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experience, freedom, God's love, joy, light, peace, resurrection power, spiritual power, the Kingdom of God, the new self, the promised land
Instead of offering my readers another blog article with, perhaps, too many words, I decided to show you some of the pictures I took last Sunday as we celebrated my husband Paul’s 54th BD in the Bavarian Alps. The first picture above and the second below were taken three days earlier as I was walking alone on a not-so-high mountain after I had spent some time with my daughter on her first day of stay in a hospital nearby.
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”(Isaiah 40:28-31 ESV)
All images by Susanne Schuberth 2017
Entering the Promised Land 
Dear Susanne,
Thanks for sharing your life with us that you captured in these pictures. Somehow, that picture of the “T” in the road spoke to me.
“Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.”
~ Sally Mann
May we mount up and sore in the Spirit in the days ahead as we wait on the Lord during these trying times.
Your brother, Michael
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Although I do not “feel” like mounting at the moment (at all!), I have no doubts that God can change that in the wink of an eye whenever He wills.
Yes, Michael, this picture with the “T” spoke to me as well. Could not explain WHY, but it did.
Your sister and friend,
Susanne
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Loved the pics. I’m a little late in blog reading and feeling kind of drained out spiritually, but I’m really glad you can find peace in the midst of your life challenges. I hope to be back on track soon!
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Sometimes it is only the hope to find His peace again, Carina, since the night can be very, very dark.
At the moment I can even say that I feel spiritually DEAD, my sister. It is not fun to be that way, yet these frustrating periods need to be endured as well until our spiritual bones are VERY dry so that only God’s life will be found in us later. Not fun, indeed.
Take your time, Carina. ❤
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Oh, no! 😦 😦 😦
I’m so shattered to read that you’re feeling that way. I feel exactly the same, and I totally get this! I admire all the more your courage to keep writing and encouraging us! Wow, you do inspire me!
Honestly, I feel very prayerless and unspiritual lately. I have little desire to spend time with God, and it’s crazy because a couple of months ago I was so on fire. Perhaps I got sidetracked. But on the other hand, last year I found out some things about myself that explain a lot why I’ve always felt so different. I thought I was half-recovered from crazy, with a couple of touches of madness remaining. And the answer turned out to be neurological rather than psychological or psychiatric. In a sense it’s a relief. But the challenge persists (and some of it is incurable, it seems). And I’m worried about my son, who displays some signs of my own condition. Though I’m not sure. But there are some things about him that definitely worry me.
And then, I think after the first initial shock and it-was-horrible-but-I’m-all-right kind of denial, I’m finally coming to terms with my cousin’s suicide, and it hurts so much.
Many things weighing down on me, and honestly, the last person I want to turn to right now is God. Dark night of the soul again??? I can’t complain, though, because it was not God who left me. It was me who did! And I don’t know why. Perhaps because of all the pain that was hiding deep within, which I couldn’t really pray about because it hurts too much to bring it to the surface and face the monster who scares me since I was little (though it has changed shape to fit my circumstances).
Peeling this onion is a looong and painful process. 😉
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Yes, Carina, it is an extremely looong and painful process to be peeled like onion skin. 😦 I cannot count how often I had thought, “Now I am through, I am done, IT happened, it MUST be over. More pain is neither possible nor bearable!” Then for a short time God might have protected me before He began to peel the next layer which disclosed very often an issue I had known before, but on a deeper and waaay more painful level. These things can happen ten, twenty, or even fifty times, if not more often, I don’t know…
The last person you want to turn to is God? I know that one and I do appreciate your honesty, my dear sister. ❤
So many people try to be religious and offer us a superficial band-aid of seemingly biblical advice on our festering wounds, that is, on our problems that can only be solved by God in the spiritual realm. I too have problems to pray at the moment, feeling no inclination to do so, no inclination to read anything which is spiritual, even no inclination to do anything in my normal life. Indeed, I need to force myself to get up in the morning and to live my daily life. Furthermore, I force myself as well to spend some dry and boring time in prayer, waiting until God eventually shows up. It is so frustrating to not be able to get closer to God when He does not want it! ALL THINGS depend on Him and His grace! Dear Carina, that makes me mad at times, the fact that I cannot do ANYTHING to make my relationship with God work. I can only search for Him and wait and wait and… Boy, and I am not that patient!! 😛
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Well Susanne and Carina, I relate. Aren’t we a spiritual bunch indeed. 😛 The last few weeks it has been the same for me. Yes, He moves me to write a blog once in a while, but it feels like I am nothing more than a suit that is only taken out and wore for special occasions and then put back in a dark closet until next time. When we ask God to be like His Son and only speak the words we hear Him saying and only do the works we see Him doing… that can be a lonely life in a world whose time is ALWAYS and can do whatever and whenever it wants.
