yet and still: "though you slay me" (featuring John Piper)

yesterday i told you about kylie and her battle with bone cancer.
i asked you to pray for her and for her family.
i'll ask that again today.
please pray.
pray big.

and since yesterday's post, i've heard from some of you ... questioning ... demanding ... desiring to know what all this is and where it all comes from and what it all means.

and i'm right there with you ----
in those questions. and in those doubts. and, yes, even in the overwhelming sense of outrage.

how, in our fragile humanity, can we be anything but that ... anyplace but there?

AND YET ...

God, the Father, Abba ... oh ... He is so present in all of it.
as our community cries out to Him ... He is so very present in the pain and so very good even in grief.
and that doesn't make one bit of sense in the limitations of my brain ...
only in the deep places of my needy, needy hurting heart.
only there.

and, yes, somehow, even when the world wrestles with the very hardest stuff of life ---
He is there. He is good.

there's absolutely no tidy packaging or processing for the grief so many feel for precious kylie and her family ... we join them flat on our faces ... begging for God's healing ... for mercy.

but running in the wild current of all that this is ...
we, as His children, can know-trust-believe ... 
He is here.
He is present.
He is good.

last month, the day my mother-in-law passed away, rick's dad shared this video with me. it ministered to the rawest places of my heart. of my hurt. i pulled it out again this morning and wanted to share with y'all.
shane and shane join with john piper to deliver a powerful message for those in deep places of hurt.
i encourage you to find a quiet moment in your day and watch.

"though you slay me
{yet} i will praise you.
though you take from me
i will bless your name.
though you ruin me
{still} i will worship ...
sing a song to the one who's all i need."  
~ though you slay me

friend, are you feeling slayed, ruined, emptied, taken, destroyed, despairing? 
hear piper's words, your pain, "it is not meaningless!"

"so we do not lose heart.

though our outer self is wasting away,

our inner self is being renewed day by day.

for this light momentary affliction is preparing 

for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

as we look not to the things that are seen

but to the things that are unseen.

for the things that are seen are transient,

but the things that are unseen are eternal." 

~ 2 corinthians 4:16-18