As I was reading tonight, God allowed the words I was reading to paint a beautiful image of Him in my mind. It's quite late here where I am, but when I find words, I just can't seem to rest until I get them out. In light of that, let me share with these black and white words on a screen the image painted in my mind by black and white words on a page earlier this evening. I pray the image is as powerful for you as it is for me.
I recently picked up the book "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. She was a Christian who hid Jewish people during the Holocaust. She was caught but survived her time in a concentration camp. The book is her story.
I was reading the second chapter which spoke of some memories of hers when she was a little girl, decades before Hitler rose to power. She mentioned one particular time she had with her father. Her father would take her regularly on a train to Amsterdam. She often used the time to have a chance to talk with her father without her siblings and extended family there. It was just a time with her father she treasured. This particular time she was about ten or eleven. She had read something in school and didn't know what it meant. She took the time to ask her father, hoping for an answer which none had been willing to provide before him. Like most kids, she was curious about topics that were well beyond her years. Her question was a hard one and the answer was equally difficult. Her father's response was incredibly wise.
Her father took down his travel case and asked her to carry it off the train for him. When she couldn't, she told him it was too heavy for her as it was filled with watch parts and clock parts (her father did clock and watch repairs for his living). Here are the following paragraphs.
"Yes," he said. "And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his
little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge.
Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger
you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you."
And I was satisfied. More than satisfied--wonderfully at peace.
There were answers to this and all my hard questions--for
now I was content to leave them in my father's keeping.
What a beautiful picture of a father's love and care and protection of his daughter. She had asked a question in which the answer was beyond her little years and more than her little heart would have been able to bear. Her father knew that one day the knowledge she sought would be given, but he understood that the particular moment they were in was not the right time. He explained she would know one day, but at that time, the answer would be too heavy. He asked her to trust him to carry the knowledge that was too much for her to carry on her own until she was strong enough to bear the weight when her maturity caught up with her curiosity. In her childlike wonder with her innocence still intact, she was at peace leaving the answers to her hard questions safely in her father's keeping.
Oh how much more does my Father in heaven love and care and protect me, His daughter, than Corrie's father could love, care and protect her! The gentle and patient love and protection of Corrie's father is just a small glimpse of God's fatherly love and protection of His children. With this picture, my heavenly Father is gently reminding me to trust Him to carry the knowledge that is too heavy for me on this journey right now. I am spurred on to rest in the same peace young Corrie found as I leave the answers I am not ready for safely in my Father's keeping.
So often, I find myself frustrated with the journey. I want to snap my fingers and somehow deal with all the hurt all at once, so I can get to the healing faster. I don't want to move slowly through each memory that feels more present than past, each lie I don't know how to let go of, each truth that brings with it the need to face feelings I have long sought to pretend never even existed. I want to get it all over with, but God is calling me to a different journey than the one I want. It is slow. It often times hurts. Frequently I feel like healing is more of a dream than a promise I'll see fulfilled one day. It is a path through my own brokenness that I keep trying to hold together even when He's calling me to lay it down in His loving care. Many days it feels more like a battle than a path I'm walking, and I reach the end of the day beaten and bruised and exhausted.
He is only giving me little bits of knowledge at a time on this beaten road, and He is asking me to trust Him with the knowledge He knows is too heavy for me to carry right now. He is reminding me of His perfect care for me. I struggle to find peace in not knowing the answers even though I know they rest safely in my Father's care. Unlike young Corrie, my innocence is gone. Finding solace in such an answer is not an easy request for me. But the picture of how my Father cares for me, loves me, protects me, is one I will not soon forget.
For too many years there was no one who cared for me, loved me, protected me. I always wanted someone who would, but that person never came. Now He is here, and He is calling me to entrust into His keeping the answers, the memories, the truths, the feelings that are too heavy for me to carry right now. He will carry them for me until I am strong enough to carry them myself. He knows when that will be, and He will be ready to guide me through that time of learning what I cannot handle now. The knowledge is never easy when it is given, but He knows when best to give it. He is saying to me now "Some knowledge is too heavy for [you now.] When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust Me to carry it for you." And I pray "[Father help me be] content to leave them in [Your] keeping."
Beautiful !!!
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