Life is surprising. So is God. God is Patient. I am not. My view is limited, God is expansive. My story is mine. I am His.
What was my focus in life? Where did I find security?
My focus in life as a teen was wrapped up in my talents. My identity was the soprano with no ego. HAHA. In college I struggled to find a sense of identity but leaned heavily on the reassurance that God walked with me and would hold me up. I tried to be thinner, and once that was achieved found validation in that because someone finally wanted to date me. I found validation in him. I took care of him, had his children, and filled my time helping others, loving others, and raising both my kids and my husband. Validation was few and far between, but I always waited for those words of affirmation. I leaned on the LORD, finding protection and strength and resolve to be faithful in worship and mommying.
How did those things begin to let me down?
These things never gave me the true validation I needed. Kids don’t say thank you, and they get more difficult as they grow up. My middle little boys had special needs that I couldn’t figure out how to meet. My husband couldn’t see past his needs most of the time, let me take care of too much on my own, and couldn’t affirm my efforts on most days. I gained weight as I tried to take care of everyone but myself, and my husband’s reason to be attracted to me flew out the window. I could never do enough to be validated. I had to stop singing in church because I wasn’t ready for a worship leadership position… I wasn’t enough anywhere.
How I Came to Christ
Covid changed everything. My world fell apart. No one saw me. My husband left. But also, everything stopped spinning.
God held me tight. Time slowed. My mind quieted. I slept better and drank tea in the sunshine. God’s wall of protection became evident.
I didn’t want to accept that my marriage had to end. I didn’t want to fail. I wanted to pick up the pieces and have God help me put them back together again. But he clearly told me that now, I was done. I could be done fighting. He had protected me through storm after storm, and he didn’t expect me to struggle through this one anymore. I had done all I could do, and it was okay to be done. His words to me that evening were, “Daughter, you are worth so much more.”
My Life After
Before walking through my divorce with the Lord, I was centrally focused on caring for others, and found my worth in how well I did that and not making the big mistakes. I was definitely the picture of a perfectionist. Don’t mess up. Now, I’ve made one of the biggest mess ups a Christian can supposedly make, but the people who loved me before still love me and even more, grieve with me. God still loves me, and even more, grieved with me and told me to move.
God wants blessings in abundance and when I was stuck in the spiral of life he couldn’t bless me in abundance. He also wanted to show me GRACE because mess-ups are okay. Jesus died so that we could mess up and still have a relationship with him.
Trust is a funny thing. We say that trust needs to be earned, but there are some things we can always trust people, including ourselves, to do. We can trust people to mess up. We can trust people to be self-focused. We can trust people to struggle. BUT, we can also trust people to TRY, and over it all, we can trust God to be sovereign.
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