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By Sherita Jones | The Anointing Grace
God’s focus has always been eternal.
Always purpose.
Never instant gratification.
Never rushed.
He is patient. He is intentional. He is enduring.
Every single thing He does, or allows, is done with intention.
We all walk through life’s ups and downs, trials and tribulations. But there are some things that do more than hurt, they wound us to our core. They pierce the soul. And because God is faithful, because He is love, because He sits outside of time, He cannot alter His eternal purpose to accommodate our feelings. God is faithful.
But make no mistake, He will sit with you in the hurt. He will comfort you until the season changes. He will send reminders that you are on the right path and whisper, “Don’t move.” He will send His Word again and again. He will love you without conditions.
Even when we don’t believe, He remains faithful.
God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Faith and trust are inseparable. They are intertwined. When one is shaken, the other is affected, and so is our view of God. Faith is not just believing in God. Faith is knowing He will never change.
He is wonderful, yet simple.
Easy to love.
Easy to please.
He says, keep My commandments and have faith.
His Word tells us He restoreth our souls. That “eth” matters. It means continually. Restoration is not a one time event, it is ongoing. With every trial, every storm, He restores our soul.
God does not take pleasure in our pain. In fact, it hurts Him more than it hurts us. That is why He says,
“Give it to Me. I can bear it for you.”
“Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.”
“Take My yoke and learn of Me.”
If He would step down from heaven, clothe Himself in sinful flesh, and take on our punishment, how much more can we trust Him with everything else? He already been proven to the entire world.
To believe He died for us, yet not trust Him in the storm, the losses, the pain, that isn’t fair to Him. It can even feel offensive. No one loves us the way He does. Not even the deepest love of a mother compares.
We are safe in His arms.
I am a woman of great pain. Great suffering. Tremendous loss, so much that it feels unreal to unpack. And somewhere along the way, I stopped trusting God. God didn’t move, I did. He didn’t change, I did.
When He would ask me, “Do you trust Me?”
My honest response was, “I trust You to hurt me." Meaning, I trusted that He would allow more pain.
I fell so deeply into darkness and a pit that I stopped asking for anything. If I asked for something, there may be more storms, and I couldn’t bear the thought of enduring more. My prayers became desperate instead of power. I would say, “Lord, make sure I’m clean, make sure I’m pure, and then take me. I just want to see You in peace.”
Eventually, my prayers had no words. Only tears.
Every time I went to pray, only tears showed up to speak for me.
There were seasons where I still trusted Him, even while hurting, but waves of grief eventually overtook me. So many things happened that I never processed. I distracted myself. I kept moving. Before I surrendered my life to Jesus, I would numb myself with the pleasures of the world.
But in Christ, you can’t numb those ways anymore. You feel everything, all at once sometimes, and you can’t escape it. At least the way the flesh craves.
It felt like I was crushing. Like I couldn’t exhale. I’ve been holding my breath for a very long time.
I cried out, “God, where are You? Father, I need You.” He rarely responded with words. He responded with presence.
I never stopped wanting God. I just didn’t understand what He was doing, or why the pain was so deep. I'm not the saint that requires relief, until this deeply rooted emotional pain that I had suppressed my entire life begin to surface.
And yet, He was kind.
Gentle. Patient. Faithful.
For the first time in a long time, I can breathe.
I can exhale.
God did not give up on me.
He revealed Himself to me.
And He revealed me to me.
I am becoming who He created me to be.
I realized I had been humanizing God. But God is Spirit. He does not move like man. He moves eternally.
And His glory has been resting on me this entire time.
If you are still reading this, know this:
His glory is resting on you too.
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