We had just sat down for family prayer when out of the mouth of my thirteen year old came these words, “Mama, You are so lucky. We all have issues. I’ve got eczema, Josh has feet issues (don’t ask) and Daddy has a cough, but you don’t have anything…You are so lucky.”

For the record, I do have my own set of issues…but that was besides the point.

Lucky? Is he kidding me? And that’s when it hit me.

He just didn’t get it….Anything he carries, I carry. As his mother, I feel the weight of his struggles even more than he does.

Maybe I didn’t get it either.  For at that moment, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, “That’s how I feel about you. I carry your burdens. What you go through, I feel. You don’t ever leave my mind.’

There is a story in the Bible that I am sure you are familiar with. It’s the story of Noah, the ark and the flood.

Forty days of rain had come and gone, and “The waters flooded the earth for 150 days.”

Genesis 8:1 tells us, “But God remembered Noah…”

At first glance, when I read that verse, I thought, Wow God…here is a man that you walked with. He loved you and obeyed you. It took you 150 days to ‘Remember him’ and realize, ‘Oh yeah, Noah is still in the ark…I better do something.’

I heard God again, ‘I never forgot about Noah.’

Another translation of Genesis 8:1 says it this way, “God kept Noah in his mind.”

All along, throughout the rain and the flood, Noah was on God’s mind. It was on the 150th day that God, in His sovereignty, knew it was time to act. The rest of the verse explains. God ‘sent a wind over the earth and the waters receded.’

The word “wind” is the Hebrew word, “ru-ah.” It’s the same word we see in scripture for Spirit.

How powerful is that? God sent His Spirit so that the flood waters would subside.

He does the same for us.

Maybe you feel forgotten. You’ve been dealing with your situation for way over 150 days and it seems no one understands or cares about what you are going through.

As I told my son that evening, what concerns him, concerns me….and it concerns the heart of God even more.

God is not detached from our cares….and you, my friend, are never alone. God carries our burdens, so that we don’t have too.

I pray that whatever surrounds you, may you feel His Spirit, His Wind, His Ru-ah….and may God’s sweet presence hover over you and cause the cares of this world within you to subside.

-Binu