Defining Moments

There have been several defining moments, or turning points in my adult life. After a crisis that is difficult to overcome, there comes a time when one "turns a corner" through a natural process of healing, a sudden deliverance, or a revelation that life is worth living again. I believe that I have just reached another of those defining moments. In my adult life, there have been two other times of great crisis--when my first husband and I divorced, and when my mom died last summer. The latest crisis has been over an estate disagreement with a non-family member.

As any crisis or grief goes...it tends to consume your life. There is seemingly nothing else that matters, or that you can even think about during the time. Everything points in one direction--what is wrong. You wake up with bad dreams, night sweats, panicky feelings, and then in the daytime, all thoughts turn toward either solving the problem, or managing your emotions, or even just putting one foot in front of another.

But then one day, a crack in the blackness appears, and a light shines through. It may just be a small glimmer of light at first, or it may appear as a whole glorious day dawning, but when that light permeates the darkness and hope comes again, life takes on meaning again. Praise the Lord! And I have found in these terribly difficult circumstances I can pray and pray, I can use every tip in the book to try to overcome out-of-control emotions, read and watch all the latest advice on healing and stress-relief, and try every possible thing to hasten the process, but then God applies the healing balm of Gilead in the heavenly realm, and a defining moment--a turning point--happens. For this I am grateful...for a never-ending, never-giving-up LOVE that knows just when to deliver His precious child from the storm of life. Maybe He has been waiting on my revelation that life is indeed more than the crisis at hand, or maybe He just knows when intense suffering should end, or maybe He was just waiting on me to pray for the person who is opposing me. His ways are higher than my ways. All I know is that I feel a calm, a peace, an understanding, a revelation that God "has this," and this too shall pass. In fact, it already has. A new day has dawned,, the sun is shining brightly, and I have so much hope that my future is much brighter than the recent past.This situation will no longer define me. God has important work for me to do, and He needs me to trust in Hiim and in His mightly power to accomplish His purposes through me.

When people say "trust in Jesus" it can sometimes feel like a shallow statement. If you can truly trust in Jesus, He will bring a defining moment that He is all that matters.