I am constantly overwhelmed by the goodness of who God is and His never-ending love for me. He is the God who never leaves me nor forsakes me, the only one who truly knows how to comfort me and love me. He gives insight into what transpires in His own heart with every weak glance that we lift to Him and with every small choice of our will to love Him. So many of these weak glances and small choices are made in the place of dryness, when we feel nothing. God does not define our love by emotion as we so often do. We love to measure our experience of God by what is felt. Love cannot be evaluated with this system of calculation. God is the One who measures love and what we call barren He often calls fruitful; what we call wasteful He often calls well spent. In our weak, and fainthearted, prone-to-wonder, discouraging hearts of man that we are, yet by my small heart, He is conquered. No army could overcome this mighty One. The weak glance of a lovesick heart, He is overcome by me. (Song of Songs 6:5) It shouldn’t make sense that He would love me so much, that in the little that I have to give Him, He is undone.
At the end of the day, when it feels as though we have experienced nothing, we go to bed and ask God, “it counts, doesn’t it? One day this will all make sense, won’t it?” I believe He says yes- cause in the times when we feel nothing yet choose to believe in His heart and His love- this is what moves His heart. (John 20:29) It is the hardest to look to God when we feel discouraged, so disheartened, so desperate for Him, but feel nothing; yet choose again and again to believe in Him and to not only believe in Him, but receive His love.
God describes His love in the Word as “surpassing knowledge” (Eph 3:19) “…Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, not have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 cor. 2:9) A raging RIVER of affections surges within His heart. It is a holy, violent flow of love. This river of desire within His heart is the one route into the place of intimacy that we long for. We can hear a thousand teachings and read a hundred books, but we will only find the satisfaction of our search in the deep of His heart. It is not casually or from a distance that we pursue His love, but rather we enter this Ocean by a focused abandonment, a violent pursuit and a lifelong drinking. We were made for this love. Our entire lives are wrapped up in this Love. For love we were created, it is our reason for living, our purpose, beginning and end to life, to pursue the love of God and love others with that love.
How many countless hours have I wasted distancing myself from the one that loves me? Too many! Growing up so many of us grew up thinking we had to come to God clean and whole and we had to measure up to our own expectations or if we failed our own self-evaluation, if we didn’t feel deserving to come to Him, than we didn’t. We allow ourselves nearness to Him based upon wrong ideas about why we are permitted access to Him. When we feel successful because of how much time we have spent with Him or all the good things that we have done for Him, we build up our own faulty foundation and feed out false ideas about His character. I can bring nothing to the table to motivate the heart of God into the response of forgiveness. He desires me by His own self-replenishing love that exists within Himself, unaltered by my response. To deny ourselves intimacy with His is to deny ourselves the power of redemption.
Anyways…I could go on, but the point is...as God has just been revealing His heart to me- that He loves us no matter how empty we feel, no matter how little we have to give Him…and we can come to by faith, not by works, not by ‘feeling’ good, but only knowing He loves us. But, with all this, comes suffering and we will never fully know the depth of His love and intimacy without hard times, without the difficult times that lead us into greater revelation of His character!!
We have one moment on the earth…to touch this great place of the Father’s heart. For all eternity future, we will know Him in His glory, in His beauty. We will drink from the River of Pleasures and know the fullness of joy. Yet the tears will be gone. When the Bridegroom is with us, we will no longer mourn (matt 9:15) The times of hope without sight will be memories (Rom 8:24) The pain of believing without seeing will be over. Faith and hope will stay behind while the ‘Love that remains’ will escort us into the ages to come (I cor 13:13)
May 14, 2006
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
“What are we here for, anyway?”
“What are we here for, anyway?”
We all hear numerous times in our lives, “life is short.” “Life is hard.”
We think to ourselves, “yeah yeah” and keep going. At least I used to. I use to cringe inside when people would say that as though it were a “cop out” or an excuse for an easy way out to justify their lives.
