[Discoveries] 05-02-07 Hidden pain

[Inspiration in Your Inbox]

/*Even in laughter the heart may ache ... -- Proverbs 14:13*/

I know someone who is a closet alcoholic. She does not know that her 
thirst for alcohol is really a thirst for Christ. She does not know how 
to drink deep from God's Spirit so that the parched and aching places in 
her soul might be soothed and comforted. She lives in fear that others 
will discover that she, a Christian, struggles with this hidden shame. 
There are so many aching and hurting places in her heart, that she 
abandons hope, opens the bottle, and prays for heaven to take her away.

Even in laughter the heart may ache. We know, I think, that everybody 
needs somebody safe, someone who can be trusted with secret pain. Even 
so, sometimes pain remains hidden.

God is the Keeper of our secrets -- NOT keeper in the sense that He 
wants us to hide from one another what should be brought out into the 
light, but, rather, Keeper in the sense of One who tends and cares for.

Why is God tending our secrets? Why does He look down from heaven at the 
things we cannot bring ourselves to share with anyone? I think it is 
because His supply of goodness knows no end. I think it is because He 
can swallow up every hopeless tragedy with hope, with possibility. He 
takes the sting out of death. Even while they were driving the nails 
into Christ's hands, His mind was on the resurrection and Christ's 
eternal rule over men.

There's much that could be said here. I've typed over a page, and I'm 
going to delete most of it before I send this to you. But please know 
that God is near, that He is the One who speaks peace to the storm within.

Be encouraged!
Dwight


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