What to do when you feel alone and the past still hurts?

Some days are easier than others. Some days are harder than others. None of the circumstances really change that much, but the feelings sure do.

So what do you do when those old aching wounds throb and you feel alone, like no one understands?

There are sure chains that masquerade as quick escape hatches from such suffocating feelings.  Some of those decieving chains come in a bottle.  Some in a wrapper.  Some on the T.V.  Some in another's spring. 

David felt the desire to escape too.  Here's what he did:

For it is not an enemy who taunts me-- then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me-- then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend... But I call to God, and the LORD will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.- Psalm 55:12-13, 16-17

He complained to God.  He moaned to God.  He called to the only One who can save you out of the pit.

I moaned Habakkuk's moan to Him today:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. -Habakkuk 3:17-19

Even if there were no seeming fruit from the Lord in my life.  Even when everything seems a loss.  Even still, my God is good.  And I will take joy in Him.

I remember once seeing a woman who had suffered a terrible tragedy at a church I was part of.  I think of her still.  I remember hearing the day before that she had lost her daughter and grand-daughter in a terrible accident.  And the next day, there she was, in the midst of us messed up church people, raising her hands in surrender as tears poured down her facing, singing, "Blessed be the name of the Lord... You give and take away.  You give and take away.  My heart will chose to say.  Lord blessed be Your Name."

Her hope in the only One who can save us out of this mess of sin and falleness still encourages me.  Even today.

Quieted,

Sheila