The One within the pages

I wasn't kidding last week when I told you I was struggling. Oh how serious I was being with you...and I'm still struggling. My Mom called last week and said "I can tell you are about to lose it". She is a few hundred miles away, but she can still tell when her daughter is about to come undone. But there is something surprisingly therapeutic about writing (especially when you feel called to it), and I always feel a little less crazy after expressing my feelings here. Even more so when I hear back from someone that says they are in the exact same place. It's not a "misery loves company" kind of comfort, so much as it is a "you have a friend next to you treading water" kind of comfort. There is hope in that. There is comfort in not feeling like the only one. My girl Jill (that I have grown to adore through this world of blogging), wrote to me in response to my disturbing admission that I sometimes consider putting down my dog and said "if it makes you feel any better, almost daily I consider having my dog put to sleep and then strategically laying her in the road like she got hit by a car. You are not alone" . I laughed every time I thought of that the rest of the day. Tell me you do not love her! Her dog recently brought her the leg of a deer, and then she had to play tug of war with him to get it out of the his mouth. Now that is a woman who deserves to wrestle with thoughts of wanting to put her dog to sleep for bad behavior.

This comfort of "there is someone right next to you treading water", is what I love about the Word of God. There isn't a feeling that I am experiencing that cannot be ministered to somewhere within those pages. From start to finish, that Book is packed full of comfort and encouragement. I have been telling you in recent weeks that I am currently studying both the lives of Moses and Esther. I always fall in love with the characters that I am studying in the Word. The first time this happened to me was when I was studying Abraham. I went into that particular study, dreading it a little (because how exciting could Genesis really be), and I came out on the other side of the study unable to get enough of it. At that particular season of my life, I could so identify with the struggles in that first book; and at this particular season of my life, I can so very much identify with Esther and Moses.

And what I find time after time is that at the root of it all, when you trace the source of the comfort back to it's origin, I always find that the One in which I am actually identifying with, is the One that wrote the story. It's not necessarily Moses' screw up, and his fleeing Egypt that I find comfort in; but rather the One that He met when he finally collapsed in the desert at The Well (Exodus 2:15). It's not Esther's great dilemma that encourages my heart to trust, but rather the One that was in the heavenlies orchestrating the entire course of events above her. His Name is the One that brings the comfort through struggles. It's the way He faithfully ministers to the ones within the pages that illustrates His character, and begs me to come and rest, and to trust that time is in His hands.