He Did Not Let Me Go

Journal Entry. 2021st November.

I thank the Lord for the season in which I nearly forsook my own family.

At the time, I imagined myself to be master of my own course, wandering wherever my desires carried me like a rabid dog loosed. Yet I now see that I was never beyond the sovereign hand of God. Though I knew it not, I was upon a leash. Blessed be His holy name for that leash.

I thank God that He was pleased to lower me into a pit of mire and filth until I sank beneath the weight of my own corruption, scraping the very mud at the bottom in utter helplessness. Yet it was never His purpose to abandon me there. He wounded me that He might heal me. He humbled me that He might exalt me. He brought me to the end of myself, only that I might find my beginning in Christ.

In those days I blamed my wife for my unfaithfulness, while all the while it was I who had been unfaithful. She blamed me for her bitterness, while all the while it was she who had become bitter. For fourteen years I drank deeply of the pleasures of the flesh, living from day to day with little thought beyond, "I will only live once." Yet while I pursued my own destruction, God was quietly accomplishing a far greater work.

He taught my wife through many tears to pray without ceasing. One by one He stripped away the bitterness, the resentment, and the self-justification that had mingled with her petitions, until all that remained was a heart wholly surrendered to whatever pleased Him. At last she came to see that she herself stood in need of forgiveness. And the Lord was pleased to grant it unto her with overflowing joy.

Thereafter, in His appointed time, He was pleased to save me also. He laid bare my own heart and brought me under the same conviction: it was I who had sinned. Every accusation against another was silenced beneath the light of His holiness.

Thus peace found her. Repentance found me. Salvation found us.

I would have nothing of lasting worth to teach my children today had the Lord not first stripped and wounded me. His sharpest dealings have become my richest lessons, and His severest providences my sweetest testimonies.  It is no difficult thing to give thanks when the cupboard is full and the table well supplied. But what proceeds from the heart when life presses hard upon it? It is in the furnace that faith is forged.

I remember the day I was grievously injured by a grinder, tearing the flesh off my lower limbs and exposing my bones. Yet all the way to the hospital my lips were filled with praise unto God. Had it pleased Him that I should have lost both my legs that day, I trust I would still have blessed His holy name from the hospital bed. For He doeth all things well! His goodness is not measured by the absence of suffering, but by His holy purpose in ordaining it.

The pain which the world inflicts leaves only bitterness in its wake. But the pain that proceeds from the gracious hand of God worketh otherwise. It humbles the proud, weans the heart from earthly confidence, drives the soul nearer unto Christ, and teaches lessons that comfort could never impart. His wounds are never needless. They are the wise and loving strokes of a Father determined to conform His children unto the image of His Son.

If you only praise God for what He gives you, then you will despise Him for what He takes away. When we say Jesus is Lord, we are saying all is His. Therefore, His generosity is grace, and His taking away is just.

D. Partridge