Tears are for a night, but Joy comes in the morning

I'm doing quite a bit better. A few days of reflection, prayer, and some nourishing phone conversations with old friends all seem to have helped me. Perhaps, as difficult as it was for me to do, I was just finally able to simply let go of the pain, disappointment, betrayal and hurt. I gave it to God, and in return He gave me some much needed peace.

I don't mean to make it sound that easy, because it wasn't. I struggle to let go. I struggle with surrender. I give things to God, and take them back again with alarming regularity. I thrash about fairly often, rather than rest in His arms. Complete trust is a complete challenge for me! I trust in part at times. I give up control in part at times; even when the reality is that my ability to control is an illusion anyway.

"People, places & things". It's an old AA saying a recovering alcoholic friend of mine taught me. Those are the elements in life we have no control over. People: self-explanatory. Places: I would take that to mean the world around us. Things: I would translate that to mean events, circumstances, things occurring externally; as well as objects, such as my nearly worthless pile o scrap metal of a car (that I can't afford to replace with a better vehicle as of right now).

This does not at all mean I'm helpless, or have no agency in my own life. It just means that my sphere of influence has it's limitations, and one of my life lessons is that things can and will go wrong, people can and will fail me, and that even my best laid plans may often go awry; but God is still in control -- ultimately, and eternally. God is still sovereign, and even if everything looks like it's going down in flames, that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes destruction comes to clear the plane for something new to be born, for a phoenix to rise from the ashes of failure (or that which seems, on the surface, to be failure). Can I learn to trust him completely despite how everything looks on the surface? Can I put my faith in the promises of God even when all seems to be lost? Can I believe no matter what? Can I, like the apostle Paul wrote from jail, "be content in all circumstances"? Can I, like Paul, praise God while still in my chains? whatever those chains may be; whether my heartache, my poverty, my ill health, my loved ones behaving unloving, or any of the other chains that bind me? Can I still proclaim in a resounding voice: "God *IS* Good!"?

Can I sing of his unmeasurable, unconditional love until the chains fall away? Can I continue to sing his praises even if they don't fall away? Can I worship him in spirit and in truth for loving me as much as he does, for saving me, for being my friend, for being by my side no matter what chains this life brings, for promising to be there at the end of my life with the key that unlocks all chains, and the gentle hand which will wipe aways all of my tears, and will then take my hand in his and lead me into life everlasting, the promised land, the place he has prepared for me in His Father's house, where the brief blip of time I spent here on this earth in toil and strife will be but a faded, distant memory, a dark moment extinguished by the light of his glory, which shall never end.