Someone once said to me, “I pray for you harder on Mondays. They seem to be really tough on you.” He was right. They are, and I’m not 100% sure why. It’s like the spirit world collides with my emotions and suddenly I’m very aware of the sorrows and hardships around me. Sometimes I get the hard hitting news on Monday, and sometimes I feel the pain of sorrowful news I will receive at the end of the week. I’m not sure why and what it is all about, but I know that I always find myself on my knees and interceding on Mondays.

I wish that I were a more entertaining writer, that my content was light and airy, but the truth is, I write when I am burdened. See, I learned this method of processing from David. I figure someone who was King and was tagged as “One after God’s own heart” must have some wisdom in how he vented. David would get upset or sad or mad and he would run to God. He would let him know how he was hurting the source of his pain and his desire for resolution and as he sang, or played, or wrote, God revealed the Truth. He does the same with me. When I get hurt or or hurt for others or feel the pain that has no name or sometimes origin, I run to Daddy God…and I pour out my heart to Him, and as I write He speaks.

This Monday was no different. He met me with one amazing message. He met me in my shower with tear stained cheeks and shaking shoulders prostrate at His feet with one and only one word. It hit me so hard it literally took my labored breath away, and I wailed with the revelation of it. It was simply this – LOVE.

We don’t get this. We really don’t. We can’t see this amazing, all consuming love because our pain overrides it’s truth. He loves us! Not with a fickle human love that ebbs and flows with emotion, but He has for us an eternal love, an enduring love – a love that always hopes, always believes, never fails. It’s an extravagant love, and our circumstances do not change that. He gives and He takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord!

It’s hard to swallow at times…in the ICU watching your loved ones labored breath, asking “WHY??” When you get the news that your loved one is dead, dying, or not expected to make it, or you find out you’ve miscarried, or your unable to have children, or your child has been molested, or your son is an alcoholic, or your daughter has cancer, or you’ve lost your only friend, or your husband filed for divorce, or your teen ran away, again, or you discovered a lump…whatever it is where we find ourselves begging, pleading, searching, needing…we must always remember that He is Love.

We must believe that He is with us even in the pain of it all. We must believe that He has the power to turn tragedy into beauty. We must trust that He can make all things new. We must cling to His promises. We must realize that nothing is impossible with Him. We must have faith that He is Who He says He is. We must believe that He hears our prayers, He feels our pain, He knows our hearts, and those groans that we cannot express find expression through His Spirit. We must.

I have heard His heart tonight…I have cried human tears for His superhuman sorrow, and what I have felt in my own little community and world, is but the tiniest fraction of what He feels and knows and breaks His heart the world over. Our God is vulnerable to our emotions…we see testament of this throughout the Word of God. We move Him with our expression and what we feel does make a difference. He cares for us. More than we will ever know. More than we can ever believe. He cares and He loves us. It doesn’t mean our afflictions go away…it means He is our Hope, that there is beauty in ashes, and joy does come in the morning…even on Mondays.