WHY ARE YOU DOWNCAST, O MY SOUL?

This morning I woke up carrying the world upon my shoulders with David’s refrain running through my mind “why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” (Psalm 42:5).  I made myself a cup of coffee and went and sat at the bottom of the garden.  As I sat and watched the birds in the garden feeding and listened to their morning songs, the heaviness that had settled upon me started to lift.  I looked at the house that I have been living in for the past 20 years and once again it struck me how true to His Word our God is.  He says in Joel 2:25 “I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten” and in Isaiah 43 He says “Forget what happened before, and do not think about the past.  Look at the new thing I am going to do.  It is already happening.  Don’t you see it?  I will make a road in the desert of your life, rivers in the dry land of your life”.

From age twelve to eighteen I moved every year – sometimes two or three times in a year.  I had one suitcase and a teddy bear and that is all I carried around with me.  Maybe this is where my love of writing developed.  There was no place in my suitcase for any personal ornaments or photo frames so I would write down on paper any sayings or words that struck a chord within me and then stick them to the wall of my room.  When it was time to move again I would take them down and lay them flat at the bottom of my suitcase – they did not take up much space.

From about the age of fourteen I started to long for a home of my own.  That is all I wanted.  A place I could call my own, a place that I could settle down in and make a home.  I once calculated that by the time I reached twenty-six years old I had moved thirty-four times!

I also longed for a family although as I grew older that longing dissipated as I came to the realisation  that I actually did not want to get married or have children.  Who would willingly want to bring children into a world so full of hurt and betrayal?

God says that “He will give you the desires of your heart” and He never forgot that heart’s desire of mine to have a family even though I let go of it along the road of life.

I have been married for 22 years now and have three children and have lived in the same house for 20 years!

I believe God gave me a husband and children in order that I would be able to grow as a person and in my relationship with Him.  It is often through my children that my relationship with God is reflected.  I bemoan the fact that they can sometimes be very thankless for all that is done for them and given them.  They can be disrespectful at times and wrapped up in themselves.

God then reveals to me, not very subtly I might add, that this is exactly how I behave to Him at times.  I take the things He has blessed me with for granted and am often far too busy to spend time with Him or to acknowledge that everything that I have and am is because of Him.

How incredibly disrespectful is that of me to Him.

At other times I stand in awe and marvel at the beauty, kindness, care and compassion my children exhibit.  My love for them overwhelms me and I would willingly lay down my life for them if they were in danger.  I then have a glimpse of how great the Father’s love is for us in that He sent His Son to die on the cross in order that we could have fullness of life here on earth and eternal life with Him.

When my children are hurting or feel betrayed by those around them I long to carry that hurt for them and then I am again reminded of Jesus’ words “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. (Matthew 11:28-30)

At the end of the day I can say as David said “put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God”  (Psalm 42:11)

HOW CAN YOU PROMISE YOUR CHILD THAT YOU WILL NEVER DIVORCE YOUR SPOUSE?

My mother and step-father got divorced after almost 29 years of marriage.  She was 79 and he was 81 years old!  I had organised with the Sheriff of the Court to meet him at the retirement home where my mom was staying in order to be there when he presented the divorce summons.  He told me that in his 44 years of delivering summons, he had never before had to issue one to a 79 year old lady.  He added “I feel so heartbroken.  To get divorced at this age is so, so sad.”  I had to agree with him!

We had tried to shield our children from most of the process but whilst having breakfast with our 10 year old one morning she asked me “Are ouma and oupa going to get divorced?” and I said “yes”.  She then said “Please promise me that you and daddy will  never get divorced”.

Over the years our older two daughters have periodically asked us the same question, mainly when one of their classmates’ parents were getting divorced. My instant reply had always been “of course not.  Your dad and I will never get divorced!” and yet that morning I struggled with my reply.  The enormity of the promise struck me.  I thought “how can I promise her something like that?  I don’t know what is going to happen in the future”.  What guarantee do I have that our marriage will last ‘till death do us part’?

And then I thought that if I can’t promise her that, everything we have taught her about God and His goodness and His faithfulness means absolutely nothing.  So I promised her that her dad and I would never get divorced.

I phoned Steve later, relayed the conversation to him and told him that we could never get divorced.  I jokingly added we could kill each other but we could never, ever get divorced!

