(Truly honored to have my friend, and author, Randa Chance encourage us with an uplifting article today. Be blessed!)

There is no denying it. Music is my world. While I am not the greatest singer or the best piano player, music takes me to another realm and envelops me with harmonies and chord progressions and shapes and movements that shake me to my toes and make my heart tremble. Some minor chords make me weep involuntarily. People laugh at me when I listen to music or sing. My frame involuntarily leans into the crescendos and progressions of minor chords and I get a funny look on my face. When I sit at my piano and begin to play, a deep solitude comes over me. I close my eyes and everything else fades away. Perhaps this all sounds a bit melodramatic, but if you are a musician, you know the feeling well.

On the other hand, when a wrong note is sung or played, or a chord goes sour, it causes me pain. I remember several years ago when a choir director taught the wrong part to the altos. When they were joined by the sopranos and tenors, the resultant sound was a screech that sounded like a freight train going off the tracks. It made me sad.

When the band doesn’t play quite in tune, or when singers refuse to listen to each other and they go off pitch, the cacophony of jarring notes clashing together make me want to cover my ears and rock back and forth.

In a perfect world, the music flows beautifully. You wear a size 4, your children are attending medical school on full scholarships, there is a ready-made casserole cooking in the oven, you have no past-due medical bills, your marriage is full of passion and laughter, and the dog is housetrained.

In reality, though, there are quite a few harsh notes.

You probably either work a 40-plus-hour job to make ends meet, or you are a stay-at-home parent with just as many responsibilities and just as little time. I am sure that if I had the privilege of dropping by your home unannounced, I would be greeted with an overflowing trash can, a mountain of laundry, a stack of bills, and children running around in various stages of undress with sticky faces. If I looked closely, I might witness an argument between you and your spouse over money. I might even see a family shattered by infidelity or divorce.

While we all do our best to present a polished appearance, it’s a different story on the inside.

When the music stops, what do you do? When the lights are turned off at church and the choir is silent and the dazzling media presentations are powered down and the saints have gone, what then? You sit down on a pew in the darkened sanctuary and weary tears spring up without warning.

When you flash a strong smile to everyone around you and tell them you are doing “just fine, God is so good,” and then return home to a broken relationship and finances in shambles.

When you lose someone precious to you and bear up under the load of caring for everyone else, while you die inside and wonder how on earth you will carry on without crumbling into a thousand tears.

What happens then?

I never dreamed that I would be the wife of a church planter. In fact, I vowed and declared it would never happen because we were so poor when I was a child and my father was a home missionary. Today, that is what I am. Don’t get me wrong – this is where God called us and I have grown and learned more in the past four years than I ever have. But there are days when I am so burned out that I could easily walk away from all of it.

It was beyond my imagination that I would witness the love of my life dealing with severe physical pain every single day, just to do the normal things that the rest of us take for granted, and cope with the emotional devastation that comes along with suffering from congenital abnormalities.

I never dreamed that I would have an ongoing battle against a spirit of deepest, darkest depression that made me feel like I was standing inside a 5 x 5 room built with dark cement bricks with no door and no way of escape or change.

I have always been strong, but situations in the past several years of my life have been some of the most difficult I have ever lived through. They have left my heart raw and scars on my spirit. They have stripped away every bit of pride and left me bare. I never thought it would be possible to feel so numb or shattered when I had a relationship with God.

A few months ago, I drove down the road weeping over a personal situation. I felt deep self-pity and literally told God that I felt like a barrel full of radioactive liquid that was about to spill over. I just whined and told Him all about it.

And in His still, small voice, He whispered, “Why don’t you take everything to me in the first place? Don’t you know I am the One who will give you the strength to cope and be victorious?”

Oh, but what is that flaw deep within me that even I fail to see, which He sees, and in His infinite wisdom, says, “This must be purified. That must be burned away.”

Could it be that He allowed this suffering to take place in my life so that I must rely completely upon Him and no other?

In my seeking to find balance between all of my obligations as a wife, working full-time outside the home, caring for our three children, serving at our church as pastor’s wife, music director, Sunday school teacher and church custodian, sometimes I find myself spinning out of control.

I know that to whom much is given, much is required, and I overextend myself and give beyond my means, because I am faced every single day with the realization of my own mortality and the knowledge that I have no idea how long this life will be given to me. I long to live in peace and stability. But instead, I realize that I am overcome with fatigue and weariness, and have been for ever so long.

In II Corinthians 12:9, Paul speaks about his own suffering: “There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

“Sufficient.” Think about it. What does that word really mean?

In “The Hidden Life”, J.R. Miller defined “sufficient” as “one whose meaning expands and amplifies with the measure of the need. No necessity is so small as not to be included, and none is so great as to go beyond the capacity of the blessing which is promised.”

It covers my need completely. No more or less than exactly what is needed.

When I am exhausted, his grace is sufficient. When I am beyond the point of wounded and have no strength left, his strength is perfect. All of my frantic running and seeking for perfection is nothing more than running on a hamster wheel. It does nothing but exhaust me.

And all the time, He whispers, “Come closer. Be still, my love. Know that I am God.”

Are you frantic in all of your searching to find the answer in your crisis? Do you feel the difficulty of focusing on anything beyond your pain? Is life a ball of roiling confusion and heartache?

It’s time to take a deep breath, and rest your eyes on the One who holds all of your tomorrows in the palm of His hand. Enter into His presence and stay there. Let Him speak peace into your life.

Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

When your music stops, when your ability to manage and care for, and do and be all things to all men comes to a screeching halt, when you can no longer deal with the hurt…that is when He will step in. In the very middle of your pain, you can still walk with Him in the cool of the day. And HE will sing over you. He will quiet you. He will comfort and soothe you.

Rest.

Randa Chance is a writer, speaker and pastor’s wife at the Sanctuary of San Antonio. She lives in San Antonio, TX with her husband, Shane, and their children. Her new book, Of Cabbages and Kings, can be purchased by clicking on the picture here on my blog to the right! It is as delightful as and charming as Randa herself. I adore her.

 

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