What they don't tell you in the stories is that hearts don't really break - they stay horribly whole, and the hurt just goes on and on until everything has turned to cold grey stone, and it's strange that just when it seems like there's nothing left to hurt, that's when the ache feels rawest. And then the lies come crawling.
There is no answer for this long hurt of mine, this curious mixture of betrayal and disappointment and emptiness. It will not be organized. It will not be laid in rows and made into meaning. Not just now, and maybe not at all. But truth that God loves me stands here, tall and quiet and relentless beside this ache, though the tension of its contradiction threatens to tear me apart. Shall emotion and confusion overwhelm the concrete evidence of love - that Jesus died and I am forgiven?
Sound it into the encroaching dark and the gaping void: God loves me. Resist the urge to give in, to go quiet into the long dark night of the lie that I am alone, that He has forgotten, that He is as disappointed with me as I am with myself. Kick against that evil thing that, all the time whispering, slays courage and quells grace. Rage and yell. Call it out: God loves me! He does. He does. He has not left me. He loves, deep and warm and true and unchangeable. All else fades, closes, folds, falls; God's love expands to fill every crevice, every aching hole. When I am sod and stone and fail to feel at all, He loves me. He loves me. Jesus died, and he felt every hurt, and God loves.
Father, open my eyes to see truth. Speak it over me, again and again. Let me not be led into the hopeless dark of that first awful lie, that You are less than love and Your way is less than the good that You could give. Have mercy on me, and lead me, because You love me. Remind me, when all grows dim and I am filled with confusion. Gird me with your truth. Let me not forget. Let me not, in my tiredness, give in to the lie. Wrap me in love and let it hold onto me when emotion betrays me and threatens to carry me away. Let me not, in my frustration, run away from the light instead of toward it.
I am Yours.
1 comment:
You are so right, Jen! That is the first thing I should remember every morning and the last thing that should fill my consciousness at night. It should affect every thought and action of my life and cause me to be filled with praise all day long.
Because of God's goodness and His love for me, everything He does is Love and Goodness because that is who He is.
Praying that He will defeat the enemy who whispers in our ears and overcomes our thoughts.
Love you, sweet daughter of mine.
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