God Comforts His People

I boarded a plane last month with twelve beautiful women. We embarked on a trip that would change each of us in a way we could never imagine. I had been to Haiti in April, I had seen the devastation left from the great quake, the poverty had been etched in my mind, but this trip I SAW. I really saw what God sees. I saw a people, His people, the ones He loves....the poor. He loves the poor. He speaks of them throughout His word. He gives us the command to care for them. I came home, I left part of me in Haiti, I came home saddened of our state of complacency. I wrote a blog that was deleted (I'm not sure how) about our forgetfulness. When God opens our eyes we see, but when it's not in front of us anymore we began to forget. We forget the faces, the tragedy, the naked babies, and the mommies that can't feed them. We go back to our apathy, our entertainment, our life, with our families. He says remember them....remember the poor. I left so much in Haiti, it changed me, it hurt me, it wounded me forever. 

This Friday another event that would change me. 28 precious souls taken by the evil one. My heart aches. I laid between my babies on Saturday night. Lily's hot breath on my back, Sam's sweet back in my face, their smell, their soft skin. I cried all night, I couldn't stop thinking about the pain. I know their pain all too well. I know how it feels to know you've lost someone to something evil. I remember the pain, the fear that would come at night when I would replay the night in my mind. The fateful night my sister was taken in the same way. Led down steps in a tee shirt that belonged to me her big sister, her boyfriend bleeding, dying, stepping over her dead roommate, the blood, the fear, the stench. It was the horror of how she died that plagued me. Was she afraid? Did she think of us? Did she cry out to God? Those babies that were taken from their parent's, this too has changed me. I have been in pain these last few months, aching for Jesus, aching for you, for you to SEE. 

I have cried and He has answered. The scripture He gave me today to comfort me and give me hope. I pray it does the same for you.

1“Comfort, yes, comfort My people!”

Says your God.

2“Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,

That her warfare is ended,

That her iniquity is pardoned;

For she has received from the Lord’s hand

Double for all her sins.”

3The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord;

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.

He sent Jesus for us, to pardon us, to relinquish the debt of our sin. Can you imagine the stench? A manger with the smell of pigs. I traveled to a pig farm recently, the stench is unbearable, it stayed in my hair until I showered. The smell, the poverty that surrounded the King of Kings. He came for YOU.

4Every valley shall be exalted

And every mountain and hill brought low;

The crooked places shall be made straight

And the rough places smooth;

5The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

And all flesh shall see it together;

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6The voice said, “Cry out!”

And he said, “What shall I cry?”

“All flesh is grass,

And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.

7The grass withers, the flower fades,

Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it;

Surely the people are grass.

8The grass withers, the flower fades,

But the word of our God stands forever.”

We will parish, we are perishing even now, but His word stands forever. He has promised and He will fulfill His promises to us. 

9O Zion,

You who bring good tidings,

Get up into the high mountain;

O Jerusalem,

You who bring good tidings,

Lift up your voice with strength,

Lift it up, be not afraid;

Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

10Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand,

And His arm shall rule for Him;

Behold, His reward is with Him,

And His work before Him.

11He will feed His flock like a shepherd;

He will gather the lambs with His arm,

And carry them in His bosom,

And gently lead those who are with young.

He carries us like a shepherd. He gathers us with His arm and carries in His bosom. Will you rest in His bosom? Trust that He loves you and will lead you? 

12Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

Measured heaven with a span

And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

Weighed the mountains in scales

And the hills in a balance?

13Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,

Or as His counselor has taught Him?

14With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him,

And taught Him in the path of justice?

Who taught Him knowledge,

And showed Him the way of understanding?

15Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket,

And are counted as the small dust on the scales;

Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.

16And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,

Nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering.

17All nations before Him are as nothing,

And they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless.

18To whom then will you liken God?

Or what likeness will you compare to Him?

19The workman molds an image,

The goldsmith overspreads it with gold,

And the silversmith casts silver chains.

20Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution

Chooses a tree that will not rot;

He seeks for himself a skillful workman

To prepare a carved image that will not totter.

21Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,

And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,

Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

23He brings the princes to nothing;

He makes the judges of the earth useless.

24Scarcely shall they be planted,

Scarcely shall they be sown,

Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth,

When He will also blow on them,

And they will wither,

And the whirlwind will take them away like stubble.

25“To whom then will you liken Me,

Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.

26Lift up your eyes on high,

And see who has created these things,

Who brings out their host by number;

He calls them all by name,

By the greatness of His might

And the strength of His power;

Not one is missing.

27Why do you say, O Jacob,

And speak, O Israel:

“My way is hidden from the Lord,

And my just claim is passed over by my God”?

28Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

The everlasting God, the Lord,

The Creator of the ends of the earth,

Neither faints nor is weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

29He gives power to the weak,

And to those who have no might He increases strength.

30Even the youths shall faint and be weary,

And the young men shall utterly fall,

31But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

Our God is in control, His word is powerful, His love is consuming. REST in HIM!