God Speaks

Last night, I lay in bed fraught with anxiety and depression over my current situation.  Seems like nights are the hardest.  Going to bed, I get flooded with emotion and cry and cry.  And sleep evades me which is torturous because I feel that if only sleep would come, I wouldn't feel.  If I could sleep through this distress, I would....but that's not possible.

I digress...

So I lay in bed crying after reading for an hour and a half multiple devotionals and scriptures on topics I chose.  I lay there feeling so empty and lost and hopeless.  I cried and I said aloud, "God, I have been praying to you nonstop for 2.5 weeks now and I feel like I am saying the same thing over and over.  I don't know what to pray for, I don't know what is right.  I just want you to speak to me."  Within minutes, I fell asleep.

This morning, I woke up grateful for a new day.  Grateful that the night, the hardest part, was over.  Grateful that I could fill my time (and thus my mind) with busy work so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain anymore.  After I got my kids around and they were off to school, I sat down with my iPad and started reading the newsfeed.  Probably the third post down was a daily devotional that I had just recently subscribed to.  The first word I saw was "Compassion".  My heart skipped a beat as I remembered that just the night before in my frantic search of devotionals and scriptures to help me sleep, I had looked up the word "Compassion". 

com·pas·sion /kəmˈpaSHən/ (Noun) Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others

I read the devotional and felt immediately like God was speaking to me.

" 'It doesn’t end at the beginning.' While Saul’s story begins with hatred, vengeance and violence, that is not the end of his story.

Through Christ, Saul becomes Paul and ends up as one of the greatest missionaries this world has ever seen. While his beginning was dark, through Christ, his ending was filled with light.

This is true for our lives too. No matter how we came into this world, or how we have acted in the past, that is not our final chapter.

 Through Christ we can bring life, hope and love into our world so that others can also experience this brighter future."

You see, I feel like I'm an awful person.  I have walked away from God. I have filled myself with anger and resentment.  I have been mean and hurtful towards people I love.  I have not been walking a Christian life.  And I lay in bed last night crying asking God to speak to me and He literally thrusts this in my face(book).

God loves me and forgives me because He has compassion.  And no matter how bad it gets, I need to remember that I can change if I walk with Him.  I've been asking God to forgive me these last couple of weeks. I have been asking him to change me and right when I feel hopeless, right when I ask him to speak to me...He does.