Wandering through life with a vain pursuit of self, circumstances eventually hunted me down and forced me to look into the mirror of myself. Standing in front of the mirror, with a tear running down my face, it took everything I had to see the stranger looking back at me. I became a person that I knew deep down inside I wasn’t, but I didn’t have the courage to come out of hiding. Numbing myself to the pain in life, I convinced myself that it was easier to exist behind a mask, paralyzed at the thought of being exposed. I exhausted myself trying to outrun my pain. This is not who I wanted to be. I was living life the way I wanted to live it, but once my eyes were opened, I realized that I wasn’t free. Flying solo in life left me tired, beaten down, and empty. I’ve tried so long to make it on my own that my hopes and dreams became scattered fragments of what they could have been.

Sometimes there is no way out of your circumstances than to completely trust God. Sometimes He will not allow things to go your way, because He loves you. Is your night one of discouragement, rejection, or failure? Do you feel that no one understands you? Take heart, your Father in heaven will come near to you in the night and give you a song—a song of hope, which will be harmonious with the strong, resonant music of His amazing grace and providence. There is freedom waiting in the sweet rhythm of His song.

I have been through the valley of weeping,
The valley of sorrow and pain;
But the ‘God of all comfort’ was with me,
At hand to uphold and sustain.

As the earth needs the clouds and sunshine,
Our souls need both sorrow and joy;
So He places us oft in the furnace,
The dross from the gold to destroy.

When he leads through some valley of trouble,
His omnipotent hand we trace;
For the trials and sorrows He sends us,
Are part of His lessons in grace.

Oft we shrink from the purging and pruning,
Forgetting the Gardener knows
That the deeper the cutting and trimming,
The richer the cluster that grows.

Well He knows that affliction is needed;
He has a wise purpose in view,
And in the dark valley He whispers,
“Soon you’ll understand what I do.”

As we travel through life’s shadowed valley,
Fresh springs of His love ever rise;
And we learn that our sorrows and losses,
Are blessings just sent in disguise.

So we’ll follow wherever He leads us,
Let the path be dreary or bright;
For we’ve proved that our God can give comfort;
Our God can give songs in the night.

From the unabridged edition of ‘Streams in the Desert’ (public domain version)

Let me ask the questions again…

Is your night one of discouragement, rejection, or failure?

Do you feel that no one understands you?