Lamenting...

While I believe I've pretty much recovered from my depression over the Presidential election, I am still lamenting what might have been...

From One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, page 175 ~

Lament is a cry, a belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty.  Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love beat of the Father's heart.  God's anger kindles hot when the essence of the complaint implies doubt in His love...

Doesn't God Himself express righteous indignation, wounded deep with His own sinning Israelite children?  Didn't God's heart often break?  Didn't he grieve and rage and feel rejection (Genesis 6:6, Exodus 4:14)  I read it in the pages of Scripture, lines of His own story, the Joy-God owning His own grief, so I won't be Naaman and I won't pretend I don't feel any pain.  

My heart aches for Mitt and Ann Romney who sacrificed so much and worked so hard offering us a better America, and to have the voice of the people to reject the better way that they offered.  I feel like America is ripening for destruction and rejecting God.  It's tragic but we have been warned and it's coming to pass.  So I feel sorry for the Romney family, but more than that I feel sorry for America. Continuing from the book:

Army chief Naaman (2 Kings 5:1), Naaman with the grotesque leprosy that thickens the skin numb.  numbness, too, can twist the body beastlike.  In the end, it's the numbness that kills you.  So I will be real and I will feel life and I will be Naaman who bends the knee, enters the muddy waters of emotions.  True lament is the bold faith that trusts Perfect Love enough to feel and cry authentic.

I may feel disappointment and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions.  While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things, because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.

I trust in God and I thank Him.  I know that He loves the world and everything He does is for the benefit of the world.  I pray for President Obama that he may seek wisdom in guiding our country.  As he said in his victory speech "We rise and fall together as one nation."  I don't want America to fall, but Thy will be done.  My family and I will trust in God, not government, we'll strive to be ready for the difficult days ahead and we will stand strong in this promised land where Christ is King.