The Art of Being Still…..and Knowing God is God
August 8, 2011
Winston Churchill spoke these words: If you’re going through hell, keep going.
When does the journey through hell end? Is there a point at which it turns to a delightful adventure rather than hell? I’ve asked this question of God so often.
He hasn’t answered me yet.
But, I know He’s still good. Amazingly, bone deep good. Sometimes I wish I had a greater grasp of the Greek language that has multiple words for the same idea, yet, with differing connotations, intimations, intensities and settings. Good. The kind of Good that God reveals in Himself. It’s mine from Him. How else can I explain it and make it clear in the way my heart understands it?
There are four numbers, or one number with four digits, that are very precious to me. I know, How can a number be precious? It’s abstract. One, One, One, Three. 1113. My favorite number. I have often asked God to use it as my sign from Him like Gideon asked for a fleece. Eleven thirteen. November thirteenth….eleventh month, thirteenth day. Those are the numbers of my deliverance. My life changed, altered, took shape, began on that day. It is the day my former husband was asked to leave the house. The home.
On that day, oxygen entered the rooms of the home. Safety and security felt like tangible goals on that day. I breathed in and I breathed out. My shoulders relaxed. Sleep came like a soft breeze, delivering comfort and calm. There was an odd sadness, but it was overcome by peacefulness. A smile of relief rested on my lips. I’d been delivered.
Delivered. A simple word that might make a person think of milk on a porch, a baby in his momma’s arms, a newspaper thrown into a yard, or mail placed in the box at the end of the driveway. If deliverance brings to mind a child’s birth, then I know I was birthed into a place of freedom. Freedom from stresses that were beginning to eat my dying soul. If delivered means the mail in the box, I was put in a box where someone was glad to see me when the door was opened; and I was not afraid to be moved from the box into the hands of my reader. If deliverance brings to mind the newspaper delivery, then I was no longer tossed wildly, lacking direction, no purpose, no plan; I was carefully handled, folded and tossed in the proper direction by well-trained hands that know how to get the paper right where it needs to be in the yard.
I was delivered. Set free from a form of pain that I never could have imagined had someone prophesied it for me in my early marriage. Set free from daily tears. Set free from trembling in my home daily. Set free to breathe, think on my own, have my own hobbies, make decisions as simple as choosing a color to paint a room. Set free to wear nail polish on my toes and smile at the bright cheer it brought to me. Set free from a master never intended to hold such sway in my life. God did not mean for marriage to be slavery of a woman to a man. But my marriage was a cotton plantation owned by a forceful, angry master. I was a slave, bought with the price of a wedding ring and diamond. Marriage in my home did far more damage than tear the skin of my hands as I plucked the cotton from bushes that tore at my face. It wore down my soul. Stole my spirit and resolve. Slavery stole my ability to think. Thinking only brought harsh consequences. It was safest to give up such a luxury. I was safer that way.
Yearning for safety became a daily, almost hourly, hunger I experienced. I was not safe in a bathroom, a bedroom, the car. No matter where I was, no matter the time of day, I was harassed until my emotions were raw and my mind in a dark place of confusion, no confidence and constant disturbance. This created the conditions for my mind to be always scattered in its ability to function; my mind was weakened, unable to handle stress, forgetful, without decision making strength for each day. Even making dinner was a task my mind grew too weary to handle. Emotional abusers love this state of mind for their victims; beat a victim down, get her so weary she succumbs to your tactics and folds to the pressure. Totally yielded to the abuser, having given up the fight, no survival skills left. This was my life.
But, on November 13th I was delivered. That is not to say that the last years and months have not been rife with stress. Stress is a boarder in my home that I did not invite and would desperately like to have move along to some foreign country where I shall never visit. Yet, the stress is different. It is not scary, or without relief. And I am confident that this stress is the instructor for me to learn the art of Being Still. Being still and knowing God is God…He will be exalted in the Universe and in my life. Psalms 46:10 He IS God, the only true and loving God.
C.S. Lewis once said, “Experience- that most brutal of instructors. But, you learn, my God, do you learn.”
Professor Experience has taught me the taste of pain, the heartache of betrayal, the fear of treading any more heavily on earth than I might on eggshells, the anger that accompanies lies and slanders, the power of boundary-less people, and the energy sapped when one tries to battle bitterness like a deadly enemy.
Greater lessons than these, though, have been at the crux of my instructor’s desires for me. And the lessons are not just academic in nature; not just head knowledge. Lessons of such valued treasure have knitted themselves to my very soul. Lessons of God’s astounding, unending love for me; His handhold upon my heart and life keeping me from sin, His guarding of my heart as I give it over and over again to Him; an acknowledgement of my absolute need of His salvation in Jesus; humility learned as He mercifully exposes my heart and motives to me….a knowing that He has equipped me for all that He has called me to do as His child. The foundational confidence these lessons have offered make me able to stand strong, proud, and with confidence; not in myself alone, but in Christ in Me.
I am His, and He is mine. I know that now. No one can steal that truth from me, though the enemy often did before. And now, the journey continues…the adventure awaits.
Hell on earth still exists, but it is the only hell I will ever experience, because I have a greater hope beyond this earth. So, I’ll keep going. Going through the hellish leftovers of a marriage with a very broken dynamic and foundation; going through the hell of fear and worry raising kids alone; financially hellish days. But, oh, the glory of God that meets me now in these places. I know I do not travel through any hellish deserts without Him now. He is always mine, always with me, always my peace …..He loves me desperately, and I love Him. Life is hard, but He always gives perfect peace, perfect love and perfect stillness of soul as I rest in Him.
This is truth. Absolute truth.
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