The Valley, the Springs, and the Hiding Place

“Did you have the expectation that your trials would get easier later in your walk?” The Bible study group started off with this question.

Absolutely not.

I was shocked to learn some of the women sitting around me, many years ahead in their walks with the Lord, began their Pilgrimage with a different expectation. Maybe it’s my melancholy bent, but I don’t recall a time when I thought life would be peachier with time. My expectations have been met.

Before answering the question, I wondered to myself why I didn’t share their expectation that life’s trials would diminish with time. “Corrie,” I thought to myself, “She shaped my understanding of the purpose of suffering.” When it was my turn to answer, I became very aware of how young I look. How young I am. All the assumptions they may have. Blushing, I recalled to all these weathered eyes, “My parents gifted me the requirement of reading Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place at a very young age. Because of that book, because of her story, my concept of life and our general purpose here as Christians was formed. My parents encouraged me to read this book when my mind was most malleable and it certainly molded the way I think about trials and suffering.” Recounting Casper Ten Boom’s analogy of the train ticket and God’s giving us grace when we need it, I spoke to some of my experiences in the valley. God gives us trials heavier than we can bear, and He provides grace to help in our time of need. “Our lives are His story, it’s all about Him anyway,” I choked out—conscious that some of those in this circle are probably in the valley right now. I will make it a place of springs. “Nothing of what He has put in my path has been about me, but by Him and through Him and to Him.”

“How do you practically keep your expectations in check?” Second question of the night.

A few beats and I chime in again. God has provided Ebenezers and I can’t help but speak of them. “In Nicaragua,” tucked away in a sweaty room full of desperate women, of lifetimes of unabated pain, “leading a group of women chronically plagued by trauma,” all of us dampened by palpable hopelessness, I try to accurately paint a picture of an indescribable scene, “I take my mind to that moment.” The way my legs stuck to the chair and the sweat dripped down my face and the women saw through my white skin and listened past my English words and learned about the heart of God in a story I did not tell them. “I take my mind to that moment when the weight of their reality was heavier than any I’ve encountered. They had no expectations of life—no expectation that they or their children would make it to the end of the day with a full belly, let alone that they would be treated with respect by their fellow humans. And the way I had to wrestle with the weight of all I’m privileged to have learned and read—these women could not read—and qualify that with the less-than-none resources available to this entire community…how could I boil down the purpose of suffering and how to expect a good God to be good and that there is hope for healing?” The Word. Scriptures that bound up my torn heart and fed my weary mind in the desert. “I had to look Scripture with the same desperation they looked to the next handout. It had to become life to them.” Even their suffering was about God. Christ already won the victory for them. Even there it is true that He has overcome the world. I can take heart even when I can’t understand.

Brought back to the present moment, I look at the faces staring back at me. “Anyway, that’s how I practically realign my expectations.” I was still trying to understand the general lack of recognition of Corrie Ten Boom’s story within the group—a true heroine of the Faith, my hero. A few days later I am suddenly aware of another layer to Corrie’s impact on my faith. When I read this book as a preteen, I knew that Corrie’s faith was available to me. I could radically forgive. I could believe when it meant the death of someone I love. I could take leaps of faith that cost everything. God is trustworthy because He gives us the faith to believe in Himself. Corrie’s reality was severe: the refining fire she endured cost her more than most people ever even have to think about. Everyone’s reality is severe. Suffering is everywhere. Are you looking? Are you listening? Aren’t you hurting? All of us have been through it—some of us have the privilege that comes when suffering costs us all we have to give this side of heaven. Corrie had that privilege. Some of us suffer from the numbness and blindness of worldly treasure, without the blatant opportunity to worship the King when He takes it all. I am suddenly aware that faith is given and trust comes with a price. It’s all about Him. And even better if He takes all I have since I could never give it up of my own accord.

How lovely are Your dwelling places,

O Lord of hosts!

My soul (my life, my inner self) longs for and greatly desires the courts of the Lord;My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

The bird has found a house, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—

Even Your altars, O Lord of hosts,

My King and my God.

Blessed and greatly favored are those who dwell in Your house and Your presence;

They will be singing Your praises all the day long. Selah.

Blessed and greatly favored is the man whose strength is

in You,

In whose heart are the highways to Zion.

Passing through the Valley of Weeping (Baca), they make it a place of springs;

The early rain also covers it with blessings.

They go from strength to strength [increasing in victorious power];

Each of them appears before God in Zion.

O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;

Listen, O God of Jacob! Selah.

See our shield, O God,

And look at the face of Your anointed [the king as Your representative].

For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else];

I would rather stand [as a doorkeeper] at the threshold of

the house of my God

Than to live [at ease] in the tents of wickedness.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

The Lord bestows grace and favor and honor;

No good thing will He withhold from those who walk

uprightly.

O Lord of hosts,

How blessed and greatly favored is the man who trusts in

You [believing in You, relying on You, and committing himself to You with confident hope and expectation].

Psalm 84, AMP