Matthew 11: 28
28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest
Psalm 69:
2I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
3I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
4They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.
There are moments in our lives that we may stop and wonder where is that rest that God has promised. It was such a day in December 15, 1987 when I received the phone call from Mom that my brother Charles Allen Garner had died suddenly in a car accident. It was a senseless accident. There had been a huge storm which caused a huge tree to fall down across a dark and hidden country road. The tree was in such a position among the small hills so that in the dark it could not be seen until too late. The road crews had been out all day and they knew the tree was there but failed to put up any warnings and failed to clear the road. Such it was in the dark of the evening, my brother coming along that road did not see the tree in time and despite his attempt to stop his truck drove into that tree. There was a huge branch that broke through the windshield crushing across my brothers chest and into his throat pushing this 250 lb 6’3” giant of a man into the back of the truck crushing and hanging him to his death. The news was devastating, it had been God’s grace that the week of Thanksgiving due to a botched up job by a contractor that my brother had come to spend a precious week with me. It was that week which I drew to remember. The time spent catching up and understanding each other once more. A moment that I could tell him how proud I was of this teacher who had chosen a simple life so as to help the farm children to learn how to survive. All misunderstandings were brought to light that week and now he was dead at the age of 33, hung by a tree so unsuspecting. My life was one of sorrow for my husbands bipolar disease lead to moments of violent abuse; yet, God had asked me to remain. That day as I told him I had to go to the funeral, my husband refused to let me take the children. I was filled with fear to leave my children there as I made this journey; yet, I knew it was useless to continue to argue as he stood firm in his decision. The entire way to the airport my husband told me what a useless person I was and that upon my return he wanted a divorce. The grief of my brother’s death was drowned with the fear and the sorrow of the words shouting in my ears. I wanted to grab my children and hold them to tell them that God would protect them; yet, I wasn’t given that chance. I was filled with worry and pain and fear of what could be going through their little minds. I begged God for answers as my heart was plummeting downward for the final count. I needed strength because I could not burden my parents with the sorrows of my life at this moment of their grief. In my weakness I wondered if it were not true that I was useless and perhaps even God saw me that way. I was accustomed to feeling that way. My mother was also an undiagnosed bipolar who taught the Bible through a legalistic form. Since I seemed to always stumble no matter how hard I tried, I felt that all this pain and sorrow had to be my fault and somehow God was punishing me and could never love me despite having given me the gift of salvation. On the plane I continued to pray, finally in the silence of only my thoughts. That is when these words came to me in the form of a song. They pressed in my mind and finally I wrote them down. God was there with me and God gave me the strength to get through that week. I saw my father’s sorrow and I held him tight. When I returned home, my husband was in a gentler tone and did not repeat any of the words he had as I was leaving. My children were safe and peace returned.
Let me share with you the words of that song. Many years and sorrows would pass after this gift song and it wasn’t until about 4 or 5 years ago that God began to speak to me in the form of poetry to comfort me. Yet, this was the first and I hope you enjoy it.
When I First Came to Know Him
By
Effie Darlene Barba
When I first came to know him
So many years ago
I vowed that I would serve him
With heart and mind and soul
Then I found that in my strength
I would but only fail
Then He came and He told me
As we walked down life’s trail
Chorus:
I’ll be your strength when you are weary
And your hope when skies are gray
I’ll be your faith when yours is failing
And your light on each dark day
I’ll be the love your lonely heart
When it’s breaking in despair
I’ll be all in all your everything
If you look to me in prayer
I strove on in my strength
And strayed so very far
Until my life was broken
And sin had left it’s scar
Then I cried, Oh, my Father
How deeply I had failed
Then He came and He held me
And His love prevailed
2nd Chorus
Now He’s my strength when I am weary
And my hope when skies are gray
He is my faith when mine is failing
And my light on each dark day
He is the love to my lonely heart
When it’s breaking in despair
He is all in all my everything
When I look to him in prayer
Now if you have strayed from
Or never knew His love
Then turn your eyes toward Jesus
And seek Him from above
He will take all your brokeness
And fill it with Himself
He will take all your sin away
And fill each empty shelf.
3rd Chorus
He’ll be your strength when you are weary
And your hope when skies are gray
He’ll be your faith when yours is failing
And your light on each dark day
He’ll be the love to your lonely heart
When it’s breaking in despair
He’ll be all in all your everything
If you look to Him in prayer
Then let me leave you with a reminder of God’s promise which I have found to be true every step of my way. He has revealed His great love for me and the true meaning of grace which destroys the legalistic barriers to feeling His glory and joy in our lives.
Isaiah 40:
27Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
28Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31But 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.
As for Pete, my husband, God still had yet to reveal His magnificent Glory and Grace which He did before Pete’s death. He was someone with a heart of gold trapped in the great turmoil of a bipolar mind and had suffered throughout his childhood abuse greater than I could imagine. Yet, God wove His mighty work that this man would find Christ and now rests in his bosom. To God be the Glory, Great things He hath done. Let me leave you with a picture of my brother Charlie—“I love you, Charlie”
With love, Effie Darlene Barba
