Taking baby steps……
So this is faith.
Faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
I majored in love.
I spent a lifetime searching for that romantic love, well
more, the lasting solid connection and commitment that my definition of
romantic love is.
But the search has been fruitless – fruitless in the sense
that I am still alone. Not that alone that comes from looking under every
rock for ‘someone, anyone’, but that alone that is when the ‘one’ has not been
found. Or the ‘one’ does not reciprocate with that same desire as
I. Alone because my obligations were to my children and I dare not
subject them to what life had dealt me. My aloneness has also been
because those who would desire me were to me – undesirable.
Love is what I have worshiped.
Faith came and therefore hope when I was introduced to Jesus.
But love, real love had never been in that
equation.
I might admit here that perhaps my perception of love is
quite askew. But then now a days whose isn’t?
Life and love had me and I was a victim of that
illusion. All my choices made based on the hope of that love, the
feelings and desires of someday attaining it.
And as so many who have lived this life along side me, I
became disillusioned, sad, depressed, and then hopeless. Until God
reached down and touched my heart and began the healing.
This had not been one of those instant changes. I had
so beaten myself up that I was not anything like what I believe God had
envisioned me to be when He created me. And I imagine that He alone could
have looked at me and seen the beautiful woman I was called to be.
But because of love, feeling loved, after that long night,
of year after year in the darkness, I began to emerge. Of course that
love was not what He had in mind for me. It was a tool He used to draw me
out. But I became confused and disillusioned once again because my
feelings and emotions were not lining up with what He taught.
How does one go from living a life based on heart felt
direction – to living a life based on faith and hope in the one who is
Love? The answer is – very slowly, sometimes painfully, baby steps at a
time.
I never knew Jesus back then. I knew of Him, I
worshiped the Jesus who loved me, but I had no concept of that love. I
had given myself to him many years ago, but I did not know Him. I had
read about Him, learned all there was to know about Him, but He was not my
Lord. He was my Saviour, but not my Lord. He was my God, He was my
redeemer, my provider, my protector, my confidant. But He was not someone
I could feel loved by.
So again He reached down and touched my heart and again I
soared to the heavens with dreams of having fulfilment and that deep lasting
love.
And I once again found myself alone. But I knew I
wasn’t really alone. I knew that Jesus was mine and that He would never
leave me. But my heart so discouraged began to grow cold again. Slowly I
was losing hope and I found myself heading back down the road to depression.
Then today, how odd, it hit me. I realized that I had
not lost my trust in Jesus. I have never thought for a moment that He was
not with me. But my feelings didn’t line up with my spirit – with knowing
that. For the first time I realized – I mean really realized that I had
always thought of faith as the feeling that things were as He said they
were. But I realized that faith is faith regardless of what feelings are
going on. My heart which I had trusted my whole life – was wrong. A
terrifying thought but also a liberating one.
The good news is that Jesus loves me no matter how I feel.
The bad news is that Jesus loves me no matter how I feel.
So this is faith.
This knowing without a doubt that I am loved, and my heart
has no connection to it.
My heart telling me that I am alone is a lie.
This means that hope also is unconnected to where my heart
lies.
That my hope is in Christ – my faith is in Jesus – who loves
me. Period. It’s a fact.
So that bad news would be?
That bad news would be that my heart may or may not ever get
its desire to feel that deep connection and commitment from someone – which
after all the butterflies of romance have faded – remain when two people become
one flesh. The Love which I have in Jesus in spite of my heart’s protests
does not require emotion feelings or fulfillment in that way.
So this is Faith.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence
of things not seen.
My hope has been for love.
I know I am loved.
Love cannot be seen.
This Christmas has been a dark cloud looming over me causing
me dread. Life and loss pressing in on me and my heart drawing me inward
had me believing that my life was never going to be what He planned it to be.
And Christmas with family around, everyone paired up with
mates and children and grand children only serve to remind me of my
‘aloneness’; until I remembered that I am not – and never will be –
alone.
Greater is He that is in me than ‘me’ that is in the
world.
And I am so thankful for the first Christmas gift of my Lord
Jesus who; though I have not seen Him, have not felt His touch, have not heard
His voice; is more real to me than the earth I walk on. He does not need
to give me anything because He gave it all already. I do not need to feel
His love to know it is, and to know that I am loved.
Forgive me Lord for putting my heart before You. Thank You
for the depth of Your love which brings me to my knees in search of You.
Thank You for causing me to finally see what faith is. Thank You for the
hope I have in You. Thank You for NOT giving me my heart’s desire, but instead
this gift of everlasting love by faith.
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