When He Doesn’t Fix It!

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.  Psalm 131:2

When a mother weans her child, she has to deny him what he wants and then comfort him when he realizes he can’t have it.  She weans him because it is necessary for his growth into a new phase of life.  She appears cruel to the child yet he turns to her for consolation.  She loves him so she persists in the training but also weeps at the pain she is causing.

So it is with God.  He weans me off things that are not good for me.  He often withholds healing for a greater good that remains a mystery.  He delays deliverance for reasons I might never know.  The life of faith is not the stuff of Pollyanna.  It is not for the fainthearted.

 So when things don’t feel right, when my heart is churning, when I’m tired of waiting, when my old wounds don’t appear to be any less severe, when I’m sick of myself, when I want what I want, when I dig deeply to try to will my soul to be quiet to no avail, it takes grace beyond what I can manufacture to run to the One who could fix everything that plagues me ~ but doesn’t.  I could be tormented about why He restrains Himself, why He withholds, why I continue to live in the period of the ‘not yet’, but right now ~ I need Him to comfort me.

There are periods in every life where answers aren’t provided.  What can be counted on are everlasting arms.  In this time of great uncertainty, a time when God is comforting instead of fixing, He can be trusted.  Comfort is available.  The song of the One who rocks us as children can still be heard.

Your grace carries me through to glory.  Amen