This past week has been a hard one.  Some weeks are, I guess.  We had 3 kids throwing up on and off until yesterday.  Tim got a cold mid-week, and now I have it, too.  We are exhausted and frustrated and overwhelmed.

This seems to be how life goes, lately, though.  Lots of “little” things chipping away at our time, our motivation, our resolve, our hope, our joy…and very little, if anything, to offer strength or encouragement or peace.  As we struggle to understand God’s plans and purposes and promises, it feels as though the little understanding we have gets tested and tried, and leaves us wondering what the point of this all is.

We’ve had some disillusionment and some disappointment, yet we look back on things where we clearly felt God leading us and try to cling to the knowledge that He knows what He’s doing, and it will be for our good.  We find ourselves constantly coming before Him…admittedly, not always with the best attitudes, but with the knowledge that He is the only One who can sustain and strengthen and somehow lead us through this wilderness we find ourselves wandering.

There are times we feel desperate for someone to come alongside us…to encourage or rebuke or pray…but in the absence of that, we are learning more and more that God has to be enough for us, that His word has to be the standard for our faith, that this life isn’t really about us, anyway.  It is hard, though, and we’re tired.

 
Yet, this I call to mind and therefore I have hope – because of the Lord’s great love we  are not consumed, for His compassions never fail; they are new every morning.  Great is Your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “the Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him”.  The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the One who seeks Him.  It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. — Lamentations 3:21-26