Friday, July 8, 2011

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

The hardest things I’ve ever endured in my life?  Truth is, I don’t know how to "deal with them".  At least not in ways that give that shiny and put-together appearance that the world says I should.  I don't know how to "put them behind me" and "move on" or "go to my happy place" where they all disappear.  When I focus on them or think too much about them, I become totally and completely overwhelmed.

People say that “time dulls the pain” – it’s a lie.  It doesn’t.  Nothing ever dulls the pain.  It’s always there, always has the ability to bring you to tears at just the right word, always feels like someone reached deep inside of you and ripped your heart out of your chest, or took the air out of your lungs.  The ONLY way I have ever learned to deal with these things is this -- to worship.  I can’t dull the pain -- that's for the comfort that comes through His promises of hope to do.  I can't fully heal the pain – that’s for God to do when we’re finally Home -- but I can make my God bigger than my pain, and for me that’s the only way I know how to cope with the pain and avoid being consumed and destroyed by it.

Helen Lemmel knew the path through heartache.  In 1922, after her husband left her when she became blind, Helen penned these simple, yet profound, words:

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There's light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!


Thro' death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion
For more than conqu'rors we are!


His word shall not fail you He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well;
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!


Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.


There are things I will never understand on this side of glory.  Things that will never make sense to me, that will never be what I would have chosen for myself or others.  But I have a God who is truly full of glory and grace, who has already overcome the world, and who fights for me.  I may not be able to "put it behind me" or "move on", but I do have a "happy place" where the hurt and pain and confusion and questions dissolve into hope and trust and peace and faith, and that's in the face of my Savior.  "His word shall not fail you He promised..."  And for me, I see His face most clearly when I'm worshiping.

Listen:  "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus......"