The handoff

It's a Friday or Sunday evening at the gas station right off the highway.

A car pulls up. There's an adult with one, maybe more kids in the back. Another car pulls up. The adult and children get out of the first car. Luggage is pulled out of the trunk and placed in the second car. There are hugs good-bye and hugs hello. The interaction between the adults varies. Sometimes there's friendly acknowledgement. Sometimes there is no recognition whatsoever. Eventually the cars drive away.

Another successful visitation handoff.

I should be used to this by now, but it's sad watching kids getting passed from one parent to the other. It's sad when I have to do this myself, hugging my daughter good-bye, and then watching her drive away.

On the one hand it's routine, all part of the new normal. On the other hand, it's a reminder that things are not as they should be.

I don't want to turn the clock back. I don't want to go back to being who I used to be - emotionally, mentally, and above all spiritually. Anyway circumstances have made it impossible to return to the way things were.

It's not as though there haven't been fresh joys, daily grace, and new beginnings. Praise God that what was meant for evil, He meant for good, but wrong doesn't suddenly become good. Sin still leaves a mark, sometimes for life.  Just like certain weather makes your joints ache, these handoffs can resurrected the pain all over again.

So what to do? Feel sorry for myself? It's tempting sometimes. There are times I wish I could talk to someone who understands and finally get those things off my chest that I've kept silent about for years. But there is someone I can talk to - a Friend of sinners, an older Brother, a High Priest who can sympathize with my weakness but is perfect and sinless. He already knows everything, but there's something about putting those bottled-up thoughts and emotions into words and finally releasing them.

I love how Spurgeon puts it - "It is a good thing to empty it, for this grief may ferment into something more sour. Turn the vessel upside down and let every drop run out—but let it be before the Lord."

I think it's time to turn my vessel upside down.

Remember David’s words, “You people, pour out your hearts”—but do not stop there, finish the quotation—“You people, pour out your hearts before Him.” Turn the vessel upside down! It is a good thing to empty it, for this grief may ferment into something more sour. Turn the vessel upside down and let every drop run out—but let it be before the Lord. “You people, pour out your hearts before Him: God is a refuge for us.” When you are bowed down beneath a heavy burden of sorrow, then take to worshipping the Lord and, especially, to that kind of worshipping which lies in adoring God—and in making a full surrender of yourself to the Divine will—so that you can say with Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” That kind of worshipping which lies in the subduing of the will, the awakening of the affections, the bestirring of the whole mind and heart and the presentation of oneself to God over, again, in solemn consecration, must tend to sweeten sorrow and to take the sting out of it.   

Job's Resignation, Sermon 2457, C.H. Spurgeon