Month: July 2017

A Jesus-lover’s soul survival guide to joy

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I beat back the darkness with counting gifts. I hacked my path through brokenness by remembering the goodness of God as I walked the half-mile path around my neighborhood through the winter. Praying. Wondering why eternity felt so far away. When the wounds of the whole world felt like a ripping, it was thanking God stitched me back together.

In my aloneness last year, I learned “you alone.”

You alone fulfill me. You alone comfort me. You alone give me strength. You alone give me joy. You alone are good. You alone are any good in me. Your presence alone is joy. You alone take me through the long nights of chest pain and fluttering beats.

I wrote plenty about it. The depth of the joy I felt and the depth of brokenness that I felt. I needed God every day. Every night. I needed His presence.

God has gradually repaired my joy the last 7 months in many significant steps. Now my days are full of joy. I’ve tossed around in my mind lately how not to lose God in it. How to still know my need for God in my joy.

Here’s what God has been teaching me.

-In good times, counting gifts is even more important because it keeps me focused on the giver. It reminds me that every. single. good and gracious gift is from above.

-In good times, I know my need by knowing my sin. Don’t stop knowing and repenting.

-In good times, have the extra dose of strength to pray for the brokenness that others are experiencing.

-When God talks about the feast, he’s not talking about abundance or joyful emotion or comfort in this world. He’s talking about the blood and I still need the blood in my joy. That’s the seat at the table. That’s the joy.  The feast is all about the body and blood, not the side-dishes. I need to not let the taste of the side-dishes distract me from the real feast.

-The joy of His presence is still my strength. Soak in His presence daily. Thank Him for joy.

-The joy gives me a greater margin of emotional energy to serve. There was that hard thing that I didn’t have the emotional reserves for. God has been prompting me to consider that now is the time. That there’s a purpose for joy, just like there was with pain. Now’s the time to take the land. He wants me to take the land with my pen. With my obedience…To know my need for Him in this new way.

I’m sure more lessons will come, but I’m grateful for this start.

 

Why God is faithful no matter what

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Ryan Miller sang it like a cowboy. He sang it during communion at my best friend’s wedding. And I couldn’t help but cry at God’s faithfulness to Rheanna. I couldn’t help but recount how I had prayed that she’d meet someone who appreciated her like I did. Who’d recognized the gift of her like I did. I had prayed for her more than I did for me. I remembered the conversations we’d had when we were happy for friends and family but wondered “where’s my man?”

Even after I surrendered marriage to the Lord, there were hard reminders and weeks. Rheanna was the one who I could call and knew would understand and yet have a word that was truthful, empathizing, and spiritually-encouraging without being cliché. In the back of my mind, I had always wondered how I’d feel if she, my last single friend, married first. And here we were, standing at the altar.

I have to admit, three months ago during that song, I wasn’t just crying because of God’s faithfulness to Rheanna. I wasn’t just crying because I saw her come alive in a deeper way than I could have imagined with her fiancée. I wasn’t just crying because her husband was better than I could have imagined.

I was crying because I was telling God that I would cling to that old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown. Even though it meant turning 30 without being married. Even though it meant turning 29 with no prospects. Even though it meant that I might never know love, know motherhood, know what it’s like to feel valued, to feel important. To have someone to call when there’s an emergency.

I’d suffer for a while for the glory that I’d forever share of an eternity with Him. I’d bear my little cross because He wanted me to. I’d bear it for the one who bore the big cross to bear me to heaven someday. I cried because He was still good, because of that old rugged cross. I cried because He knows pain beyond what I know. I cried because just as He was faithful to Rheanna, He had been faithful to me in dark nights, and I knew He would continue to be.

I went through many lows without a significant other. I can look back and say that God is faithful. Not only or primarily because He brought a good and gracious gift into my life, but for His presence in each of those moments. For His tenderness and comfort. For the truths He spoke to me and over me.

Rheanna wrote it all those years ago…how “The Man” doesn’t show up as a prize or reward when we’re at some certain spiritual level. He’s an added blessing to what I already have with Jesus.

I’ve been given an added blessing. And just like my cat was a reminder of God’s faithfulness (I wish I were joking), so is this man. God is always faithful. He just shows it in different ways at different times. I’m grateful for the reminder of how well God knows me and thankful for how faithful God’s been in his provision of this particular man…but I’m grateful that God’s heart is always faithful towards me whether or not He expresses it with gifts.