Love is always there

I've found myself in a place of confusion, of disorientation, of being stranded with no one to help. For those of you that don't know what I am dealing with, let me explain. I am not attending school this semester. Financially, my family has hit rock bottom. Last semester, financial aid wasn't able to cover everything and has left me with a $6,500 debt to pay off. My mom just found out she needs a new engine for her car on top of all the car issues I am facing. She is also facing surgery for a meniscus tear that has been bothering her for a while. Things seem like they are going the wrong direction. Due to all of this, I have had to face the decision whether or not to stay in Arizona to finish school. This semester I am searching for a job, for a scholarship, for help, but at the end of the semester I will most likely be moving to Colorado to finish school at a cheaper rate. There are so many choices I have in front of me, so many life changes, so many difficulties. It's all so crazy right now, but this morning I had a confirmation of sorts in the scripture I read. This morning I read out of Psalm 22, Philippians 3, and the last chapter of Ben Courson's book, "A Generation Chosen". Psalm 22 starts off with this: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning. O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear, And in the night season, and am not silent." You ever have times where you felt like that? I can think of one major one.

The time: 3:00 pm, location: somewhere in Southern Utah, temperature: 95 degrees. I was on my way home from school. I had decided to drive home this summer. Instantly, driving through Arizona, my car started overheating sporadically, especially on hills. I thought it was just because I was hauling a lot of weight. As I descended the mountains, the problem went away, but it also got A LOT hotter. The car started to spike on the temperature gauge. I managed to draft an RV for an hour, providing a way for the car to not overheat. We drove through the most barren of landscapes, nothing in sight. Unfortunately, the RV didn't drive all the way to Washington. He pulled off at the border of Arizona and Utah. For the next hour or so I was pulling off the side of the road every two miles to cool down the car. Finally I got discouraged. Was I ever going to get home? Was anyone going to help me? Would I be stranded here forever forging my own living in the red rock, barren landscape of Southern Utah? I was stranded. But as I sat their, tears swelling on my face, a lady stopped and helped me. She drove me to the nearby city of Kanab, got me hooked up with a tow truck, and then let me stay at her house for 4 days while my car was being fixed. I eventually got on the road again, got home, and lived on without having to forge my own living through Utah wilderness.

And guess who else realized that God is always there. David says in the same psalm, verse 24, "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard." Now you may know the first part of this psalm was quoted by Jesus on the cross. In fact, this entire psalm is a prophecy of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And in that, I can know that I will always be heard. God heard his son cry out on the cross! In fact when Paul took grasp of what Jesus did, he understood something that I often lose focus of.

Philippians 3:8-10 says "Yet indeed, I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ, that I may be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death"

When I return to what Jesus did for me, I can remember that no matter how lost and stranded I get, the Lord will always be there to rescue me, to give me direction, to walk me through, step by step, the suffering I might be going through. When I return to the crucifixion and resurrection of our savior, I count everything else as loss. I know he saved me, I know his power, I know he hears me, and I know he has a future and a hope for me.

It was crazy when I read the same thing in Bens book about his experience getting lost in the redwoods and needing to call for a ranger to rescue Him. He was stranded, lost, and afraid just like me. We all get there, we make a wrong turn, we lose sight, things get foggy, it seems like there is nothing going right. We cry out, and guess what, the Lord hears us!

He is always there!