As you are fully aware, the world we live in is full of pain. Life is just simply hard at times, yet it goes by so fast. Yet, at times, we feel we are spending our entire lives trying to figure out what we are doing here with our lives. We look back and life somehow becomes this beautiful journey from various shattered pieces.
We hear about all the negative and painful events in our world or in our individual lives and we hear that life is short, but how does it make us live different today? If life really is short, then why do we worry and spend our entire lives trying to figure out what we are here for? Why do we have so many trials in our lives? Ever wonder how someone could experience so much pain and challenges in ones life? Ever wish you could just be a little child again, when your greatest challenge in life was lemonade or fruit punch?
What if you were told you have nine months left to live, what would you do? Would you go crazy and do everything imaginable? Where would you go? Who would you go see? Would you rack up your credit cards and buy lots of things? Would you give money away to charities or to missionaries? Would you have self pity and complain to every person that you saw? Would you run from God? Would you run to God? Would you blow up and get mad at every one and God? Would you forgive others and settle unresolved issues with others? Would you re evaluate your life and decide what is most important to live for? Who would you spend your last months with? What would be the most important thing to you in your last nine months? How would you respond?
Okay, so those are just a few questions to get you thinking, as I am sure these are all valid questions we would all ask ourselves and wonder how we would respond, but many are never forced to face these questions. Or, wait, we will all die one day, right? Who is to say we will have one day or eighty years left? So, why wouldn’t we all be forced to face these questions for all our lives today?
So, you get the point. Quit wasting your life. Let’s think about what really matters and the whole point on why any of us ever exist.
Honestly, most of us do not want to think about dying unless we are 95 years old, then we might be ready to think about it. We would all agree that we will all one day die, but we do not want to think about today being our last day. We may think it sounds cliché and sounds nice to live today as though it were your last, but we do not really ever want to face the reality of life in this world taken away from us.
Will we let the mundane cares, stress, and pressures of the world defeat us? Will we let sickness control our lives? Will we let what a doctor predicts determine our destiny?
Samuel Gayton, my fiancé and best friend who died August 12, 2007 from a rare form of stomach cancer did not let his illness nor the statement that he was dying determine his destiny. He embraced his illness, looking to God for a miracle as he lived his last months in Waco, TX fighting for his life as he battled cancer. He won. This was his reason for living. Though many would question, how did he win if he died and was not healed on this earth?
Sam’s life was a battle and he won! Sam fought until the end because he trusted God. He never gave up. Sam was an over comer. He conquered death. Sam stood on the Word of God and the truth of who God is. God was his deliverer, redeemer and the healer of his body, mind, and soul. Sam believed God would heal him and that one day he would have a new body. God gave Sam more than he could ever ask or imagine. Sam found freedom and deliverance through his suffering as he fully embraced his season of hardship and rarely ever complained.
Sam fought the good fight of faith. In his last months, Sam exemplified the kind of faith the people in the Bible were commended for and that pleases the heart of God. We know that Sam will receive a great reward. Though his body was as good as death, Sam still believed God to heal him, literally till his last breath. This was his reason for living. Some of us are only given a few years. No matter the number of years, God can use one man’s life just as powerful in 25 years or 85 years.
Who is ready to die at age 24? No one. I sure was not ready to die at 24 years old. For most, we see it as life has just begun. We still have a whole lot of living to do. We have dreams to fulfill, challenges to conquer, and life to enjoy with others.
I ask God everyday, how anything good could come from Sam dying; my future dying, my best friend dying, my dreams dying, and a part of who I am dying? He has shown my how good has come out of it and continues to show me everyday. From out of the depths of pain comes greater strength to live today. For me, having a gut honest relationship with God was the only thing that helped to work out all the pain, heartache, confusion, and anger inside.
If you think about pain and how physically, the greatest athletes endure the greatest pain. The greater the pain that you endure the stronger you become. Not by just having pain, but by enduring the pain, embracing the pain.
