The Clay and The Potter

Today, feeling led to share what I wrote on my personal blog this morning...seems so appropriate for a blog entitled "Unending Faith". 

This morning ~ well, in truth, for many mornings now~ I have felt the absence of God.

Don’t misunderstand me. I know He’s there. But His presence, normally evident and palpable, seems clouded. Veiled.

You know those dreams where you’re chasing something and you wake up before you reach whatever it was? That’s it. My need for Him is so obvious and yet He isn’t showing up. I’m chasing and He feels elusive.

Of course God isn’t avoiding me. Of course He is pained, watching me flounder and wrestle with the course of my life…and I take as much comfort in that as I did climbing into my dad’s lap as a scared little girl when the summer tornadoes would pass our midwest home. Faith. Faith is what sustains me.

Maybe He wants me to rely less on Him and more on what I know to be true in my heart. Maybe He wants me to realize that people aren’t always kind and they will fail us even when they didn’t intend to…or expect to. Maybe there are lessons here that I will never fully realize until we meet face to face. It is faith that assures me that that day will, indeed, come to pass.

Even in this place of struggle, I am so aware that I must come to an understanding that I am blessed through this trial. In James 1:2-4, it is written “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” I am trying. Admittedly, my own strength is weakening and I pray for an end to this complicated issue. Admittedly, His timing isn’t aligned with my own. Admittedly, I am trying to fix what isn’t mine to fix.

I feel a LOT like clay these days. 
And I don’t feel like being grateful about it.
But I am not alone. Veiled or not, He is there to see me through. He will never leave nor forsake me.

Be blessed. In all times.
Amy