One thing that brings comfort when life is just plain hard

I sat across from a line of women in the visitors room at the local jail that Tuesday night.

They were all wearing orange jumpsuits and their stories came in fragmented pieces during the sharing time.

We prayed together.

We sang worship songs.

We shared a few little stories.

We read about Moses. You know about Moses, right? The man who messed up big time? Miraculously saved when the rest of his peers were being killed, and then raised with privilege– and he screws it all up. He kills a man and tries to hide it. When that fails, he runs away.

And yet, still, God chose to use him. To take the broken mess he’d made of his life and use it. Every fragmented piece.

For back in Egypt there were the Hebrew people, locked in slavery. Groaning to God. It says that God heard them and remembered His covenant with them.

“God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” 

The words slip over me, crushing my lungs with their power.

It’s the promise He’s been building in me since my first taste of infertility, my first glimpse of unexplained loss. It’s crashed into my heart through the miscarriage, the barren years, the journey of the lost-daughter, the arrival of our miracle-daughter, and the loss of baby Annie.

His words whispering, groaning, thundering.

Tasha, I know.

He knows my pain. My sorrow. My aching loss. And He never, ever leaves my side. All the way through it He walks with me. Every tear, all the anger, all the fear.

He knows.

I sat there, with all these women whose lives are in shambles, and I realized that this is the story I want to tell them. The God of Moses, the God of the Hebrews– He is MY God. And He wants to be theirs.

He is a God who knows, personally, every single thing we face. And He never leaves. He never, ever leaves.

God knew. God knows. God will know.

This word, this “knowledge” that is spoken of, is the Hebrew word “Yada“. The word that means intimately knowing. Acknowledging. Understanding.

And this is my favorite thing about God. That no matter what I face, no matter how many times the enemy whispers that I am alone and no one understands– the truth is that God intimately knows.

Even if my life is in shambles, He has use for me. Even if I am trapped in an Egypt in my life, He knows. And God is working, moving– even when I can’t see it.

Your life may be in shambles, friend. It may be filled with brokenness and emptiness and loss– but God has not forsaken you. He is on the move.

Whether your struggles come from your own sinfulness, as Moses did– or if they come from life circumstances oppressing you, as the Hebrews faced– God is still present. He is working. And He intimately knows everything you are facing.

You are not alone.