He always knows...

So, last night I was handed a situation that not only made me question my parenting...it also hurt so deeply that I was really physically struggling to breathe. This isn't anything that I can do anything about now...this isn't anything that I can share...this isn't anything that I can make sense of in any fashion. I felt overwhelmed, overloaded and quite frankly for the first time in a long time I felt beaten. My first reaction was to cry out to God....the whole time I was being fed the information I was on my knees before the Lord; it was as though I was watching a horror movie and there were the horrible scenes of what I was hearing flashing before me, there was me standing there listening and taking it in, and then there was me on my knees with my head in my hands at my Father's feet. I didn't sleep a wink...I couldn't. I prayed all night long. Evidently I would doze here and there because all of a sudden I would open my eyes and pick up my prayer right where I assume to have left off....but actual sleep never came.
I arose this morning feeling as though I were an aged woman who needed a cane and/or assistance to function. I made myself go through the motions of my morning routine. I kept having flashes of this and flashes of that...it wouldn't stop. I cried out again, "How am I to deal with this.....how can I possibly do anything now....why so late...why now?" The only answer I could hear was to find the truth. I wasn't able to pick up the book and focus, but I knew that I needed God's word....I knew there was something there that would help me. So, I sat at my computer and went to my church's website. I listen to sermon while I work, but I needed to sit. The weekend sermon was not yet available, so I looked at Wednesday night. The sermon was "big problems, bigger God"....ok, I believe that my God is big. But I also believed that this new information was crippling. I turned it on....not the lead pastor, not the "normal" sermon that I would choose.....I began to listen. I heard that God is so much bigger than every problem I am going to face. But the closing remark felt directed specifically to me....ok, I always get something very personal in each sermon I hear, I am sure that we all do. But this......this was straight from God's mouth to my heart. I heard that God sometimes allows these problems so that we can be strengthened as Christians.....and when I look back on the big problems, they have all changed me and given me a way to relate to/help another person going through what I have already come through, and this was stated. I also know that in the grip of these other situations I didn't believe that I was going to be ok. Also stated was that God does not always remove the problem, but if allowed He will change our perspective. I so needed to hear that .... I cannot remove this problem, it is long gone and done, it can't be undone. My guilty feelings, my pain, my what-if's cannot change anything that was done...won't at all take any of it away. No amount of pain or remorse on my part can fix any part of what was taken. But...if I keep my eyes on Him, He will not let me fall. If I keep my eyes on Him, He will change the ending of the nightmare. If I keep my eyes on Him, He will keep my hands/mouth out of this so that no more damage gets done. I have to trust Him...love Him...thank Him...Praise Him......and I have to know that He wouldn't let something like this happen and not let it bring about beauty...............please Lord.............help me find your gift in this!