He HAS come and He IS coming....

This weekend has been a hard one for me.  I do not want to take away from the victims of the Sandy Hook tradgedy because I know the fraction of what I am feeling and have felt this weekend and today does not even come close to what the parents and victims have felt.  But even so I have been grieving this weekend and today.  My little world has been shattered and I realize how easily it could all be taken from me.  I have spent each night looking at my children as they sleep, begging God to please let me keep them, to please protect them, to not let any harm come to them.  I have cried many tears for the parents who have lost their children, imagining what they are going through, made only more difficult by Christmas coming in one week.  I have felt so much anger and even hatred at the shooter and other shooters in the past.  I have had all these emotions swirling around the past 72+ hours, often unable to go more than a few minutes without thinking about it.

This morning I took time to come to God-time that I say with shame, doesn't come too often.  I cried as I prayed and asked Him to please show Himself to me as I read, to please give me Hope.  He did.  I read Isaiah 9:2-7 and 11:1-10.  I found such hope and comfort in those words.  Here are the verses that particularly touched me:

"The people walking in the darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned." (vs. 9:2)

We are living in the land of the shadow of death and yet a light has dawned!  He has come!!  Praise the Lord!  He has overcome!

"They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as waters cover the sea.  In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him and his place of rest will be glorious."  (11:9-10)

He is coming!  He will rule!  There will be no more tears or crying!  This is certain.

I take great hope and comfort in the truth of these two passages-that He HAS come! and that He IS coming again!  One day He will make it all right-the "earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord...His place of rest will be glorious."  I look forward to that day.