Dark days. . .

How do you make it through dark days? I'd like to say something brilliant here, but it is moment by moment. It is slow and agonizing: there is no quick remedy. Somebody broke your heart, unknowingly, knowingly or intentionally; doesn't matter, it still hurts. You've been waiting patiently for something; and it seems as if it just disappeared. You've trusted God, and it seems as though He has led you back to square one.

My thoughts turn to Horatio Spafford. A man who lost a great deal in the Chicago fire, and wanting to take some time away with his family, they decided to go to Europe. He was detained by business in New York, and sent his wife and daughters on ahead. Later, he received a telegram from his wife that said, "Saved alone, what shall I do?" Learning of the tragedy, he was still days away from the one he loved. When the captain slowed the ship, to show him the waters that buried his four daughters, he later wrote, "But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs, and there, before very long, shall we be too." After seeing his daughters' watery grave, he goes to his cabin and writes out of a broken heart, the most beautiful hymn, "It is well with my soul."

Dear ones, I don't mean to depress you, but dark days will fall into every life. But, listen to me, it is those deep and dark days, that add kindness to our eyes and softness to our hearts. It is one thing to bring pain on yourself through sin, but it is quite another to have done it all right and be in pain and sorrow. God is ever working in our hearts and lives, and when the storms rage, it is no different. But, if you don't love the ones who are kind to you, how do you think you will ever love the unlovable? Only through God breaking your heart and making it new. God bless you all.