PRESSING

I remember the weight of the press that clamped me down and brought me to the brink of despair.  It was in relationships that fail and hopes that die and people who hurt.  It was in the failure of my heart and the call to courage that I did not answer. It came in the carnage of lives I love and dream for.  The weight of the press was constant and thorough.  It paralyzed my mind and made me want to sleep.  It perplexed me and I could not think to find my path and see my way to truth.  The straight path looked crooked and confusing.  I could find relief in temporary things and fleeting joy in eternal, but always I led back to the pressure and the trap.  Friends could help and make truth clear, pressure bearable and hope clarified but the press was working still.  Bitterness kept me there and comforted my natural stone heart at the same time that it challenged my supernatural heart of flesh.  Spirit faltered but hung on, so I was not crushed.  My despair was intermittent and so I was not without hope.  But overcoming seemed a dream and faith a constant choice.  I was not destroyed though I yearn for heaven to come and release me from this place. And in this I am being made to know His suffering and His victory even while the press was hard and long and I wait for hope.

     I don't feel the pain of the press so strongly now, but remember it well.  I know the press may come again because the work is not done, but I also see the dark is temporary and the pain is necessary.  Lord let me be without the crushing weight of emotional and spiritual struggle as long as you can, and still do the work in me. 

 We are pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  2 Cor 4:8-10

 And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ez. 36:26