“…Do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.” Mark 13:11b
It was already 2:30. Older women’s group was going to meet in half an hour and I still had nothing to share with them. I was exhausted from playing with kids and cleaning all day, and wanted nothing more than a nap. But that was not an option. Frustrated that everyone on my team was taking naps except me, some for seemingly the last few hours, I collapsed wearily onto God’s proverbial lap (also known as my mattress…it seems big and squishy enough). I reviewed everything that God had been teaching me, but none of it seemed relevant enough to what I knew these women were dealing with. I thought about what God had been teaching me over the last week since I’d seen the women…All of it seemed potentially discouraging rather than encouraging in that I had been very sick, fatigued, burdened and discouraged. And at that point, I was completely weak and weary.
I was coming to my wit’s end. Oh, but did I mention that God had been bringing the cliché Matthew 11:28-30 to my mind (for what I thought was my own sake) since the beginning? I had discounted it as being merely encouragement to myself while I struggled to come up with something to share with the women. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Certainly I was weary and burdened…I had been all week. But this couldn’t be what I was supposed to share with the women. I didn’t even have anything to say about the verse, aside from the obvious application.
And yet, it was absolutely all that God was willing to give me. I had no other choice but to share it, so I begrudgingly submitted myself to God. I pretty much told Him “God, this is the first time in my life where I’ve gone into something that I’m supposed to share a message with absolutely nothing to share. I’m going to trust You to speak for me. I know that You are strong in my weakness, and I am so weak right now, so make Your power perfect in me. And just so You know, if You do come through in this way, it will be one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced!”
After I yielded, I remembered that there was another verse God had been whispering to me in encouragement in the peripheral of my mind. I could barely even remember what it said…something about our valleys of tears becoming pools of blessings. I knew it was in one of the Psalms, but I had no idea of even which one, just a visual image of where it was on the page.
Women’s group was starting in two minutes. I flipped quickly through the Psalms, scanning desperately for the verse. My hope was fading, and I was considering giving up when the number 84 came to my memory. Suddenly, there it was! And sure enough, right where I remembered it being on the page, was The Verse…Psalm 84:5-6.
“Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca (tears), they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools of blessings.”
