Don La Fou­cade

"I un­der­stand!" Oh what a dif­fer­ence hear­ing those two words can make! We may feel so low at times.and if on­ly some­body tru­ly un­der­stood. If on­ly some­body could re­late to what we're go­ing through. Oh what a dif­fer­ence it would make. Oh what a com­fort to lean on. Some­times we may feel all alone in this world. If that de­scribes you, you're not alone. Pain, phys­i­cal or emo­tion­al, is no re­specter of per­sons. We all have times when we feel like no­body re­al­ly cares and if they do, it's on­ly for a mo­ment or con­di­tion­al. It may even be for some just an oblig­a­tion; a nice thing to do.

That won't cut it! Ad­di­tion­al­ly, those who we con­sid­er clos­est to us un­for­tu­nate­ly may desert us when we need them most. This can make it dou­bly hard to deal with what is be­fore us or what weighs us down, BUT as I'm dis­cov­er­ing dai­ly, we're ac­tu­al­ly not alone. There is an "I" who tru­ly un­der­stands - some­one who will be with us un­der all of the heav­i­ness that is pil­ing up on us; some­one who will stand with us, no mat­ter what we face. Do you know who? Who do you call out to in your mo­ments of de­spair or in your mo­ments of sad­ness or anx­i­ety? Who sees the en­tire pic­ture and ac­cu­rate­ly un­der­stands? I know be­yond a shad­ow of a doubt it's the same per­son who in­spires me. He's God! I could pre­tend it isn't or even write some­thing dif­fer­ent­ly to not of­fend any­one, but it won't change the truth about God.

He tru­ly un­der­stands and loves us all un­con­di­tion­al­ly. Here's some in­spi­ra­tion from Him: If you look again at the word un­der­stand, it can be bro­ken in­to two syl­la­bles, 'un­der' and 'stand'. There must be some­thing or some­one 'un­der' us ca­pa­ble of sus­tain­ing us; help­ing us 'stand' in the midst of the tur­moil or dur­ing the storms of life. There must be a firm foun­da­tion ca­pa­ble of bear­ing the weight of the sit­u­a­tion. You, like me, may have heard 'the sur­face com­ments' from peo­ple who may seem to un­der­stand, but I'm learn­ing that the per­son(s) I put my ul­ti­mate trust in may mean well, but their ca­pac­i­ty for the 'true com­fort' need­ed is still some­what lim­it­ed. They don't know what to­mor­row will bring, so I pre­fer to deal with who holds to­mor­row. Please take note how­ev­er, that at times we can each be used as God's arms and legs. Cer­tain­ly, we can learn and be ap­pre­cia­tive of oth­ers' ex­pe­ri­ences, but it would be wis­er to put our ul­ti­mate trust in God Him­self.

My ex­pe­ri­ences (good and bad) have been a great teacher, so when I say "I Un­der­stand!" it's not 'blank words' but rather an ac­knowl­edge­ment of God, who hon­est­ly un­der­stands. One les­son that I have def­i­nite­ly learnt, is that when we're go­ing through any­thing, it's re­al­ly meant to help oth­ers get through some­thing(s). It makes our "I Un­der­stand!' be­liev­able. There­fore, let's al­ways be care­ful in us­ing the words "I Un­der­stand!" They must nev­er be used to shut some­one up. If some­one trusts us with his/her bur­dens, let's be wor­thy of that trust. Who knows, we may have to come back to the same per­son for coun­sel as bur­dens shared, should mean bur­dens or peo­ple for­ev­er cared for. Un­der­stand­ably, it may be un­bear­able for some, but it is nev­er too much for God. He has all of our bur­dens in His lov­ing and trust­wor­thy grasp. It un­der­scores the im­por­tance of why He, God, is the BEST bur­den bear­er and the best per­son to lean on or to make a stand un­der! He tru­ly un­der­stands what a dif­fer­ence two words can make! This "I Un­der­stand!"

Un­der­stand?­