So, here we are… three suits hanging out in different closets, trying to communicate with one another in the dark. It is much better when Christ “puts us on” and animates us, don’t you think? In the mean time we wait upon the Lord knowing that He promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you even unto the end.”
His love to you both,
Michael
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Your comment made me smile, Michael, because this image with three suits hanging out in the closet truly spoke to me. It is true! There is no use for our old wineskin nature. If He does not change us into new wineskin, we will be hanging out empty there forever. 😉
He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” (Lk 5:36-39 ESV)
It seems to me Jesus spoke about the new creation which is to be filled with ONLY the Holy Spirit. Also, I believe that old wine as mentioned in the last verse, eventually, is the matured believer who has been used to this new wine in his new wineskin for a long time. Therefore He truly knows/loves God and men.
His Love to you, too, my dear brother,
Susanne ❤
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Yep, it’s tough to be hanging in a dark closet when you could be out there feeling useful, especially in a world that values tangible results. I guess I’ve swallowed the achievement/result-as-proof-of-worth lie, and still find it hard to sit still and let God be God and just abide in Him. Even if I feel nothing, see nothing and have a crisis of faith and hope. To keep hoping against hope, when I feel most unworthy and even backslidden. Or just burned out.
There is still too much of the old wineskin here.
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Feel nothing, see nothing… That is exactly IT, Carina!
🙈 🙉 🙊 😴
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Happy Birthday to Paul. Praying for your daughter. Enjoyed the pictures.
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That was very nice, Mike. Thanks! Will pass it on to Paul. 🙂
Thanks a bunch for your prayers!! Our daughter Sarah has been mentally sick for more than five years now, but during the last year she increasingly despaired of life itself (continued suicidal thoughts and more…). Alas, she lost too much weight during the last year at that (eating disorder) and they deal with these things in this specific hospital.
Thanks for the encouraging compliment regarding my pics!
Blessings to you and your wife,
Susanne
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Thanks for the pictures–I loved that first one!
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You are most welcome, dear Ken. Glad you loved it! 🙂 Thanks for your edifying contribution.
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I passed this along to someone very dear to me who is, also, currently suffering from the dark night of the soul. ❤
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Thanks, Anna. I will pray for this someone who is dear to you. 💜
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I, also, sensed something in the road junction.
After reading the comments, I could only think, wait on the Lord. We don’t like waiting, and I can certainly identify with not wanting to pray, or read the Bible, or do ANYTHING which is thought of as spiritual. But…
Psalms 27:14
Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
Isaiah 30:18
And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
Psalms 130:5
I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
Psalms 39:7
And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.
Micah 7:7
Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
Lamentations 3:25
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
Lamentations 3:26
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
There is so much! I have tears just reading these!
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Yes, Louise, I am still waiting on Him. What else can I do? What He can give us, nobody else can. And therefore I keep waiting… knocking on heaven’s door at times… and wait….and wait. Thanks for sharing these Scriptureso with us.
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It seems like so little, to wait. And I chafe, sometimes, at it. But I agree, what can we do? The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
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Amen, Louise.
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