I then asked him “how can I make a promise like that on your behalf?”  He didn’t even hesitate, his immediate answer was “I’ve got it covered! You promise her you won’t divorce me and I will promise her the same thing and in that way we are responsible for our own promises and those we can keep.”  When he got home that night she did indeed, make him promise her that he would never divorce me.

Unbeknownst to me she overheard me telling a friend about what had happened, and I in turn, overheard her happily telling her older sister the next day “Mommy says she will never divorce daddy.  She says she may kill him but she won’t divorce him!”

The dictionary defines divorce as ‘a separation’ and separate is defined as ‘to divide’.

This is exactly what happens to children when their parents get divorced – their lives, their minds, their hearts and their souls gets divided right down the middle, split into two parts and a void is created between the two parts.  It is as if the egg and the sperm that created them is torn apart.  Generally that void is then rapidly filled with feelings of being unloved, feelings of unworthiness and inferiority.  The pain and grief of the divorce can turn into bitterness, anger or self-pity or the need to manipulate others.  They can either be driven to become overachievers in their need to be accepted or underachievers in the misguided notion that ‘no-body cares anyway’.

The child also often develops a terrible sense of guilt.  After all, if their parents once loved each other enough to get married but now no longer care for each other, it must be the child’s fault that the relationship has ended.  Totally illogical? yes, but then you are not a child.  The child also often starts to wonder whether this will happen to them?  Will their parents also stop loving them one day?  Or get tired of them?  Doubts and fears just flood in and instead of concentrating on growing up and developing they have to deal with the process of grieving because divorce is a death.  It is a death of a family growing up together and the death of a future that was once dreamt of.

The life giving news, however, is that God says “He will wipe every tear” and that nothing, not death nor divorce “will be able to separate us from the love of God”.  (Rev 21:4 & Rom 8:39)

EPIPHANIES!!

There have only been two major “epiphany” moments in my life – two times when I have literally been stopped in my tracks and have had to re-evaluate the way I think and behave and the consequences of those thoughts and behaviour. 

This morning I had my third epiphany moment!

I struggle with the concept of grace:  ‘the free and unmerited favour of God shown towards man’.  I also struggle with the concept of unconditional love.  The fact that there is no limitation on God’s love for us and that there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more or less.

In the back of my mind I always have this little voice saying ‘who do you think you are to believe that God, the maker and ruler of the universe, would be interested in you?”

As I grow older and my relationship with God develops the little voice has grown fainter but every now and again when I lose self-control and allow the uglier side of my nature to emerge it shouts out “you are such a failure, so worthless!”

I identify so much with the sentiment expressed by Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher who lived in the 16^th century when he said “I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself”.

Well, my third epiphany occurred this morning when I read the following words:

 “Why are you downcast, O my soul?” (Psalm 43:5)

Is there ever any reason to be downcast?  Actually, there are two reasons, but only two.  If we were still unbelievers, we would have a reason to be downcast; or if we have been converted but continue to live in sin, we are downcast as a consequence.

Except for these two conditions, there is never a reason to be downcast, for everything else may be brought to God “by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving” (Philippians 4:6).  And through all our times of need, difficulty and trials, we may exercise faith in the power and love of God.”

(Streams in the Desert, L.B. Cowman)

The truth in these words struck me forcefully.  It is when I feel like a sinner that my soul is downcast.  When I know that I am thinking or behaving in a way that does not please God my spirit withers inside me.  When I go against God’s dictate of “love one another” and insist on getting my own way or feel superior to someone or judge someone my soul becomes downcast.

During very difficult and trying times in my life I have known God’s peace and His comfort, the peace “which transcends all understanding” and my soul has not been downcast – my soul has been comforted by His words as I have prayed to Him.

My soul is only downcast when I sin.  It is entirely my responsibility and my choice to have a downcast soul.  As soon as we let go of that habit or behaviour which we know is wrong for us and hand it to God and put our hope in God we will find peace and joy again for our souls.

The problem with that, however, is the fact that it is just so much easier to carry on behaving the way we always have (never mind the consequences!). To change requires a lot of energy and effort but if we persevere we can be confident that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion”.

Good habits result from resisting temptation. --Ancient Proverb

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. --Samuel Johnson