In 2002, I wrote a newspaper column that still expresses my heart. Here it is, revised to preserve the essence, and to clarify a few ideas I only now have words to convey.

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Two women are very much on my mind today. Neither knows the other. Each sat and talked with me the same week, and both uttered the same cry.

Oh, they spoke from different circumstances, and they said it with different words. But their heart longings were identical, and so poignant they left me almost breathless.

One of the women is young; the other, older. Both have tried to follow God. Yet neither is anywhere near the place she planned to be at this point in her life. What’s worse, the path ahead seems to lead farther and farther from where she longs to go.

Hearing their stories, I recall a question my two daughters would ask when they were preschoolers. As we pulled into the driveway after an outing, they would call from their rear car seats: “Are we here?”

“Yes, we’re here,” I would answer, smiling. I knew my daughters meant, “Are we home? Have we arrived where we set out to go?”

Often I would add, “You know, girls, wherever we are is here.”

Now, with the ears of my heart, I hear two women crying out the same question – yet it means something entirely different.

Are we here?
How can we possibly be here?

Yes, we’re here

When here is not where we want to be, not where we intended to go, when here feels frightening, frustrating, unspeakably painful or utterly pointless, how do we respond? What do we do?

Listening to two women share their hearts in the big middle of their pain, I realized: Their lives point the way.

Courageously, each woman has faced what, for a long time, she did not see – what she did not want to see. And seeing, both have confessed, “Yes, we’re here.”

Both have also given themselves permission to feel. They have not denied or buried their sadness, anger or bewilderment. Instead, facing into each emotion as it arises, they have allowed themselves to mourn.

Watching their life-plans abort, both have taken their pain to God, and they have wrestled with him. They still wrestle with him. Yet they have not turned from him.

“I so want to be a woman of grace in all this!” one cried, through deep, wrenching sobs.

In that holy moment, I heard the heartcry of one who overcomes.

At the sound of your cry

In the same moment, I heard the heartbeat of God:

The Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you.
He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him.

He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry;
when He hears it, He will answer you. (Isaiah 30:18, 19 AMPC)

Isaiah wrote to people in a distressing situation they had never imagined they would face. Most of them had refused to see, or to confess or grieve, the truth of where they were and what had gotten them there. 

With God’s name on their lips but self-reliance and fear in their hearts, they had taken matters into their own hands. They had found a fix they thought would work.

Summoning his prophet, God cried out, warning them against the path they were taking. He did not mince words. Calling them “obstinate children,” he told them: In the short run, their plans would prove useless; in the long run, disastrous.¹

In the same breath, the Lord their God offered them grace. He longed to give it. He urged them to receive it.

And yet, he would not force them. No – aching to hear, poised to act, he listened for any voice that would cry to him in truth.

In the Lord Jesus, by the indwelling Spirit, Isaiah 30 still speaks to us today. It affirms God’s justice, and his love. It declares:

He will surely be gracious to you
at the sound of your cry.

By grace, we overcome

Even when we haven’t cried to God from a heart seeking him, even when we haven’t wanted to – God cries to us, inviting us into a place where we can.

From the moment we accept that invitation, we open ourselves to receive the grace he is pouring out. By grace, we come to know him intimately, to revere him deeply, to follow him fully. And more:

Those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace
and of the gift of righteousness
reign in life
through the one man, Jesus Christ! (Rom. 5:17)

Thing is: This kind of reigning is not about getting the royal treatment, or superimposing our will on others, or living fairy-tale lives.

This kind of reigning is about overcoming, by grace.

First, it’s about overcoming the self-serving motives in our own hearts. As we do that, we also learn to overcome everything else coming against us – from without or within – to try to steal, kill and destroy the life our Lord created and redeemed us to live.

By grace, we overcome evil with good. Filled with the Spirit, we cooperate with our Lord to accomplish his purposes in his ways.

By grace, we overcome whatever would try to separate us from the love of God – his love for us and his love in us, flowing out from us. We are more than conquerors, by grace.

Regardless how much the present may seem to forbid it, we live life to the full. Regardless where here may seem to have brought us, we finish our course and arrive safely home.

What provokes us to cry out for this grace – and prompts us even to want it – is the wooing of the Spirit, who reveals the Lord to us and calls forth our heartcry for him.

How it may look

Many years have passed since I sat one-on-one with two distressed friends, listening to them, grieving with them, learning from them.

More than once, I’ve been the one distraught, bewildered, asking, “Are we here? How can we possibly be here?” Each time …

God has reminded me to cry to him. He’s given me strength I could not find in myself.

He has shown me things I hadn’t seen, but desperately needed to see – things in my present and past, things around me and within me.

He’s given me grace to press through denial, to want to see. He’s uncovered truth slowly, giving me opportunity all along the way to accept, or reject, what he was making clear. He hasn’t forced me. Rather, he has graced me with desire and power to acknowledge: “Yes. We’re here.”

I’ve felt the weight of the wrongs, the losses, the pain, that God has gently, patiently, but firmly, brought to light. His grace has upheld me. For the Lord himself has shouldered the weight with me and lifted it from me. He’s taught me the blessing of mourning. He is turning my sorrow into joy.

Strengthened by grace, I’m able to take responsibility for whatever God pinpoints as my responsibility. I’m able to face, confess and turn from whatever he sees as sin.

AND I’m able to recognize and refuse the false guilt and false responsibility I’ve carried for a very long time. How freeing to see:

God does not want me to accept –
and does not give me grace to handle –
responsibility that is not mine.

Sometimes, I still have trouble discerning what is false guilt and what is not. Sometimes, Christian people confuse me even more. But the Lord is continuing to teach me, and I continue to learn, by grace.

God of all grace

None of this happens quickly, or neatly. It looks messy, and feels messier. Sometimes, I’m not able to hear God or feel his presence. At times, I’ve felt betrayed by him. I’ve wanted to opt out from following him.

Yet in those moments when I feel most ready to give up, I remember, again, the cry of one woman so long ago. I hear, again, a heartcry of one who overcomes:

I so want to be a person of grace in all this!

I remind myself, again, what the God of all grace continues to show me:

→ He will continue to pour out the grace I need, in such a way that I can receive it and walk in it.

→ When I feel anger, confusion, shame, or doubt, I can own it and not bury it, but instead take my feelings to him. I can complain to him and wrestle with him – until I can embrace him again, until I can hear him say:

My heartcry is for you.
I am eager to be gracious to you.
I am rising up to show mercy and love to you.
In the moment your heart cries for me, I am already answering you.

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This post started as a much shorter Perspective newspaper column, published October 11, 2002. I wrote a longer version, titled it, “Heartcry,” and posted it on this blog, January 14, 2021. Three years later, still learning, I’ve significantly revised, retitled and reposted, “Heartcry of one who overcomes.”

Image by Goran Horvat from Pixabay

See also

• Darkness, betrayal and the heartbeat of God
• Dear traumatized one, I pray you float
• The blessing of mourning
• When waiting is writhing
• Recovering and treasuring the forgotten prayer
• Living in two worlds
• Deep dive into grace in The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life

Footnotes

1. See Isaiah 30:1-17. It begins, “‘Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, ‘to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin.’” ↩︎