My Ebenezer Stone

With the myriad of blogs available for people to read, I have never before felt the need to add my voice to the blogging world. In my more cynical moods, I believe that there is truly nothing new under the sun, and that I certainly don’t have anything unique enough to say to merit anyone’s attention.

That being said, I am writing this blog entry, so there must be a reason. And there is. For the last five months since I graduated from college, I have been unemployed. In this economy, that fact is not exactly shocking, but that doesn’t make the reality any easier. Unemployment has been one of the most painful experiences I have gone through in my life. Yet it has also come with great blessings, and that is the reason why I am writing this blog entry. It may be the only entry I end up writing, but I felt that I needed to express to others the work God is doing in my life, and this seemed to be a good means to do it.

I will be the first to admit that my sufferings, compared with what other people around the world endure, seem small, even petty. Still, my pain is real. For what seems like an endless amount of time, I have been waiting to hear about a job that I desperately want. To me, this job means getting everything that I want and escaping everything I hate about what my life is right now. But even though I have waited expectantly, day after day, no answer has come. No decision has been made, and they can’t tell me how long it will be before I know. It could be weeks, months. But I don’t have months to wait.

It has been this way all summer. Waiting. Wait on the Lord. His timing is best. He will provide. So I waited. I thought I was doing so well. Look at me, I trust God completely! He will reward me for my faith! Then, this week, I was sure that I was finally going to get my reward. I was going to be sure of security and happiness and hope. But surety didn’t come. All that remained was more waiting, more horrible uncertainty, stretching out endlessly before me. And I collapsed. I stood in front of my house and I cried and I screamed at God. Over and over I said, I can’t do this anymore, I can’t do this anymore. All my patience, all my willpower, all my desperate hoping was gone. I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting in torturous uncertainty for one more minute. All the pain of the last few months swept over me. Pain of hurt pride from not being able to find a job, pain of separation from my friends and family, pain of fear for the future, pain of living on other people’s charity, pain of losing my earthly hopes and dreams. Pain of unworthiness and emptiness and loneliness. You’ve taken everything away from me, I cried to God, though I knew it wasn’t true. I still have many, many blessings. But I have keenly felt my losses, too. Why are you doing this to me?! I cried. Don’t you love me?! Please, make it stop, I begged.

I didn’t hear an answer. Finally, the tears stopped and I began to think of Job. He received no explanation from God for his sufferings, but he praised him anyway. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord. I knew that I could not turn my back on God, that even in all my pain he was still everything that he is and was and always will be. Good, just, all-knowing, all-powerful, merciful, providential. I knew that I must be grateful and praise him no matter what the circumstance, no matter the hurt I felt. So I praised God, even though my heart felt hollow.

I truly didn’t believe I could wait one more day for something to change. But, amazingly, God has given me the strength to keep waiting somehow. A friend told me once that forgiveness is a daily action. Well, I think trust is, too. Every day I wake up and I trust God to carry me through to the next day. I must trust that he will take care of me, that he has a plan for me, and that he will equip me to persevere through whatever trials he sends me.

It’s still hard, so hard, to have my faith tested this way. God has been testing my faith all summer, but this week the testing hit a new intensity. My emotions were stretched to the breaking point, and I cried in the arms of the one who was testing me. Shaping me. Refining me by fire.

I don’t know how I am able to say this, but I realized today that I am glad for this testing. I don’t mean glad in an intellectual way, in the sense that I recognize that testing is for my own good and that it must be endured, in the sense that I praise God through suffering because I know that I should. That is how I have approached testing in the past, always wanting desperately for the testing to end. I tried to quickly learn the lesson God was teaching me and looked for ways to numb the pain until it finally left. But now I really, honestly, am grateful that God is putting me through this. I don’t know how that is possible, but it’s true. I’m glad! It’s so amazing to read, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, and to finally know what it means! I am actually, emotionally glad that I am being tested. I wouldn’t change one thing about this summer. I wouldn’t give up a single moment of it now, even though it has brought me so much pain. I have joy because I’ve never felt so close to God in my life. I’ve never needed him like I do now, or at least, I’ve never felt my need of him like I do now. I’ve never had this kind of desire for reading the Bible and praying and singing and memorizing verses. To be honest, I’m afraid now for the testing to end. I’m afraid that if God gives me comfort, if he gives me a job and money and an apartment and friends, I will wander away from him again. I won’t feel the same desperate need of him, and look to him for every meal. I’ll forget what it’s like to be incapable of making it through a single day without his help.

Yet I know that this is the very reason that God is putting me through this test; so that I won’t forget. He is changing my character and conforming it to his own image, so that I am ready for whatever he has planned next. He does have a plan for me, and he will provide what is best. So let this entry be my Ebenezer stone, to look back on and remember. May I never forget the faithfulness of the Lord.