A Painful Kindness

Ever have those moments when you feel like "I don't know whose life I'm living...but this can't be mine!!"

I had one of those yesterday.

I will spare you all the details...but the Lord chose to reveal an area of sin and lack of faith in a fairly public way and for a few hours there I was reeling from it.

I woke up several times in the night fretting and then praying myself back to sleep. When I went to take a shower, I noticed I didn't start singing as soon as the water came on (which I usually do). I was reminded of the verse I read the day before ... Proverbs 17:22 - "A Joyful Heart does good like medicine." So I endeavored to be joyful. This was a kindness. It was kind of the Lord to not let me stay where I was...and to give me sufficient motivation to submit to His ways. So I sang and cried a bit in the shower.

And it hasn't stopped. I had to confess...ask forgiveness...and seek the Lord on how proceed...how to get where He intends this to go. I know He has an intention...and that it is good, even if it feels shameful and icky right now.

I am also comforted in knowing that the kindness of God is softer than the hardness of men...that His mercy is new every morning...and His grace knows no end.