Failing Flesh and Faith

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.--Psalm 73:26

My husband has been quoting this verse all morning and I don't know if it's ever been more real to me. 

He's back in surgery right now. This year we have felt the effects of failed flesh as we've struggled through what's been happening with his eye. It's such a tiny part of the body, but oh so important, and to have it fail has big results. It has amazed me how trusting Chris has been and how little he has complained. And because of his faith my heart has had a bit of an easier time coping through it all, but at the same time, I'm not gonna lie.... I've struggled. 

I've struggled at times to believe that God is good. I really have. I've struggled at times to believe that God is for me, for my family. It's felt sometimes like so many things are coming down on us. Things that should be good and easy and that we've asked for are hard. Granted we didn't ask for this one...  And that makes it feel ever harder. It doesn't FEEL like God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Do I even want this portion? (honest question). 

And I'm a girl, an emotional girl that cries at a drop of a hat. As three friends have stopped by the hospital and prayed with us this morning I've fought back tears because my body just produces them. I've had to be strong for so much of my life that I think now the tears just come more easily. And I know that I shouldn't live by my emotions, they are not always reliable, but they are there none the less. 

Monday this surgery and just the condition of Chris' eye hit me harder than it had in the months  before. And I just wanted a good cry all day long. But there never was time for one. 

I've counseled other women through these feelings, but I'm feeling them myself now and I'll be honest.... it's slightly irritating! But good for my soul to work through them in real life too, because this is real life. Our flesh fails. Our hearts fails. It's hard to have faith sometimes. It's hard to cling to God. It's hard to trust that he's good and loving and working all things for our good. But He is. 

Sunday had some timely truth for me from Psalm 56:8-9  You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.  

David is talking here, but the truths are good for me too. God is intimately aware of me. He knows all of my running around and the inner workings of my heart. He sees my anguish. He puts my tears in a bottle it says, keeping track of every one. This was a practice of mourners. Literally capturing their tears. Everything is recorded in God's book. And I'll be honest. In just that, I get kind of irritated with God. He KNOWS it all. He knows all of my hurt, and my brain says 'why do you leave me in the middle of all this hurt?' But David says something astounding then.... this big faith statement. 

This I know, that God is for me. 

Ps 56:9 

Right here he doesn't say how he knows this, or why he believes it (although we see lots of other reasons throughout Scripture of how we know this). He just throws it out there as if it's just to believe it himself. 

God knows. And He cares enough to keep track of it all. All of these feelings of fear and frustration and hurt, God has bottled it all and recorded all of it. And it's real. It's human. It's a result of the fall. But even in the midst of them I'm choosing to trust, as David did, that God is for me. God is for my husband. God is for our family. He is right here with us in the midst of it all, carefully using every detail of these hurts for His glory, and our good. We get to be like Jesus at the end of it all, and really the glory of that will far surpass any pain in this life. The fact that I even have been given the grace to grow toward that end goal through the pain is astounding. This pain has a purpose. Because God knows the details of me, of Abbie, so well he knew that this situation in my husband's life would be perfect not only for him, but also for me to grow me in sanctification, grow me to look a little bit more like Jesus. And it does the same for my husband. He intertwines the two perfectly.  God really is for me. I just have to trust Him with the details.