We are not walking alone...

So much is mulling around in my heart, my mind, my emotions today. I watched Winn Dixie with my kids last night. I love that movie. I needed a feel good movie. And I was touched again, by, as Opal said in the movie, People all over are broken. And we are...

So many of us are hurting... Maybe not today, this week, this month, but at times in our lives...and many of us TODAY.

In thinking of words to comfort someone else. I comforted my self:

"This is a painful road to walk. And the pain cannot be avoided, but can be endured. God is with us. Jesus never leaves us. In Him we hold on to His hem, as He walks us through. We are not alone. Each task, each step, is hand in hand, heart in heart. Our tears mixed with His. He feels all. Stepping with Him, in tears, fears, .. He knows how overwhelming it feels. Look at just the next thing and do that. Focus on Him."

God is walking with us. We are not walking this path alone, as alone as it may feel sometimes. Melissa, Beth Moore's daughter, was blogging about how some times when she was in need of comfort, how the Lord has made certain that she was alone. That too has happened to me. Sometimes I find myself almost internally frantic, searching for connection, with no connection to be found. God is wanting me to draw near to Him, knowing He is the only true and eternal comfort.

I do not want to down play the blessing of my parents and close friends.... God has so blessed me through both. But I do want to encourage that even when family and friends can't comfort, or when they try, but something is still missing: Jesus is walking it out with us. Each step, each tear, each fear....

What a blessing to let Him comfort us. We do not need to be the independent and strong. Rather the dependent on Him. In my weakness, He is strong.

I remember, one point in the hospital, lying in the OR, waiting to be next, hearing all the chaos around me. (this paper not right, this guy gone for lunch, this guy driving in rush hour traffic to come operate on me, a case he has never seen or reviewed..would be be frantic and ticked off from the traffic, the nurses with attitude, because he was late, or this paper was not right....and me thinking, my babies need me. I know I am just another patient to you, but to my three at home I am all they have...this isn't something to rush through). ...as I lay there, with all this going around me, all I could do, in fear was turn my back to the room and face the wall, with tears running down my face....alone, in my thought closet, with Jesus. He KNOWS. He KNOWS....and He cares.

And as I often see things that SEEM uncaring to ME, allowed to happen, allowed to come through his hands of love and touch my life, or someone else's life, I know I do not see the whole picture. I know He loves, He cares, He is able and in a longer span than I can see, there is good in it, good to come out of it.

So I slow my cadance to walk with him, in his pace, rather than rushing ahead and scurring down bunny paths, and trying to figure out where to turn. Hand in hand, heart beat to heart beat, tears mingled... I walk with Him.