For me, it was so important to embrace God in the pain. If we go through the hard times without God, we will look back and wonder where God was. We will look back at those times as if God abandoned us. There is rich revelation through the hardest times if we choose to embrace them. It hurts to embrace God in the pain, but it is worth it in the long run. Someone once told me that only in this life, we will have an opportunity to endure and embrace pain. There is no pain once we die. There is no pain in eternity. From that perspective, it makes it a little easier to be thankful for painful times and use it as an opportunity to endure the pain and to fully embrace it why we are here on Earth.
So, absolutely life is short and life is hard. I am not going to tell you why we go through pain and why life is hard and why life runs up so quickly, it is just the truth. We cannot waste our lives trying to figure out “why”, we just have to live life and make the most of it. We live in a broken, fallen, sinful world. Yet through it all, our lives can become a beautiful journey as we embrace our troubles and as we are aware that our daily decisions and what we choose to do with our time will determine our destiny. Once in for all, life is not all about us. If we focus more on others and love others, I am most definite we will be more happy and enjoy life as we were intended to.
What would our lives truly look like if we did not let our troubles and pain conquer our lives, but use them, embrace them, and see something beautiful emerge?
written by: Leah Williams May 2008
We all hear numerous times in our lives, “life is short.” “Life is hard.”
We think to ourselves, “yeah yeah” and keep going. At least I used to. I use to cringe inside when people would say that as though it were a “cop out” or an excuse for an easy way out to justify their lives.
As you are fully aware, the world we live in is full of pain. Life is just simply hard at times, yet it goes by so fast. Yet, at times, we feel we are spending our entire lives trying to figure out what we are doing here with our lives. We look back and life somehow becomes this beautiful journey from various shattered pieces.
We hear about all the negative and painful events in our world or in our individual lives and we hear that life is short, but how does it make us live different today? If life really is short, then why do we worry and spend our entire lives trying to figure out what we are here for? Why do we have so many trials in our lives? Ever wonder how someone could experience so much pain and challenges in ones life? Ever wish you could just be a little child again, when your greatest challenge in life was lemonade or fruit punch?
What if you were told you have nine months left to live, what would you do? Would you go crazy and do everything imaginable? Where would you go? Who would you go see? Would you rack up your credit cards and buy lots of things? Would you give money away to charities or to missionaries? Would you have self pity and complain to every person that you saw? Would you run from God? Would you run to God? Would you blow up and get mad at every one and God? Would you forgive others and settle unresolved issues with others? Would you re evaluate your life and decide what is most important to live for? Who would you spend your last months with? What would be the most important thing to you in your last nine months? How would you respond?
Okay, so those are just a few questions to get you thinking, as I am sure these are all valid questions we would all ask ourselves and wonder how we would respond, but many are never forced to face these questions. Or, wait, we will all die one day, right? Who is to say we will have one day or eighty years left? So, why wouldn’t we all be forced to face these questions for all our lives today?
So, you get the point. Quit wasting your life. Let’s think about what really matters and the whole point on why any of us ever exist.
Honestly, most of us do not want to think about dying unless we are 95 years old, then we might be ready to think about it. We would all agree that we will all one day die, but we do not want to think about today being our last day. We may think it sounds cliché and sounds nice to live today as though it were your last, but we do not really ever want to face the reality of life in this world taken away from us.
Will we let the mundane cares, stress, and pressures of the world defeat us? Will we let sickness control our lives? Will we let what a doctor predicts determine our destiny?
Samuel Gayton, my fiancé and best friend who died August 12, 2007 from a rare form of stomach cancer did not let his illness nor the statement that he was dying determine his destiny. He embraced his illness, looking to God for a miracle as he lived his last months in Waco, TX fighting for his life as he battled cancer. He won. This was his reason for living. Though many would question, how did he win if he died and was not healed on this earth?
Sam’s life was a battle and he won! Sam fought until the end because he trusted God. He never gave up. Sam was an over comer. He conquered death. Sam stood on the Word of God and the truth of who God is. God was his deliverer, redeemer and the healer of his body, mind, and soul. Sam believed God would heal him and that one day he would have a new body. God gave Sam more than he could ever ask or imagine. Sam found freedom and deliverance through his suffering as he fully embraced his season of hardship and rarely ever complained.
