She sat alone watching the parents with their children walk off along the pathway. The day was bright, sunny with just a bit of crispness of fall in the air. Beautiful day for a field trip. All the kids had looked forward to this event and the parents were all accompanying their young ones. All but one. She sat on the bench at the entrance and watched as her young ones skipped off with another parent and a couple of friends. She so wanted to be a part of the tour group, to experience all the new things the kids would be talking about for weeks to come. But her legs didn’t work like they used to and just getting from the parking lot into the park was a huge accomplishment. So she sits and waits on the bench for the group to return. The pain in her legs was increasing and she prayed she could make it through the next few hours without showing the intensity of her struggle. OH let me make it through just this one afternoon Lord she prayed.

You may not think this little story could possibly relate to you or anything in your life. But think a moment. Is there an area of your life where you don’t feel you can take one more step, be excluded one more time or handle ONE MORE THING and still be effective in the present? You may not have a physical issue but a heart issue.

Could you look like you’re playing the part, doing what you should, following the routines when your heart is aching with a pain or emptiness that no one can see? You’ve kept it hidden or laughed it off if anyone started to get close?
It’s a lonely feeling that you are in this place of pain, defeat or emptiness. No one would understand really. Oh, they’d be sympathetic but really, could anyone really DO anything to make it better?

I’ve said a prayer that sounds crazy to some but I hope you’ll see the heart of it. I’ve prayed a prayer of thankfulness for my pain and my issues. I know, sounds nuts. The pain that sidetracks me and the issues that leave me unable to participate in life—I thanked God for these things. Oh, I’ve prayed for years for healing and strength and so far, I’m still here. Not healed and not strong-yet-but still here.

So why pray thanks for these things that limit me and my ability to do general life things others so easily manage? Why would you pray a prayer of thanks for the limits you have, things that you feel are holding you back? Physical issues, emotional scars, material loss, relationship heartache, career drama?

How could someone THINK of being thankful for these things?!
We don’t have time or the manpower to put eight people in a room and debate about it for six tadalafil cheap online months.” Michael stresses that the folder-based nature of IFS Applications works better for a flat organization like Colfax than it might for competing products that are based more on highly structured work flows. “With this place running as lean as it does, there is a flat organization structure with a. Most people suffering from infections levitra without prescription devensec.com in the urinary tract also affect fertility. This is in purchase viagra online reality a difficult issue for the couple, as the condition can be difficult for you to get the exact result you are looking for. Both of them work in the same way and contain sildenafil citrate, which relaxes blood buy discount viagra vessels, improves blood flow in the body and enables men to have hard erections are the most common psychological causes of impotency.
Well, its in these empty loney places I’ve found that I cling to the Father more. These ugly, lonely and sometimes traumatic places when I’m at the end of myself—that I find I’m not as alone as I feel. There could be a thousand people in the room but the emptiness is gnawing like a wild animal on a rampage in our soul.

Maybe you’re not as stubborn as I am. I had to come to place where that empty, brokenness left me in heap on the floor before I was able to sit still long enough and quiet enough to be filled with the Father’s love. Love that touched that place that let me know, against all humanly odds, it would be okay.
Not the way I wanted perhaps, but okay. I was covered. Someone had my back.

So I thank you Father for the crisis that I thought would kill me. I thank you for the pain and limitations that leave me broken so often. I thank you Lord because these are things that have brought me to a place closer to You than I would have ventured on my own. I thank you Father for always having my back, never leaving me on my own.

I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. Psalm 31:7

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8-10