"Now What?"

I'm having a hard time understanding the Psalmists sentiments when he wrote:

"Tears may flow in the night time, but joy comes in the morning."

Mornings are the hardest.
My tears flow most readily in the morning.
I tell myself to get out of bed.

The day ahead does not look how I planned my days to look.  The tasks are not the things I wrote on my to-do list for this week.  My plan was to give and I have spent my days receiving.

So as I start my day the tears flow.  I must relinquish control of my lists, my hopes, my thoughts for what today would hold.

Just a few weeks ago we bought these tables and chairs intending to sit around them, to study God's word, to eat meals, to pray, to play games, to meet, to plan, to talk.  We had plans.  Hopes.  Dreams.

But this is the reality that we wake up to.  Those same chairs, a charred mess.  

We get up in the morning and ask, "Now what?"  What do you want us to with these chairs?  We thought we knew why we had them.  We thought we knew the plans God had for those chairs.
"Now what?"

With my cheeks wet with tears I get out of bed and say "Now what?".
Now, what do I do with those chairs?

But it's not a hopeless "now what".  I know that in my gutt.  My hands don't flail hopeless as I say "now what".  I lift my hands, empty, no pencil ready to write a list of of things to do.  I lift my hands and humbly say, "now what."  Show me.  Show us.

That's why the tears flow so easily in the morning.  Not anger, not bitterness, not hopelessness.
No, the tears flow because I know that whatever today holds it's not my plan.

And at the end of the day I look back, with dry eyes that are now wide open to all God has done in that day, I am thankful.  I am surprised.  I am humbled.

My sister shared with me this song by Kutless.
The words would not have meant so much to me a week ago.
Today, they are a balm in Gilead.
*click play on the Grooveshark thingy on the sidebar, you'll be glad you did.

If You washed away my vanity
If You took away my words
If all my world was swept away
Would You be enough for me?
Would my beating heart still sing?

If I lost it all, would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives and takes away?
If You take it all, this life You've given
Still my heart will sing to You

When my life is not what I expected
The plans I made have failed
When there's nothing left to steal me away
Will You be enough for me?
Will my broken heart still sing?

If I lost it all, would my hands stay lifted
To the God who gives and takes away?
If You take it all, this life You've given
Still my heart will sing to You

Even if You take it all away
You'll never let me go
You take it all away and I still know
That I'm Yours, I'm still Yours
Oh, I'm Yours, I'm still Yours