All Shriveled Up

by Helen Dowd


Did you get up this morning and go to your devotions, only to feel that you felt all shriveled up? Did you feel empty? Like a dry creek bed? Or like a piece of fruit, left out in the sun on a hot day? I have felt like that on many occasions. In fact, that’s how I felt this morning. And I wonder why? My surroundings haven’t changed. My circumstances haven’t changed. The sun is out today. I am not in any trouble. Yet, I got up feeling like my soul was dry. I turned to a favorite verse of mine: Psalm 46:10. But I read it a different way: “Be still, and know that I am God! … Be still, and know that I am…Be still, and know…Be still…Be.”

I thought that by saying these words to myself several times, I might get over the feeling of being dried up. But I still felt shriveled in my soul. I felt like God couldn’t find me. I felt like the man described in Lamentations chapter 3.

Here is the figure of a grief-stricken man. He is feeling as if God has led him into darkness, and made him walk alone. Hardship and weakness has overtaken him, and he feels as if all of a sudden he has become old. He feels that God has led him to a graveyard and has left him there, like the dead who inhabit that place. He feels like a captive who has been made to walk with a yoke around his neck, as well as chains on his ankles. He cries out. He even shouts. But God isn’t hearing the man’s prayer. He is not there.

Besides this, the man feels as if God has dumped him into a pit and thrown stones around him to keep him there. And then on top of that, God, like a bear or a lion, is ready to attack him. “How much more can I endure?” the man cries out.

I know that at times I have felt that way. But God knows just how far we can be pushed. And He hasn’t really left us. He just wants us to call out to Him for help, like the man in Lamentations did. At last, the man in Lamentations experienced:



TRIUMPH!
From Lamentations 3:

Sometimes I feel so shriveled up,
my soul as dry as dust.
My heart is like an empty cup
which has from God been thrust.

The Lord has banished me from sight.
He’s hedged me all about.
I’m in a pit, as black as night,
He does not hear me shout.

I search my heart to see what’s wrong:
is there some hidden sin?
No answer seems to come along--
just nothing from within.

“Where is Your Peace, Oh God?” I sigh.
“Why have You fled away?
Why don’t I feel Your presence nigh,
deep in my heart today?”

My strength has melted from within.
In misery I grope:
When I recall my former sin,
then gone is any hope!

* ^ * ^ * * ^

But then the truth comes to my mind:
My God is a God of GRACE.
If He were not, then I would find,
eternal doom, I’d face.

For long, God will not turn away.
HIS FAITHFULNESS IS GREAT.
With hope, I’ll search for Him each day:
He comes to those who wait.

I’ve called upon Your name, Oh Lord.
I know You’ve heard my voice.
You said, “Fear not!”...I’ll trust Your Word.
AND NOW I SHALL REJOICE!



Peace is restored. My soul is assured that it is not really dead. It just needs the refreshing rain from the Spirit of God.

© Helen Dowd