In this place of waiting,
In these days of God’s own leading,
In this season when pain tries to direct,
My Lord asks me to look up,
and to remember.
After a year of waiting on the decision about my thyroid, and after the summer of aFib, my cardiologist gave cardiac clearance last month, and I am finally scheduled for a partial thyroid removal surgery on November 13. So the waiting continues for a little longer, even as my RA continues to rage.
Yet, it is in this very place where my Lord asks me to look up. He is filling my mouth with praise for this day, this 48th wedding anniversary with my husband. He is filling my mouth with praise for this month that held my 66th Birthday. In every path where He has led us, in every trial and every pain, He has been our sure and solid rock. Every breath has been His gift.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
Today, I feel stirred to share an old post from 2019 with you. The main verse and song from that post, Psalm 81:10, was in my reading this year on my birthdate. I could only feel God’s grace as I remembered and looked up. So I pray for you that same grace as you read and listen today:
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The Lord asked me to take a brave step this week, and sing for you the song He gave me many years ago. It was a private gift, given for my own hurting heart. But maybe your hurting heart feels too lonely and raw to think about a song of your own. Could you pause and let Him sing His words, gathered from His Scriptures, for you now?
“Open wide your mouth and I will fill it,
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
Seek and you will find,
Knock and the door will be opened unto you.
Never stop praying,
Never stop praying,
And I will come to you.
Ask for wisdom
Ask for mercy
Ask for the riches of My grace,
And I will come to you.”
This Spirit Song was given to me during a time of prayer and Scripture reading in the spring of 2000. The days were long and lonely walking through a deep soul surrender and breaking of relationship. I had obeyed God, but the relationship still ended, and bitter soul pain brought a darkness to my days. Into the midst of that very darkness, God sent His Holy Spirit to write these words of hope into my soul.
But the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will cause you to recall (will remind you of, bring to your remembrance) everything I have told you.
He brought me back to these intimate words of hope last month, on the day before my last RA infusion, when this time it would be my body that was plunged into an overwhelming darkness. I had asked for enough strength and time to make an art journal page that night, not knowing how the next few days might look. I wasn’t expecting this word of hope, from John 14:26, but He knew the Scriptures that my heart would need to cling to.
Oh, Beloved, God’s timing is not like ours. No, HIS timing is perfect. He knows when the hope within us is almost ready to die, and He calls us to live again in Him!
Are you in a place of bitter pain? Perhaps He would sing to you through the words of His Scripture. Could you pause once again before Him now, and let Him give voice to the Words that He is planting in your own heart today?
Dear Father of our hearts,
Thank You for the Living Hope that You have granted to us through Your son, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again so that we could have new life. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for sending us Your Holy Spirit to be the Comforter that You knew we would need. Would You help us to pause and listen to Him now? You see our hearts, and the pain that threatens to swallow us whole some days. You see the burdens that have tried to crush our spirits. We ask You to help us hear Your own voice singing over us now. We long to be filled with the gift of YOUR new life within us again. Wash away our heaviness, and lift us up to Heavenly places with You.
In the sweet name of Jesus we pray,
Amen.
