Purpose

  I struggle with feelings of meaninglessness.  Not just day-to-day, but in most of my life I can't silence the question:  Is this all working towards anything good?  I toil most of my days in obscurity accomplishing little of consequence.  There are joys and sorrows, but are they more significant than simply a woman maintaining the house, cooking meals, and raising her children  On a larger scale, the past couple of years have brought many heartaches.  The shocking and untimely death of my father, beloved grandpa to my little girl.  The weeks before he died, we had a little robin's nest next to our garage, and every time we left the house, she begged me to lift her up to see the eggs, and eventually the baby birds.  The Sunday before my dad died, as we were leaving for church, we noticed that the little birds had been blown out of the nest and were lifeless next to the tree.  My husband and I talked in hushed tones on the way to church tossing questions back and forth.  This would be our sweet girl's first exposure to death, and it seemed quite large even as related to the birds.  How to explain?  How to introduce the knowledge of life and death-knowledge that can never be reversed-in a way that is glorifying to God.  It seemed like a large and delicate matter.  Until Friday.  When in a space of minutes my dad went from mowing his lawn to lying lifeless on the garage steps.  It seemed almost cynically laughable that less than a week before I had wondered how to talk about dead birds, when now I struggled with explaining the permanent loss of a dear and loving grandfather.  Nothing has been the same since.  And sometimes I wonder:  what is this pain, this heartbreak all working toward?  Big things and small things have been rained upon us in the interim.  Financial worries that won't go away seeming to hover in a constant black cloud.  My own grandmother suffered a sudden stroke, and the omnipresent truth is that she will never be the same.  Probably never even return to her own home.  My widowed mother has devoted countless hours to the three hour journey to her hospital and even more time on the phone being updated and keeping informed of the current status.  Why?  There is so much she herself has to oversee in the still turbulent wake of her own jolting pain.  Then there are the moves on the horizon, household appliances that take turns breaking, and the  family relationships that are sputtering from thriving and enriching to tense and wound-producing.  What is the meaning in all of this?  Sometimes I think that if I were afflicted with boils from head to toe, at least others would see a physical manifestation of the brokenness in my heart.  As it is, my affliction is hidden and deep and much of my daily struggle is keeping the mask of competency and hope in place.  But my mind allows a little voice whisper doubt about the purpose of it all.  How is God working all things together for good?  I don't know.

I have dreams that someday someone will reveal that my own pain is directly linked to a positive, God-glorifying change in their life, or even that their faith was wrought because of something I have endured.  I want to see the reason and the purpose.  I want to know that this "light and momentary affliction"
(2Cor 4:17)  really is light and only momentary.  I long to feel that there will be a day of rejoicing and gladness that is sweeter because of this current bitter gall I am drinking.  But I don't see it.  I don't feel it.

"Of course you can't see what it is doing.  Don't look to what is seen....It is working for you an eternal weight of glory.  Therefore do not lose heart."  -John Piper

That is it.  I will not pretend that it is easy or that I am magically happy.  But that is it.  That is what makes any day doable, and that is what is lacking when my days seem to overwhelm.  Where am I looking?  To the seen or the unseen?  Have I fixed my eyes PERMANENTLY on Jesus, the only One who understands.  Do I believe the intangible truth that God is always working all things for my good.  My real and ultimate good?   When I don't see it, I must walk forward in confidence anyway.  When I can't feel it, I must repeat the truths of God's goodness and compassion to myself. Preach them even.  Repeat them over and over to myself until my frenzied mind begins to still.  I still don't know what the purpose is.  But I know that this is all not purposeless.  I still can't write about the meaningful epiphanies I have experienced.  But I also can't discuss how meaningless it all is.  Because I know it isn't meaningless.  He is sovereign and good.  And someday, soon or not, the meaning that already exists will be revealed.

Please be encouraged by the song above-a song full of truth interspersed with spoken words inspired by the Word of God.  Let the melody above speak to your aching heart, as it has spoken to mine.

"For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison," (2 Corinthians 4:17)


“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him..." (Job 13:15)

Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no [o]fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,
18 Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.  (Habakkuk 3:17-18)