Further Still

my notes from the Beth Moore study "David" Here are some key elements to knowing God has called you to go "further still:"
1) when you are overwhelmed with sorrow & surrounded by grief; perilypos-grieved all around; intensely sad; there's no escaping it (Being able to be distracted would be a relief & blessing, but you can't be distracted from it) The grief even shows up in your dreams. "How did you survive it?"  "I don't know, I didn't mean to."
2) when you desperately need to wrestle with the will of God; like when Christ, being filled with dread, wanted the cup to pass Him by, but then resolved to saying, "Thy will be done." You find yourself wrestling, begging for relief, wanting it to stop, feeling detached from God
3) when nobody else gets it; you can't even put into words what you're experiencing, but if you could, no one would understand anyway; there's a tendency to blame others for not comforting us, praying with us or encouraging us (Sounds familiar to me!)
4) when the most serious matters of your life need settling; Jesus settled the matter of the cross alone, with His Father; don't allow yourself to go to the place where you think God no longer sees you or that He may even hate you (I was convinced for awhile I had offended Him so grievously, He had turned away from me & was now punishing me)
5) when you know your life can't be the same, but your pain can bring gain; this has something to do with the ultimate purpose of my life. Aside: I sometimes wonder if I know how to recover. I still wonder if I can really trust God. It's better but I'm still not there. I'm praying that God will restore me in His time and in His way.
To say I wanted to be "as close as is humanly possible, this side of heaven, to God, comes with a price to pay. I just didn't know it when I continually uttered those words to Him. And I certainly didn't know it would be this painful and traumatic. I guess that's what He's working out in me. But I don't know for sure.