by Leanne Purvis
Are there times in your life when you feel unnoticed, unseen, maybe unloved? Perhaps you feel you can’t do anything right. You want to feel love, joy, and peace, but instead it feels like you are living in the clouds – big, black storm clouds, ready to overflow. Yet once released, the storm that rages just compounds the situation, adding being emotional, childish and unreasonably sensitive to the list of imperfections.
Most women feel engulfed in the darkness of despair, hopelessness, fear and lovelessness at least once in their lives. This was me (again) today. Singing songs had been my idea to help learn the language, but playing the guitar badly whilst singing badly, and watching my husband do both well was not the joyful picture I had envisaged. It is like living in the shadows of someone great. The bigger problem is that my heart’s desire is to share the hope of the World with the Khmer people, in their local language. At times it all feels impossible and I feel like a dark cloud casts shadows on my love, joy and hope. Changing lifestyle and language at the age of fifty is not easy. My grammar and pronunciation is much slower than most, including my husband’s, and the stress overflows as tears raining slowly but uncontrollably down my face.
Maybe your impossible situation seems hopeless and dark, clouded in shadows of hurts and doubts. I am so amazed and grateful how the Bible can speak into whatever situation we are in. Pondering my feeling of being enveloped in a dark cloud and living in the shadows, a Bible word search revealed what to do when dark clouds threaten to overshadow us. In Luke 9:28-36 Jesus was praying to God on a mountain with a small group of friends when a cloud descended on them, wrapping the disciples in fear. It was in this dark cloud that God spoke to them, encouraging them to listen to Jesus, the son of God.
Today God still speaks to us in the shadows when our outlook seems clouded. God tells us to listen to Him and believe His truths. Through prayer and reading the Bible, with the Holy Spirit as our guide the clouds are lifted. We see that God loves us because of who He is, not who we are. Christ died for all our sins and imperfections. He lovingly calls us into His family, where we are protected in the shadow of His wings, as declared in Psalm 36:7 “How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”
So shadows can be negative or positive. Here in Cambodia shadows are positive, a welcome relief from the heat. I can see God’s hand at work, and many opportunities to serve and bring hope with or without the language. So I choose to be positive, and as I take my eyes off myself, and look up to the one with all power and an amazing plan, I take comfort in the shadow of His wings. I pray you can too.
Leanne and her husband Alan recently moved to Cambodia. Their goal is to encourage the local churches and pastors, assisting with discipleship and church planting. Along with other WEC members, they aim to work particularly in areas that have not had an opportunity to hear the freeing good news of Jesus’ sacrifice, restoring relationships to have life with the Father. For more details and to subscribe to their newsletters, prayer letters or to follow them on facebook please check out their website https://www.reachingcambodia.info