Crossword puzzle

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Every Sunday Morning I sit next to my mother in church.  Recently I noticed a quirky behavior that she has. Upon receiving the bulletin she gets out her pen and begins to fill in the empty spaces in her notes.  I was surprised that she so quickly could figure out what our pastor was teaching about. There were many times that she began filling in the words before anything was projected on the screen.  After a few weeks of this I asked her why she does it. I will never forget her response to me.

"Filling in the blanks is just like completing a crossword puzzle, I like the challenge of it!"

I must admit it was a novel approach to listening to the sermon.  We do this often in our relationship with God. Trying to out guess him. I am so guilty of trying to figure out God's plan for my life.  Sometimes I even make things fit into the puzzle that maybe don't fit but I want them so I push them in.


Have you been here?


Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans he has for us.  Not that we know His plans.


If you struggle with letting God direct your steps, here are some verses that may help you to trust Him more.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5

Thus says the Lord, Your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go. Isaiah 48:17

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.” Psalm 32:8

For this is God, our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death. Psalm 48:14

The Lord will guide you continually  Isaiah 58:11

Take delight in the LORD, 

   and he will give you the desires of your heart.

  Commit your way to the LORD; 

   trust in him and he will do this: 

 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, 

   your vindication like the noonday sun.

 Be still before the LORD 

   and wait patiently for him; 

Psalm 37:4-7

Pain, Pain Go Away!

Sitting in the middle of a conference, all of a sudden something did not feel right. My back was killing me. It was as if someone was sticking a knife into my lower back and twisting it. The pain was unbelievable!


I layed down on the floor in the back of the room thinking that maybe it would get better.  It didn't! Then I  realized that I needed to drive home. 


I hobbled to the car and tried to sit down. "Ow, ow, ow, ow". I kept whimpering. The thirty minutes it took to get home were extremely painful! I had to pull over at one point because I was crying so much.  Who knew that your back could cause you so much pain? Please make the pain go away!


Once I got home, I crawled up the stairs and layed in the bed. I was praying that I would just pass out so I wouldn't feel any more pain. When my husband got home and discovered his pitiful wife in pain he suggested that we go to urgent care. All I could do is nod.


Because sitting caused more pain, I layed down in the back seat of the car. Upon arriving at urgent care the pain had significantly increased and the only way I could cope with it was to once again lay down. Without hesitation and no embarrassment on my part, I layed down on the waiting room floor! The hardest part was rolling on to my side to stand up when they called my name. 


After a battery of exams and x-rays they gave me a shot!  Oh blessed Demerol!  The shot was heavenly! Soon I was able to manage the pain enough to go to sleep!  The recovery from whatever happened to my back took 6 months to go away completely and years to regain the numbness that I felt in my left leg. 

We all have things that cause us pain.  Sometimes the pain is extreme like my back and other times the pain is ongoing and manageable. In the midst of my back pain, all I could think about was making it go away.

Pain has a way of confusing us. It gets us to focus only on the pain. 

The pain deceives us into thinking that;

No one understands

Things will never get better

God has abandoned us

It is important in the middle of the pain to remember what is true!

1. God understands 

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. I John 4:9-10

"He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.) Luke 22:44 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me,so far from my cries of anguish? ² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. Psalm 22:1-2

2.Things will get better

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 

Jeremiah 29:11

3. God is Always with us


For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39



Father, We do not always understand why there is so much pain in the world. Help us to trust in you and trust in the truth of your word. I believe that you understand my pain. I believe that there is hope for things to get better and that you are always with me. In the midst of our pain we ask you to make yourself and your presence known to us.