Moment by Moment.

Last year I started praying for this girl. She was struggling. She didn’t trust God in her circumstances. She didn’t see her value. She felt as if God had wronged her. I watched her struggle through life. She took it one day at a time. Moment by moment. I found her one night crying in her car. I wiped the tears off her face as she told me how scared she was. Afraid of death. Afraid of dying. Afraid of suffering. She found herself telling people that they just needed to trust God through their circumstances, yet one day she lost her keys. She knew they were in her car. She knew it and yet she was so worried. God told her to trust Him. She didn’t. She found them only a short time later. God asked her, “If you can’t trust me with something as little as your keys, how can you trust me in the big things of life?” And I prayed again for her as she broke down in tears, realizing for the first time: She was afraid to trust in God. She would take back what happened for any other lot in life. I prayed for her in victory when she began to take steps forward in her life. She began to see that God can’t fall off of His throne. She could see that every bad thing, every good thing, they were gifts. Instead of being afraid of suffering, I watched as she worked to see her suffering as a blessing. I watched as she glanced in the rearview mirror of life and saw God’s hand in the worst of her circumstances. But, only a few days later, I saw her step back again and see only the loneliness and the tears God had made her cry. She couldn’t see where God was. She had asked him to hold her and carry her, yet she felt as if He had picked her up and thrown her off the cliff. She had been a good person. She hadn’t ever majorly screwed up. But, there she was. Hurting. So I prayed for her. Let her see that God is good. Let her see God loves her. Let her see that in life we may have troubles, but take heart the Lord has overcome. I knew God had brought her to her knees for a reason. I knew God had a greater purpose. I could see Him working in her life. I asked her who God was. She told me He was a wild, untamable, and unpredictable lion. She told me she loved it and yet she hated it. I watched her as she continued to take steps forward and take steps backwards. I kept praying. She’ll make it through the storm one day. But I prayed she would come out stronger. I prayed she would face the rain and watch how it made the flowers grow. When she was tired, I prayed. When she had joy, I prayed. Some days she dug into God’s love letter and other days she didn’t want to look at it. I told her, it was okay not to be okay. But, I prayed that one day she would be okay. I listened to her cry when family and friends died. I watched the nightmares play out in her sleep. I watched and it hurt me to see her pain. It hurt me because the person I was praying for was really me.