Sam fought the good fight of faith. In his last months, Sam exemplified the kind of faith the people in the Bible were commended for and that pleases the heart of God. We know that Sam will receive a great reward. Though his body was as good as death, Sam still believed God to heal him, literally till his last breath. This was his reason for living. Some of us are only given a few years. No matter the number of years, God can use one man’s life just as powerful in 25 years or 85 years.
Who is ready to die at age 24? No one. I sure was not ready to die at 24 years old. For most, we see it as life has just begun. We still have a whole lot of living to do. We have dreams to fulfill, challenges to conquer, and life to enjoy with others.
I ask God everyday, how anything good could come from Sam dying; my future dying, my best friend dying, my dreams dying, and a part of who I am dying? He has shown my how good has come out of it and continues to show me everyday. From out of the depths of pain comes greater strength to live today. For me, having a gut honest relationship with God was the only thing that helped to work out all the pain, heartache, confusion, and anger inside.
If you think about pain and how physically, the greatest athletes endure the greatest pain. The greater the pain that you endure the stronger you become. Not by just having pain, but by enduring the pain, embracing the pain.
For me, it was so important to embrace God in the pain. If we go through the hard times without God, we will look back and wonder where God was. We will look back at those times as if God abandoned us. There is rich revelation through the hardest times if we choose to embrace them. It hurts to embrace God in the pain, but it is worth it in the long run. Someone once told me that only in this life, we will have an opportunity to endure and embrace pain. There is no pain once we die. There is no pain in eternity. From that perspective, it makes it a little easier to be thankful for painful times and use it as an opportunity to endure the pain and to fully embrace it why we are here on Earth.
So, absolutely life is short and life is hard. I am not going to tell you why we go through pain and why life is hard and why life runs up so quickly, it is just the truth. We cannot waste our lives trying to figure out “why”, we just have to live life and make the most of it. We live in a broken, fallen, sinful world. Yet through it all, our lives can become a beautiful journey as we embrace our troubles and as we are aware that our daily decisions and what we choose to do with our time will determine our destiny. Once in for all, life is not all about us. If we focus more on others and love others, I am most definite we will be more happy and enjoy life as we were intended to.
What would our lives truly look like if we did not let our troubles and pain conquer our lives, but use them, embrace them, and see something beautiful emerge?
written by: Leah Williams May 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
here's to my dad! Happy Father's Day!
My father is phenomenal. I am exceedingly grateful for my dad’s consistent love, encouragement, wisdom, support, and sacrifice to my family and I.
I have many great memories with my Dad. Times we went fishing, date nights with dad, times he would take me shopping when I was a little girl, dad coming to watch my tennis matches and basketball games, and times when we would work on wood projects together making something ugly and worn into something beautiful. Even to this day, it means the world to me when my dad takes me to dinner, goes with me to help me decide on a big purchase, and helps me fix things at my house.
I will never forget times growing up when I would wake up for school and I would see my dad in the living room spending time with God. It encouraged me as I spent time with God, knowing my dad was also.
As I have gotten older, I have come to appreciate my father significantly more and more everyday because I see how the father that my dad has been to me has impacted my life. His character and love has forever changed the person that I am today. He has always put God first in his life and family second. Though, he has always worked a lot, he always would make time for our family.
I have a greater understanding of God’s character and His love for me because of the way my father exemplified the love of a father. My father has not only been a remarkable father to my siblings and I, but to many others. He was a father to my fiancé who died of cancer almost one year ago. He loved him well and would sit, talk and pray with him. He supported us believing God to heal him and fought with us to the end. My dad was one of Sam’s greatest mentor’s and was a father to him that he never had. My parents took him in as their own and allowed him to live his last several months in their house. They have sacrificed so much for my siblings and I. Others in my life have been deeply impacted by my own father as they have seen and experienced how he has been a true example of a sincere picture of our God as a Father.
