope slips away.

After the fire has swept through.

What do you do?

Do you wonder what God is doing when precious, tender ones die young, and evil men grow old, their cruelty continuing for years.

So many questions with no answers.

Have you seen a forest after a fire? Charred trunks stand against bare, gray soil. No sound of bird or chipmunk.

Until spring rain.

Some of those trunks will push up new growth. And seeds freed by the heat of flames will sink roots deep into the earth and sprout another cycle of life in the forest.

But spring rain is so far away. And I am so tired.

Tired enough to finally let go. I can’t fix it. Can’t go back. Can’t change it. Can’t understand it.

At times like these, I feel like those bewildered disciples in the boat, rowing out at night at his command.

A terrific storm came up suddenly on the lake. Water poured in, and they were about to capsize. They woke Jesus: “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”
Getting to his feet, he told the wind, “Silence!” and the waves, “Quiet down!” They did it. The lake became smooth as glass.
Then he said to his disciples, “Why can’t you trust me?”
They were in absolute awe, staggered and stammering, “Who is this, anyway? He calls out to the winds and sea, and they do what he tells them!” Luke 8: 24-25 The Message

Can I trust this God?

I had a strange dream, like those Biblical ones where God speaks to people too busy to listen when they are awake.

The dream started with a group of people in urgent prayer. I watched for a while, then God said, “Praying in the Spirit is not about tongues or emotions, will or words.” He waited for me to understand. When the urgency I’d felt as those people prayed lifted off my heart, he continued. “Praying in the Spirit is saying with everything in you, ‘Thy will be done.’”
Then we were standing by a dry creek bed in Idaho, in the desert at the foot of the mountains. God said, “When you fully surrender to my will, water will spring forth from the dry creek bed.”
Water bubbled up, clear and cool, flooded the rocks and flowed out into the desert.

How my dry heart needed that water.

Thy will be done.

Even if I don’t understand.

Thy will be done.

Even when it hurts.

Thy will be done.

“Before us there is nothing, but overhead there is God, and we have to trust Him.” Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where & Christian Disciplines, Discovery House Publishers

Yes. Once again, I choose to trust, because that is the only way I can go on living.

With hope.

And a future.

What, what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living! Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord. Psalm 27:13-14 Amplified Bible

If you don’t see the photos and video, click on the title to view this on the website.