God Speaks Through my Child

Today, I was incredibly discouraged.  As many of you know, I have had a hard and long road.  In fact, I have been struggling for so long with this particular struggle that I can hardly remember what it was like before it.  Insomnia.  Anxiety related to insomnia.  Endless nights, despair, discouragement, and round and round we go.  Health problems, child-bearing, postpartum crises and shift work have antagonized 'the giant' (Goliath, I call him) that is my struggle, and my resulting phobia and anxiety around sleep has grown and grown.

By God's great grace, I have won many battles with this Goliath, but he still remains, undefeated.  I believe, I will see his defeat one day.  I pray that day comes swift because I am tired and weary.  After a particularly rough battle, as these last weeks have completely slayed me, I was feeling incredibly alone and despairing this morning.

I was asking of God, through His Word, with tears soaking the pages of my Bible, "do you hear my cries God?"  "When will you rescue me?"  "Have you abandoned me?"  I was lamenting with many many psalmists in the Bible, over their same questions.

If you are ever in crisis, read the Bible.  You are in a great company of many other sufferers who found both consolation and courage in this great book- God's words to us.

Take for instance, Psalm 77
"Has the Lord rejected me forever?  Will He never again be kind to me?  Is His unfailing love gone forever?  Have his promises permanently failed?  Has God forgotten to be gracious?  Has He slammed the door on His compassion?  And I said, 'this is my fate, the most High has turned HIs hand against me.'  But THEN I recall, ALL You have done, O Lord.  I remember ALL your wonderful deeds.  You are the God of great wonders!"

After having poured out my heart to my ever loving Father, lamenting the same words of the Psalmists (while the children were in quiet time and napping), I went upstairs to check on Silas.

My dear Silas.  He loves to colour and draw and for some reason, loves mazes.  I asked him, as I usually do, to show me what he was working on.  "A maze" he said, as usual.

As he explained to me his picture maze, tears starting pouring down my face and I almost wept right in front of my 5 year old son.  His words, I believe, were straight from God.

Here is how he described his picture:

"See, here, up here?  This is goliath.  See, he even has a sword.  (top left).  But see over here?  This is God! (top right) He's way bigger than goliath.  And down here, see this person (he knows it is david but he said 'this person'), they don't know it, but God has sent an angel to be right beside them!"

I immediately knew, in my spirit, that this picture was a picture God was giving me.  I am not abandoned.  I am not alone.  My God is fighting for me.

Then I looked further at the picture- down in the right corner.  "Who is this person sitting, Silas?"

And he said to me, "Oh.  They are sitting there, saying they can't defeat goliath.  But God is bigger than goliath!"

I was weeping because, how great is our God?  I was asking God, just before I came upstairs if He had abandoned me.  In fact, I was sitting in a chair downstairs at our table weeping alongside the Psalmists and then, God gives me this incredible picture of His care for me, His presence with me, His victory that is sure to come.

And His message through my precious son, just as He brings us victory through His precious son, Jesus.

"I love the LORD because He hears my voice and my prayer for mercy.  Because He bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath.  Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me.  I saw only trouble and sorrow.  THEN, I called on the name of the LORD "Please Lord, save me!"  How kind the Lord is!  How good is He?  So merciful, this God of ours.  The Lord protects those of CHILDLIKE faith."  Psalm 116

Thank you God, help me have faith like a child, like my child.