I am so thankful for my dad who just simply loves me through all my failures, through all my faults, through all my pain, through all my crazy adventures, and through all my struggles through life. He has always been my rock, directing me closer into the heart of God. He simply loves and accepts me for who I am. He doesn’t try to control my life, but he trusts God to control my life and to protect me. He has been my greatest advocate, words of wisdom, listener, and the reason that I can go on today in my relationship with God.
I love my Dad! HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
Leah ☺
I have many great memories with my Dad. Times we went fishing, date nights with dad, times he would take me shopping when I was a little girl, dad coming to watch my tennis matches and basketball games, and times when we would work on wood projects together making something ugly and worn into something beautiful. Even to this day, it means the world to me when my dad takes me to dinner, goes with me to help me decide on a big purchase, and helps me fix things at my house.
I will never forget times growing up when I would wake up for school and I would see my dad in the living room spending time with God. It encouraged me as I spent time with God, knowing my dad was also.
As I have gotten older, I have come to appreciate my father significantly more and more everyday because I see how the father that my dad has been to me has impacted my life. His character and love has forever changed the person that I am today. He has always put God first in his life and family second. Though, he has always worked a lot, he always would make time for our family.
I have a greater understanding of God’s character and His love for me because of the way my father exemplified the love of a father. My father has not only been a remarkable father to my siblings and I, but to many others. He was a father to my fiancé who died of cancer almost one year ago. He loved him well and would sit, talk and pray with him. He supported us believing God to heal him and fought with us to the end. My dad was one of Sam’s greatest mentor’s and was a father to him that he never had. My parents took him in as their own and allowed him to live his last several months in their house. They have sacrificed so much for my siblings and I. Others in my life have been deeply impacted by my own father as they have seen and experienced how he has been a true example of a sincere picture of our God as a Father.
I am so thankful for my dad who just simply loves me through all my failures, through all my faults, through all my pain, through all my crazy adventures, and through all my struggles through life. He has always been my rock, directing me closer into the heart of God. He simply loves and accepts me for who I am. He doesn’t try to control my life, but he trusts God to control my life and to protect me. He has been my greatest advocate, words of wisdom, listener, and the reason that I can go on today in my relationship with God.
I love my Dad! HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
Leah ☺
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Gift of Nothingness..the Brevity of life
Gift of Nothingness…..
I know, so it sounds a little weird...NOTHINGNESS? Is that even a word- yes it is a word- and how is having NOTHING a gift?
So, I am beginning to realize how much it is a gift from God when He takes everything (not literally EVERYTHING...but you know what I mean) away to only allow us to become so incredibly thankful for all the little things again, for the sweetness of LIFE. When people say, you never are truly thankful for something until it is taken away...I think that is very true...though...why do we have to have everything taken away to see the good and to be thankful? The brevity of life is so precious.
When I feel as though I have nothing to give, nothing to say, nothing to take the pain away, and seems like everything good in my life has been taken away so many times, it makes me appreciate the little-irreplaceable-valuable life that we live. For the last 6 months, I have felt like things have constantly been taken away, taken away, and then when something good comes along, it is again taken away. I have realized how incredibly thankful I am for every friend that I have in my life, for every moment of talking over dinner, for friends who just listen and that are always there, for friends that will support you while trying to make “right” decisions, for friends that will believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself, and for friends to just stinkin' have a blast with! I am thankful for my amazing parents. Words cannot express, seriously…what they mean to me. They have been everything to me and been more to me than I could ever ask for. I could go on and on for every little thing that I am thankful for….so when you feel as though you have nothing, think again…it may be the very gift to you….the Gift of Nothingness. We may really have everything when we have nothing...
noth·ing·ness
1. the absence of life, existence, and all discernible qualities
2. space with nothing in it
3. complete worthlessness or insignificance
4. somebody or something without any worth or significance
5. the condition of lacking any apparent meaning
I know, so it sounds a little weird...NOTHINGNESS? Is that even a word- yes it is a word- and how is having NOTHING a gift?
