His Purposes for Me

I have felt so lost this year.

I don't want to glamorize or simplify what life was like when G was alive, because the truth is that life was hard. Days were draining. I was being poured out constantly - for G, for P, for ministry. I felt torn between the needs of the two people closest to me whose needs were so different. At times it felt oppressive.

At the same time, I knew what was being asked of me. Surrender to the struggle. Serve my family. Lay down my life and my desires and my wants for those God called me to serve.

I was a wife, and that was a big part of my identity and a huge part of my life. It impacted everything!

So now that I'm no longer a wife, I have felt at a loss for where my life is headed. Who am I know? What did God make me to do? Instead of responding to the path set for me by my husband, I am having to forge my own path - for the first time in 14 years.

This morning, I was reading in Psalm 57 and came across these words of King David in vs. 1-2:

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,

for in you my soul takes refuge;

in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,

till the storms of destruction pass by.

I cry out to God Most High,

to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

David writes these words will hiding in a cave from the current king, Saul. David, who had been anointed king so many years before. Whose circumstances looked nothing like the promise he'd been given. What kind of future king is hiding in a cave? If he is to be king, why is it so likely that he will be murdered by the current king?

I am amazed by his faith. David, who was such a flawed man. David, whom God called a man after his own heart. David is honest about his circumstances - they are terrible! - but he doesn't doubt God. He knows that God is in control, even when he is sitting in a cave instead of ruling over his people. Did David feel like his life was being wasted? Certainly it must've felt like his time was being wasted! Who is he influencing in a cave? What is he doing but hiding? How much smaller of an impact can someone have then when they are alone and in hiding?

I will never be king over Israel, clearly. Nor anything close to that. But it is comforting to realize that maybe I am in my "cave". A season of trusting that God will fulfill his purposes for me, even when I feel purposeless. A season of preparation for what God has and learning to trust him when I cannot see what he's doing.

David doesn't have to figure out what his purpose is o

r carve out his own "niche". He simply has to do what called has called him to in the moment - which is always to trust in God and hope in him. God's purposes for David were fulfilled, just as his purposes for me will be. One day at a time. Waiting on him. Following him. Trusting him. He does have a plan. I do not have to figure it out. He will fulfill his purposes for me.