Just Stand
Hope for when standing is just too much
So it goes, after you’ve done all you can,
You just stand.
But what happens when you find yourself lacking the strength to just stand?
When the waves of life have tossed you to and from, and although the ‘just’ implies it should be simple to remain, you find yourself so weary and worn down that even standing requires more effort than you feel is possible for you to muster.
As defeated as this place can feel-
The place where you recognize all your man-made strategies and solutions have proven to be useless and gotten you absolutely nowhere…
The place where your situation seems to be getting worse, not better, despite all your best efforts…
The place where you begin to question and doubt…
It is in this place, if you’re willing, that you can allow yourself to experience the sweet surrender of being held.
There is a delicate tension that exists in the place of being held.
It’s the tension of remaining still-
In what is hurting you…
In what is tormenting you…
In what feels so heavy that you might crumble…
For it is in being still that we can be met, and experience the tender love of a Father who draws near to the broken-hearted and saves those crushed in spirit.
It’s in the stillness, the willingness to sit in the hard moment, accept the tough season, or embrace the “negative” emotions that we get to experience a soft, gentle, and often overlooked compassion from the Lord- companionship.
Definition: Companionship is the state of spending time with someone or having someone to spend time with—the state of having a companion or being someone’s companion. It specifically implies that a lot of time is spent in each other’s company. (Dictionary.com)
It’s not rescue, it’s being with you.
It’s experiencing Him as the 4th man in the fire, much like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, rather than being pulled from the fire.
Because sometimes the grace and mercy of being held looks like-
Not losing our sanity
The choice to keep showing up
The faith to keep praying
The heart to continue hoping
Being held is not about being delivered from the cause of our turmoil, and though our flesh longs for sweet rescue, there is an intimacy with Jesus that exists when we allow our Heavenly Father to wrap His arms around us and hold us steady in the storm.
But that tension, between “I just want to get out of here” and “I know I’m okay even though I am in this dark place because I am not alone,” exists, and at times the pull between the two is so great it feels like the cord of sanity might break…
And yet, it never does.
So I sit in my Father’s arms, embracing the fact that it will be dark, there will be tears, there will be sleepless nights, things will be hard, but I am never alone, and it is well with my soul.