So, I am beginning to realize how much it is a gift from God when He takes everything (not literally EVERYTHING...but you know what I mean) away to only allow us to become so incredibly thankful for all the little things again, for the sweetness of LIFE. When people say, you never are truly thankful for something until it is taken away...I think that is very true...though...why do we have to have everything taken away to see the good and to be thankful? The brevity of life is so precious.
When I feel as though I have nothing to give, nothing to say, nothing to take the pain away, and seems like everything good in my life has been taken away so many times, it makes me appreciate the little-irreplaceable-valuable life that we live. For the last 6 months, I have felt like things have constantly been taken away, taken away, and then when something good comes along, it is again taken away. I have realized how incredibly thankful I am for every friend that I have in my life, for every moment of talking over dinner, for friends who just listen and that are always there, for friends that will support you while trying to make “right” decisions, for friends that will believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself, and for friends to just stinkin' have a blast with! I am thankful for my amazing parents. Words cannot express, seriously…what they mean to me. They have been everything to me and been more to me than I could ever ask for. I could go on and on for every little thing that I am thankful for….so when you feel as though you have nothing, think again…it may be the very gift to you….the Gift of Nothingness. We may really have everything when we have nothing...
noth·ing·ness
1. the absence of life, existence, and all discernible qualities
2. space with nothing in it
3. complete worthlessness or insignificance
4. somebody or something without any worth or significance
5. the condition of lacking any apparent meaning
Thursday, February 14, 2008
all things made new...
I really have come to believe that it isn’t so much the hard circumstances that come in our lives, as it is how we respond to them.
So, LIFE is hard and life really really really just plain sucks sometimes…..And though, most of us were all taught that God is good and that He is with us and that He loves us. And we may associate God as this really big God that knows us from a far and someone that we fear will take everything fun and good out of our lives. We are taught that life ends happily ever after and that life with God is easy. We are taught to do right and act right, but we don’t know why we believe what we believe. Or, we do all the right things and know all the right things to say, just because we think it will make us a better person. Or, we are nice to people to just make ourselves feel good about our selves. We think that if we go to church more or pray more or do good things that we will make it on God’s side and win our way to heaven. We think we have to do good things for God or we will let Him down. We see God as this boring, distant God who desires nothing but to make us miserable and try to control our lives. We may see God as our high school Chapel service…Boring…and completely a turn off.
This may be how only some grew up. I am not writing this to talk to others, this is just me thinking out loud in hopes that someone else feels the same way and can maybe somehow relate to me and in hopes that they will come to find God to be completely different. I know that I have.
I know, in complete confidence, that God is not all those things or I would not be following Him today. I don’t doubt God’s existence for a second. God has never failed me, He has always come through for me and too many life experiences have proved that God really does exist and that He really is good. I know what I believe and why. I know that I once really did grow up with that mindset and I perceived God as a distant and boring God. I also know that if anyone tells you, that walking with God is all glorious and wonderful, they are lying to you. There is nothing easy or glorious about walking the narrow way and giving up control of your life.
Somewhere down the road, God knocked me off my feet and became my best friend rather than a distant, boring, mean God. God became the most important thing to me and as I allowed myself to let Him love me and the more and more I gave Him of my life, I became to be more happy and more free. I experienced life at it’s best. I experienced His love in a real way and meet Him like never before. In a sense, I was ruined and He won my heart. There was no way that I could question if there was a God or if God really loved me. I experienced His love in a real way and was so content in Him alone. I came to the point of no turning back, where else would I go? Now that I know deep in my heart the truth and the reality of the goodness of God. There was something so deep that had been solidified in my heart, that there was never the question of turning elsewhere, because nothing seemed to come close to be anything better than Him.
God knew, that I needed to know that I know that I know that I know He loves me and that He will never leave me nor forsake me. I had to know that God will NEVER FAIL me. That I can trust Him with my life and that I can give up all my own efforts to make anything good come out of my life. I can give up all my own ways of trying to live life and trust that He will always be better. God never forced me to seek Him, He never forced me to follow Him. God gently drew me closer to Him. He always wanted to be close to me, it was me that had to desire to be close to Him before I would truly know Him and not just know about Him. Before I would really be able to experience the life that He desired me to live in Him, I had to desire Him and let Him in my life.
