Comfort

Gentle Reader,

The LORD is my shepherd. – Psalm 23:1a (NKJV)

I love the Bible.

I love the weight and feel of it. I love the characters. I love the history. I love the words.

I love it because it reveals the God who,

Whenever we’re sick and in bed, … becomes our nurse, nurses us back to health. – Psalm 41:3 (MSG)

I don’t know if I’ll ever be declared “cured” of CFS while I walk this earth. Some days, like today, that is an incredibly frustrating reality. But it doesn’t make me doubt the existence of God or His love for me. Why turn from God in the time when I need Him the most?

He is my nurse. I love that image.

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? – Psalm 42:5 (MSG)

…your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. – Psalm 121:3b (MSG)

As I’m laying here on my couch, too sore and cold to move very much, and so tired that I could just fall asleep forever, I am comforted by the God Who Nurses. Any human parent would stay awake all night to take care of their child if that child was ill. Why do we doubt that God does so, and much more?

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid Your Spirit? To be out of Your sight? – Psalm 139:7 (MSG)

I cannot get so sick that God will abandon me. Being ill isn’t a sign that He doesn’t care or that He isn’t really there. Suffering is part of this life; part of the consequence of living in a messed-up world. If He swooped in and always fixed everything for me all the time, I would have no faith.

It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him. – Hebrews 11:6 (MSG)

Does God respond to my crying? Does He help me when I am too weak to tie my own shoes?

Oh, yes.

Sometimes that response is a burst of energy, and sometimes that response is just the sensation of His being near to me in my pain, wrapping me up in His wonderfully strong arms. But He responds. No matter what, He responds.

He shelters me.

Hide me under Your cool wing feathers. – Psalm 17:8b (MSG)

It is a comfort to know that the storms, and there are assuredly storms, which arise in my life have already beaten against the back of Christ as He throws Himself over me. He takes the brunt of it, only allowing what is good for me to come through. I know. It doesn’t make sense. How can bad things be good? They just can. That’s all I know.

When I have no words with which to praise Him, or am too tired to sing –

Silence is praise…and also obedience. [He] hears the prayer in it all. – Psalm 65:1-2 (MSG)

He knows me. He hears the words that I can’t speak, or don’t know to speak. The ones that arise from my soul into the night. He accepts me. He loves me. He chisels and prunes and binds up the aching wounds.

You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights. Each tear entered in Your ledger, each ache written in Your book. – Psalm 56:8 9 (MSG)

He is there, watching, soothing, instructing, guiding, disciplining. All for my good. All for His glory.

God remembered [me] when [I] was down. His love never quits. Rescued [me] from the trampling boot. His love never quits. Takes care of [me] in time of need. His love never quits. Thank God, who did it all!  His love never quits! – Psalm 136:23-26 (NKJV)