The Comforter

Warning: Honesty ahead.

Today was hard.
Just.
Plain.
Hard.
I've known hard before, but this is a new hard, a different hard.

It started last night, when we were picking up a few things at the Bodegona (grocery). This came at the end of a long shopping trip to the market, which is completely overwhelming for me. Picture an open-air market like you've seen in a movie, and you've got it. Throw in a language you don't know well, the challenge of price-haggling, live pigs and chickens for sale and some interesting smells, and you have my version of Publix. Thankfully, Dayle was with me to guide and help, but it is still exhausting. Anyway, there were other things to get, and the Bode is small, crowded, and hard to navigate. Plus I have to translate every box and bottle I pick up. So, when I realized that I had set our freshly-purchased ice cream somewhere and couldn't find it, I started to cry. About ice cream. Only it wasn't about ice cream.

Today started very early with a robbery at the church. Everyone has handled the news well, and everyone banded together for the service to go forwards. It was just another hard thing to hear, to feel.

Just before we left the U.S., I bought a book called "Walking With God, " by John Eldredge. I know it was exactly what God wanted me to hear at this time, and today, I was reminded of a passage in it: "Once we are in the kingdom that is yet to come, once the world has been restored to all it was meant to be, then we will be able to live without interruption, without assault. Then we can drop our guard. But not until then. Not even in moments of tenderness and sorrow; I know it seems unfair, but the enemy does not play fair. He is an opportunist. Knowing this will help."

It did help to know that I had a choice: I could lie down and have a pity party,let the enemy's tactics work, be miserable for days and take my family on the trip with me, or I could feel the pain, the hurt, the tiredness, and beg God to heal my heart. No one else can do it, not my husband, not my friends. I need all of them, we need each other, but only God can change my heart.

Eldredge's book was, for me, a lesson in learning to hear God's voice, learning to trust what He says and obey it. I feel like I was rarely taught about the Holy Spirit for most of my life, because many of the churches I went to were afraid to teach Him. It was all or nothing, and they chose nothing. This is a new thing for me, these last few years, listening to God, and I usually long for my safety zone of just doing what I logically think is right. Unfortunately, I end up choosing the path of my flesh, trying to protect myself from hurt, or from looking foolish, or from being disappointed. I can't protect myself from those things anyway, but I sure do try, and I end up with a hardened, cynical heart.

Right after I finished Eldredge's book, I "happened" to come across "Fresh Power" by Jim Cymbala. Same conviction. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Realize that His power is life, breath, everything. It's not programs, it's not even instruments...some of which we were lacking this morning at church. And yet we worshiped.

I need to hear from Him, to be comforted and guided. I love how Eldredge put it:
"...I'm not encouraging a senseless approach to life. I'm not saying you should follow every thought that passes through your head. There is wisdom, and there is revelation. They go together, hand in hand. 'I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better' (Eph. 1:17)." We need both, a balance. Not just a longing for revelation, but wisdom as well.

John 14:26 (Amplified)
But the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will cause you to recall (will remind you of, bring to your remembrance) everything I have told you.
27Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]