So, just because I have a history of walking with God for many years doesn’t mean that I won’t ever got through hard times or times of wrestling/contending/being angry with God. Truth is, we all go through pain and suffering and we can either choose to go through it with or without God…but we still will have pain and suffering in our lives. We can choose to either suffer with God or without Him….better to suffer and know God than to never know God at all!
It is so important to embrace God in the pain. If we go through the hard times without God, we will look back and wonder where God was. We will look back at those times as if God abandoned us. There is rich revelation through the hardest times if we choose to embrace them. It hurts to embrace God in the pain, but it is worth it in the long run.
I knew that in times when my emotions and heart were fighting with the truth, I had to just let myself express how I felt even if it sounded horrible and not “the right thing” to say. I needed to be real with God. I needed to tell him how I was angry, how I felt so lonely going through all that I was dealing with. I needed to tell him how I was in pain and that I did not have anything to give to try to make things right with God. He was going to have to come help me. It was never going to be anything that I could do for Him or anything that I could do to fix things. It had to be Him. Deep down inside, I knew He would come through for me, I just didn’t know when so I just waited. I am a mess, here I am and I throw all this anger, frustration, pain, misery, all theses shattered pieces at your feet and ask you to take them away. In moments like these…is when God is seeing if I really do trust Him and if I really will continue to keep walking the narrow way and continue to lay my life at his feet. If I were to analyze things and try to figure God out in my mind, I would be more lost. So, I just have to accept the uncertainties of life and keep going with God. There has been so much tension of what I understand and of what I don't understand. In moments like these, in the middle of a crisis, is when it is costly to praise God. I will choose to not be offended at God.
Some people want to intellectually understand God. We complicate things to try to comprehend them, yet we can never fully comprehend or understand God. I think that has been hard for me, to finally accept and realize, that I cannot and will not ever be able to understand God. All I do know, is that He is good and that He is real and I do know that I am miserable without Him…so I choose by faith to keep following Him,….yet it is so simple….just let it all go and let Him love us. It isn’t God’s character that He makes us do things for Him, He simply just wants to love us and live our lives for us. He doesn’t desire us to suffer without Him…though we can share in His suffering that He went through for us because He loves us to much, we can never come close to fully understanding or comphrehending His love for us.
I have never really had my faith tested more than ever until everything that I once knew and believed seemed to be swept out from under me after Sam died. For months after, God seemed so far away. I felt so hurt by God. I felt nothing but pain at times and it was very hard to even want to desire God. Cause, when you see nothing, you feel nothing, and God seems so far, and everything is painful…isn’t that what faith is…choosing to look to God despite everything, choosing to embrace pain and suffering despite things…choosing to trust God and trust that He will be more than enough for me, though I see, have, and feel nothing. The only thing that kept me stable was the deep TRUTH of God's goodness and faithfulness that was imparted years ago in my heart.
Through all the pain and heartaches of loosing Sam, I came to a crossroad. I really began to wonder if it really was worth following God. If I seek God and believe in Him to heal Sam and love Sam till the end with all that God gave me and to believe and fight his battle with him,…then to come out with more pain and heartache, is it really worth it? Yes. No doubt. It was worth every second and I would keep on doing it, no matter the pain…cause I know there is something greater….the gift that comes out of it. The invaluable revelation out of the depths of pain and suffering is worth it!
There were many ugly times with me and God. God was no longer my friend, but my close friend that I fought with and got really gut honest with. I felt that God abandoned me, I did not feel that He loved me. I was angry at God. I was afraid to get too close to Him because He might cause more pain, yet I knew He would get me through it all since He got me in it. I knew that God was worth it and there was no where else to turn. Where else would I go? All else was emptiness and more pain. Through all the pain, fighting, tears, heartaches and brokenness, came something so sweet. So, faith...right? I remember once, Brian (my twin) and I were talking and I was having a hard time with things and was pretty down on myself and Brian was like..."Leah, where's your faith?!" It hit me...this is faith more than ever right now....to choose to look to God despite everything and to choose to trust Him to be good and be everything that I need though it may not look that way or feel that way. How I feel is not the basis of my faith.
