stopped in my tracks

Do you ever read something and feel it resonate deep into the depths of your heart?  It's a strange sensation, to be reading along and have something stop you dead in your tracks- like the words on the page were written specifically to you.

I get a daily devotion in my inbox each morning- Streams in the Desert, by L.B. Cowman.  I've got this in my inbox for years, and there are times in my life I pay more attention to it than others.  Maybe it's because I'm living in the desert right now, but I've been reading it a bit more closely each morning.  Yesterday, the words at the end of the passage stopped me.  I felt them deep in the very depths of my heart.

"Beloved, do not try to get out of a dark place, except, in God's time and in God's way. The time of trouble is meant to teach you lessons that you sorely need... Premature deliverance may frustrate God's work of grace in your life." --The Still Small Voice


I've spent so much time in the past few weeks trying to figure God out... praying for things to work out in my time frame, in the ways I can see.  And as I sat there in frutstrated silence, wondering how in the world things would ever work out, the Lord spoke to me. 
 
I read the words above and KNEW.  I've been trying to find my own path, light my own way.  And in doing so, I had become frustrated, sad and a little big angry.  As I've prayed and tried to release this anxiety into His hands, He has begun to do a work.  My prayers have changed.  Instead of praying for deliverance and escape, I'm asking for His nearness.  Instead of asking for what I can see, I'm trusting in the unseen.  I'm asking His hand of grace to be upon me, doing a work that only He can do.
 
"Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys his servant?
If you are walking in darkness,
without a ray of light,
trust in the Lord
and rely on your God."
Isaiah 50:10