Blessed Are

If a fair weather friend is one who only sticks around for the easy stuff and bails when life gets real, I've been a bad weather friend lately.

Summer blazed this year. Under that oppressive heat, internally I was on the verge of spontaneous combustion. For days, weeks even, I couldn't make it through the day without being in nearly constant prayer, referring regularly to scripture that would pop into my head, clinging to it like my only lifeline. I was desperate, and I knew it. My utter dependence on my Heavenly Father was a given, and I leaned heavily. Which meant that in the midst of painful chaos, my soul was finding unparalleled nourishment and I was graciously sustained through several infernal heat waves. As I said, it was a hot summer.

The air is beginning to change. A coolness has crept in, gently stirring things up with subtle welcome breezes. And I find myself making it through my days completely on my own. Or at least without a genuine thought of or word to the One Who daily saved me mere weeks ago. What I'm most ashamed of is the timing when I do find myself thinking of Him or talking to Him, or searching His Word - it's when those last vestiges of heat make me start to sweat, when my fears and doubts begin to bubble up and need to be calmed and cooled. When the bad weather returns, so do I to Him.

I am not ok with that.

Because the truth is, I do recognize that I need Him every day. Even in the mid-70s without a cloud in the sky. Every single breath that fills my lungs, beat that fills my heart, and thought that fills my mind depends on Him in Whom I live and move and have my being. My need is constant, even if my perception of that truth isn't. I am desperate for Him. But that's the ironic truth and priceless beauty of suffering: in moment by moment survival, you experience the extravagant riches of intimacy and communion with God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. As I clung to Him with my last shreds of strength and relied upon Him for my next breath, I knew Him in a way I never have before. With complete intention, I swore my undying devotion and closeness, declaring that it would never fade, now that I'd tasted the sweetness.

But when my eyes don't open in a flood of tears and anxiety isn't already tearing at my heart before my alarm sounds, my snooze button is what I think I need more than my time in His Word. A constant soundtrack of music or phone calls fills my drive time, not fervent prayers from my heart's wretched depths. Not that those other things are wrong. Sleep is important, as are the benefits to my soul that music and the people I love bring me. But still. There was something powerful and profound about those days where my next moment was uncertain, except that I trusted the One who held it. This fair weather distance is breaking my heart.

And so I will make the effort to be the friend I want to be. In every season. To train my mind to recognize my still constant need for Him. To attune my heart to the rhythm of His, aching for the beats to synch. That as I emerge from my time of mourning and His comfort, I may find my heart pure.

That I may see God.