Footprints (not a funny post... sorry)

(If you are not familiar with the poem, please read Footprints in the Sand before continuing.)

I had dinner with the church ladies last week Monday night.  To start conversation, we were all to share how each of us had seen God in our lives in the last month.

Right.
After this year?
The Book of Job* has come to mind often, folks.  I've been pretty angry this year.  God and I have had some words.
Okay... I've had some words. 
Mine was a senseless, depressing year.
I had seen God nowhere.
He had left my questions unanswered.

*sigh*

I probably shouldn't have attended the dinner in the first place.  Lily had just passed away two nights before.  I thought going out would be good for me.
And they wanted me to share a story of God in my life?  I had nothing.

I was still wondering what I was going to share when the woman sitting next to me admitted that she'd had a rough month.  The holidays had been stressful, her job had been difficult.  She said that she hadn't seen God anywhere in her life. She said that God, if anything, had been just helping her through it.  She had nothing.  She went with that.

That sounded pretty good to me.  I could say just about the same thing and get away with it.
So, what I said to the church ladies was this:
"I've had a rough stretch, too. I'm not feeling God anywhere. There's only one set of footprints in my sand.  I can only trust He's carrying me."

Without any further explanation, they all nodded.
They knew exactly what I meant.

Yet, it took me this whole week to figure it out.

Throughout the year, I had many times cried out, "Where are You! You left me! I need You more than ever, and You left me all alone!"

I finally realized that I had been traveling that beach, looking back every once and a while, and seeing just one set of footprints.  Feeling so alone.  Feeling abandoned.
But, I wasn't.
Maybe I hadn't felt His presence, but He was there the entire way.

I should probably be honest and admit that I'm still not feeling it.
But, I've gotten my gold cross pendant back out of the jewelry box, and I've been wearing it 24/7 like I used to.

Hoping now that He'll forgive me for doubting.
Believing He already has.



*Book of Job: Job, confident of his own innocence, maintains that his suffering is unjustified as he has not sinned, and that there is no reason for God to punish him thus. However, he does not curse God's name or accuse God of injustice but rather seeks an explanation or an account of his wrong doing.