finding peace, joy, quiet in my soul

My heart is heavy and has been for days. There are so many mixed up thoughts, scrambled words and fragmented ideas floating around in my mind that the noise is deafening. I long for quiet. I long for peace. I long for joy.

My prayer for others has become "LORD, please grant peace and joy in their journey." I forget to pray this for myself. Right now, my journey has neither peace nor joy. There is no quiet in my soul. If I wasn't almost 41, I would highly consider running to my dad and climbing in his lap and asking him to make it "all better". Fortunately for him, I've restrained. I've even restrained myself from "dumping" all of this chaos in my soul onto my beloved tonight (although, I've definitely vented parts and pieces of it all week onto him).

I fled our women's Bible study tonight to come home to my sanctuary. My home. My place of refuge. Amazingly, the crap followed me. Isn't that the way it works? There is no running right now. There is no fleeing the scene. There is no hiding. There is no escape. For where I run, flee, hide or escape, my soul comes with me. I can't separate myself from the part of me that loves and feels hurt, disappointment, pain.

It is times like tonight that I feel like I can understand a small part of King David's psalms. David wrote many of the psalms while he was seriously fleeing for his life from psycho King Saul. Often, David called out to God, crying "where are you?"

This is exactly how I feel tonight. LORD, where are you? Are you here? Are you paying attention? Please tell me that You are in control of even this chaos. I need you LORD and I need you NOW!!

To explain where all of this is coming from is too much for me to expose tonight, even to myself. I'm frustrated. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I've been in the spiritual trenches for months and I seriously feel like instead of winning a battle, all I got was stoned by those more righteous than I.

So, tonight I surrender... again. I surrender my frustration. I surrender my hurt. I surrender my anger. I surrender my disappointments. My soul reveals names, dates, places and people to my Savior. He knows them all, anyway. I come before Him waiving the white flag...again. I've tried. I've failed. However, I know the One who never fails. He is God. I am not.

Rest. Peace. Joy. Freedom. These and more are found in the surrender. And, in the surrender, even at 40, I can climb in to my Father's lap and ask Him to make it all better. There, in His lap, under His wings I find refuge. It is here my soul quiets, my mind settles and my heart finds rest.