An Honest Heart

How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;
Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,

And my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken.

But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
Psalm 13: 1-6

One of the things I love about David is his honest heart. There is no sugar coating his emotions, there is no desire on his part to hide his struggles with God. But perhaps the most amazing thing about David is that he always arrives back at truth. This post is dedicated to David because I will bear my honest heart, yet I will remember God's words to me.

This Psalm above has been resonating in my heart the last 24 hours. How long O Lord? Yesterday the doctor suggested that we cease trying to conceive for a while until my body heals appropriately. The time frame she gave us, only a matter of months, feels like an eternity. My heart is screaming out that I have waited on the Lord long enough. Haven't Herb and I waited plenty? We were married almost seven years ago and we patiently waited for me to finish college, for Herb to finish law school, for us to find a house, for Herb to find a job. We've waited, we've waited plenty, and yet now we are being asked to wait some more. And so I cry out "How long O Lord" must we wait for your purposes to be accomplished? "How long O Lord" must we suffer for your glory? "How long O Lord" must we watch you fulfill your promises for others while we wait for you to fulfill your promises to us? How long?

I am aching so deeply that I am even struggling for words. I feel roadblocks where I feel like God should be throwing up green lights. I can barely breathe through the anguish of another lost piece of my hope. I sob as I imagine more time passing without children in our home. I ache as I think about how many months even after we try again it might take to conceive, and my stomach turns knowing that God could bring even more miscarriages in our future. I am saddened that this process, the one that is supposed to be so beautiful and breathtaking, has become so tortured and anguished. There are so many unknowns, so much out of my control.

And yet I am reminded of my God...my God who provided Abraham with a son who was to bring forth a great nation, even when it appeared Abraham could have no children at all. God promised it and so Abraham believed. "In hope against hope he believed, in order that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, 'So shall your descendants be.' And yet without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform" (Romans 4:18-21). I can imagine the incredulity that Abraham experienced--I know first hand the doubt that God will bring you a child. I can see that as the years passed Abraham questioned "How long O Lord" before You provide a child? But God did provide for Abraham as He had promised because Abraham did not move from his belief; he instead gave glory to God and walked assuredly in God's promise.

I am also reminded of my God...my God who in the last moments before Abraham was to take Isaac's life, the very life God had promised him, spared Abraham's son and provided a different sacrifice. I can imagine that as Abraham was walking with Isaac to the place of sacrifice he was anguished at what the Lord was doing. I can imagine that He internally battled the whole march there asking "How long O Lord" must he suffer at the hands of obedience. But in those last moments, God did provide. "And Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, 'In the mount of the Lord it will be provided'" (Genesis 22:14).

I have begun to recognize that God doesn't get much glory in the ease of our lives. It is not in the moments of peace and tranquility that people are in greatest awe of the way God works. It is in the sorrow, in the anguish. It is in the moments when Mary and Martha are questioning why Jesus did not come sooner to spare Lazurus that we see the heart of Jesus as He wept. It is also in those moments that follow, in the moments that seemed like they were too late, that Jesus resurrected Lazurus and brought so much glory and renown to His name.

Jesus doesn't work on our time frame, ever. There may be times that He appears to, but it really is about His glory. I'm not really sure what His time frame is for us to conceive, to actually carry a child to full term, and then miraculously to welcome that child into our lives. I know that I am not particularly fond of what seems to be His time frame right now and that I will continue to ask "How long O Lord". But I am blessed enough to know that my God does have a time frame and He will provide, even if at the last moment or when it seems like He is too late.

In the meantime, I will still despair over what seems to be lost, over what seems to be an unjust time frame, because I think that is real and honest. David was unafraid to ask God "How long O Lord?" and I will not fear that either. Yet I will do so knowing that I live in the Hope of a God who provides, a God who will show Himself in His perfect timing.