A Transition of Godly Sorrow
15 September 2024
These past 15 months are probably the darkest years of my life. When I tried to find my journal of 2023 to recall this path of sorrow the Lord said I will go through in order to transit and pivot into a new beginning, I could not find it!
And what is scary, I cannot even remember what it looked like. These journals are very dear to me, and I faithfully put them away on my shelf when every year passes. But 2023 is not there.
All I have is this screenshot about this path of godly sorrow I found on my computer.
Studying it, I sort of recall that when told about the coming of the Mother of All Wars, I went full throttle to try to simplify and consolidate my finances and my life. I urged everyone to prepare ourselves for battle, physically, mentally and spiritually, so that we and our loved ones may come under His divine protection when death and devastation passes over this earth.
I listened hard and worked very hard, running against time.
Today, as I pen this, I realised that God had pre-warned me in June last year when He showed me two doors – “Out” and “In”. We are to stop whatever we have been doing in the past years as that door is closing and to move into a new door, a new season, to be fully prepared for the coming war.
“This will be a transition of silence. A path of godly sorrow.”
I shared it with the members and thought that it will just take maybe 6 months to complete the transition before 2024 begins. Little would I know how long and hard and painful this path of sorrow will be.
I realise today that the war was already on since the get-go in June 2023!
All of us came under severe attack as we tried to prepare ourselves for a worldwide war. We were swamped with trouble and challenges on all sides - cancer, illnesses, botched surgeries, injuries, marital breakdowns of loved ones, insomnia, fatigue, misunderstanding and rebellion within the community, and death and near-death and more.
Self-Imposed Exile
It got so bad that some days, I was merely coping hour by hour, minute by minute, just floating through life. I lost track of time and space. My ordered and well organised life was thrown into disarray.
But I tried to stay on track of His assignment, knowing it is just the urgency of the times. Hanging on to God for my dear life, totally resigned to His love, I clung on to Him. I pressed in to hear His still, small voice that guided me and talked with me; taking one step, one day at a time. What I can do, I do. What I cannot, I ask, I pray and then unload.
I went into my self-imposed exile, away from it all, surrendering all, emptying my plate, to rest when I can, to run when I have to, to help only when He tells me to.
I thank God for the new caretakers He had picked for our community in Singapore and Switzerland. Perfectly fitted and equipped, they eased into their responsibilities, without need for close supervision or follow up, lightening my load.
Thank God for the 1 Percent
My pastor used to comfort me when, being the high-energy, big-hearted person that I am, I did so much for the Church and for people until the day I burned out, without any more left in me to give.
“Sara”, she said softly, “It is always like this for highly motivated and high-performance people like you. They do 99 things right and well, without complaint or expectations, and then the one time they fail to do it, everyone gets upset. Because they have grown accustomed to their dependability, with everything being done and served, on time.”
I realised then that the problem was then me – perhaps I have become too good in what I do, too generous and spontaneous in giving and problem solving, that they have got used to expecting it. Even when I tell them that I am totally spent, barely functioning and dying inside, it somehow falls on deaf ears.
In the past, God had taught me to love myself and walk away after saying “No”, even when they are not listening, to go on retreats with the Lord about two times a year to take a much-needed break.
But this time, this break extended far longer than I imagined.
And thank God, He has preserved the small community of kindred spirits within COBS, people who are also like me, doing much, speaking little, fighting stoically, while upholding each other in spirit. That when we get to meet, we are speechless; can only sigh as we take a deep breath, with a knowing smile in our tired spirit. They are the 1% who empathise and understand what I am going through.
Thank you, Lord, for sending them on this path of godly sorrow with me.
And for the 99 who don’t understand, I do not expect they should. The Lord gently tells me that just as they do not understand what I am going through, I too do not know what they are going through. They can and should look to Him for the answers and help. While it may sometimes be painful or vexing, I relinquish and hand them back to the Lord.
I just take care that everything I do and say is in Him, with Him and from Him.
This next series of posts will take us into the new year are some of my conversations with God, who provided me with invaluable insight and instructions in the past fifteen months, as I plodded through, not without some groans and moans, on another round of breaking in this transition of godly sorrow.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