Though, He slay the hell out of me, I will trust Him. Though, I have not always “felt” like trusting Him, I will choose to because that is all I can do to help my pain. Some would think, how could you say that He would cause you so much pain? I didn’t say He inflicted pain on me, but He has allowed me to go through pain. I will say, that God has always been with me in my pain. God has always taken me through the hardest times and He has always brought something good out of the hard times. Times, when I literally thought that I might not make it cause the pain was so much. Times, when I cursed God in the face and was flat out real and gut honest with God, were the times when God came through for me. God can handle it. He can handle us being mad at Him. It was so freeing to know that the things that I always felt inside, but never said, I could say. I believe God desires us to be able to have a real, gut-honest relationship with Him. I don’t think He wants us to live pretending that everything is great and pretend that we don’t question God or wonder about things…cause “how could we dare question, God?” Yeah, right….come on people. We are human. it is only natural to question God in times of trouble or to be angry at God when He allows us to experience painful things. It is okay to be mad at God. If you disagree, than read the Bible. I am pretty sure there were many people who were angry at God. Times, when I was so real and broken before God, is when I came to discover even more who God was to me. People that think that we should never be “mad” at God or that we should never think that following God is painful, have not experienced painful things. Until, you loose someone that is very close to you, someone that you were ‘suppose’ to spend the rest of your life with, who you walked through the fire with and then is taken away to heaven, you have no room to speak or say what people “should” say while going through hard times until you experience your own “hard” times. All the pain and suffering is but a shadow in comparison to that which He will impart to us out of the hardest times.
Though, I will be the first to tell anyone that walking with God is not all glorious, it is painful at times, but I know it is worth it. I know that I know that I know IT IS WORTH IT! I know not only because of the trials that I have been through and seen God through it all and became stronger every time, but because I saw Sam fight to the end and have faith till the end....someone who's body and mind was wasting away, yet still looking to God until His last breath...Sam knew it was worth it and he came face to face with a real God...so I surely do not doubt that it is worth it to seek God.
Instead of focusing on all the negative things through all the hard circumstances, I can choose to look at all the positive things that came out of it and be thankful that it could always be worse, though sometimes I wondered how it could be any worse, but I didn’t want to think about how it could be any more worse, cause it was already to unbearable to comprehend.
Most of us live lives thinking that if we say we love God, but keep Him at a distance and not let Him control our lives, we will be happy. We think that if we don’t get too close to Him, then we won’t have to go through pain. We think that we can find happiness in the World without Him. We are being deceived…strongly lied to. People that think that they have found happiness in the world, a part from God, have no idea of what greater happiness and fulfillment in life there is. We are stuck. Ones that have had that “deep in their-gut….I know God will never fail me and I know He is good and I know that I won’t be able to find life and happiness apart from Him” yet choose to just do whatever they want are miserable, cause they know and anything else apart from God, they can’t enjoy and it always leaves them more empty…cause they have once tasted of something far better….yet ones that have never known for themselves of the goodness of God, can go about living for themselves however and whatever they want…yet they miss out on something so great and so wonderful. If only we would have known years ago and not wasted precious time. Time is valuable. What we choose to do with our time, will determine our destiny.
The trials in our lives can either make us stronger people or bitter and miserable people if we let them.
It honestly is only the mercy of God that I somehow keep coming back over and over…because He offers me something that no one else can.
So, I was just going to write a short note….yeah right!....ended up being a little longer…that is what happens when I am sick and at home…time to sit, think, and write…..or maybe it was the hot toddy that got me going!!.....so I will just stop before I write a whole book, though one day I plan to finish the book that I have started…it will happen in due time!
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