In case you're wondering, I'm also not a fan of coming up with subject lines for emails. I much prefer to be the replyer so I don't have to name the subject line. But I digress...
Yesterday was a moment of revelation for me. I was walking out to my car after work and thinking about the day, thinking about the love stuff I was processing, thinking about the email I sent to my really smart friend, thinking about what I was going to make for dinner, and thinking about turning off emotions. (I have ADD, what can I say?)
So it dawns on me that if you take the emotion out of the equation, then God's love is there no matter what. If it exists outside of the emotion or the feelings of the moment, then it is permanent, steadfast, and never changing. If it's there even when I don't feel like it is, then it's really always there. If it's really always there, then there isn't anything I can do to add to it, or take away from it. It just is.
I was raised in church. I was a church kid, a youth group teenager, a youth group helper when I was too old for youth group but there wasn't anything else to go to, a young marrieds group member...and the list goes on. You get the idea. Church, or more specifically, Christianity, has always been a part of my life. I didn't just stumble across this as an adult. It's a part of my story from day one. But today was the first day EVER when it occurred to me that what I've been told for decades might actually be true. The first time I stripped the emotion away and still had a solid ground to stand on.
I'm not entirely sure what is different now; what makes this time realer than the million of other times I heard this truth? But it is different. Perhaps the difference is that I'm in a healthier place now. I've worked really hard at ripping apart old lies and piecing back together the truth. Maybe this is a sign that I really am rebuilding now.
I hope I don't unlearn it. I hope that I can continue to know this truth at my core, regardless of the emotion of the moment. I pray that I don't have to keep learning the same lesson over and over again. God loves me. Always has. Always will.
How can that truth not rock my world and change my life?
1 comment:
That truth IS rocking your world, friend, and though there are many times when we can't feel God the way we yearn to, he is there, bringing healing and restoration to our deepest wounds, through some of our toughest trials. I am reminded of Satan tempting Jesus to sin telling him lies trying to persuade him to "join the dark side" poking and prodding when he was alone in the wilderness, emotionally and physically drained. God was there with his son, loving him and restoring him every step of the way. "The dark side" (sorry, big Star Wars fan) for me is the voice inside that tells me I'm wrong about God, love, truth and peace. This is one of the wicked forms depression takes. God's unending powerful love always outshines the shadows in the end. The struggle with doubt, fear and depression can last a long and lonely time. There are times of feeling God's peace that passes all understanding and there are time of feeling absolute emptiness, sorrow and dread. That's when I do my best to disconnect from the darkness, look it in the face and tell it to f off. I can see him in my minds eye crouching outside that door...but there is the other door, where God's enduring love waits patiently for me while I struggle not to sink or lose control in the murky waters of my depression. Time and time again God's unconditional love heals me. I just have to persevere, I have to forgive myself when I fall victim and have the courage to not let that separate me from God, I just keep coming back to love him and sit at his feet again and again. Always remembering that there "May be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning"
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