Consider your ways...Haggai 1:5

Just back from a vacation on a warm beautiful beach in Mexico.

We planned this trip to "get away." Christmas is a very painful and difficult season to be home with all the memories of years past. 

Landed at the resort on Day One and it hit me with greater intensity than I have felt in the past little while. 

Despair and loneliness. I plunged into a dark hole once again and I did not have the strength to even hold on to all the promises of God. He seemed far and distant and all I could sense was darkness. 

I felt sorry for my girls who looked at me unable to reach me and one of them verbalized what we had all secretly hoped for on this trip: "I thought our pain would go away for a while but it follows us."

"Suffering is a strange, dark companion but a companion nonetheless. It's an unwelcome visitor, but still a visitor." Joni Eareckson Tada in her foreword to "the hardest peace" by Kara Tippets.

All around me were reminders of what I had lost. Every woman had a man beside her and every family had a Dad with them or so it seemed. 

I kept thinking what is wrong with this picture? 

The number 3 seems to be an odd number for room reservations, table settings, airline seats...

My mind was aching again- all I could think of was Julius. Another similar holiday a year before he went home. He made the reservations, carried the passports, the tickets, the wallet, he kept track of flight times, etc etc - I just followed. 

Day Two: Still unable to shake off this sense of despair. Grief is physically exhausting. So grateful for patient loving daughters who are sensitive to my pain even while going through their own deep grief. 

Before leaving for this trip a very dear friend had encouraged me to go back to the Book of Haggai. God had clearly spoken to me through the writings of this prophet in the past and I knew that I must use all the energy I had to open the pages of this book and plead with God to speak to me once again.

And He did. His message to me was clear.

If you are not familiar with this book of the Bible, here is a short summary. The year is 520 B.C.Solomon's temple was in ruins. The Jews had been allowed to return to Israel earlier, but due to opposition and discouragement they had given up on the work of rebuilding the temple. God used the prophet Haggai to stir up the people and to ask them to look carefully at their priorities. The rebuilding of the temple represented the return of God's presence in their midst. They had given up on this most important work and instead were looking after their own paneled houses.

"Consider your ways!" 1:5 God said. "You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes." 1:6

He pointed out to them that even though they worked hard, they were not satisfied. 

"Consider your ways, Joslyn." 

There it was - had my To Do list become bigger than my God?  I had got into a lifestyle of rushing to do the immediate and the urgent and I had let the most important drop off my plate. 

What is broken in my life that belongs to My God? My heart. 

Time with the Healer had become secondary. He was calling me back and I could only hear Him in the dark despair that I was in. This vacation was not "the get away" that I had hoped for. There is no quick fix for pain. God Himself did not take a short cut - He sent His only Son to die on a cross to make a way for us to come back to Him.

Back to Haggai: Interestingly the people recognized that this was His messenger and His Word and they obeyed and turned from their ways. All He was asking for, was repentant hearts. 

His immediate response was "I am with you..." 1:13. "And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people." 1:14

Day 3: "I am with you Joslyn."  The sun felt warmer, the beach more beautiful. 

He stirred up my spirit. 

Like the sound of the crashing waves that  never stops, I kept hearing "I am with you Joslyn." 

The couples were still all around me. The "complete families" kept filling the poolside chairs. But The Lord is with me. The Great I AM, the God of Angel Armies is with me now. 

That is all that matters.

He is with me now and one day I will be with Him, in His presence forever.

Dear Reader, I do not know what your situation is. But if you resonate with what you have read, and you sense God's Word stirring up your spirit, would you "Consider your ways?" Would you take a hard look at what your priorities are?

It is New Year's Day and traditionally a time to make resolutions.  All that God is asking is that you turn to Him and He will shower you with His presence, His grace and His provision.

Think about it!