When the ones you love don’t love you back and other life stuff…
I absolutely HATE days like today. (What a wonderfully upbeat way to start my blog…I just KNOW all three of you who read this feel so happy right now!) Anyway, it’s true. I do hate days like today. Days when you’re reminded about your short-comings by that little voice in your head that says you’ll never be good enough, pretty enough, quiet enough, poised enough, womanly enough, thin enough, _________ enough to achieve all your hopes and dreams and be loved. It seems that everywhere I turn today, I’m reminded of people I’ve loved (in every conceivable kind of relationship) that haven’t loved me back. People who’ve ignored me, hurt me, forgotten me, overlooked me, chosen others over me, and all other manner of thoroughly depressing things. Sometimes, there are even moments when I wonder if God has forgotten about me (or chooses to ignore me for bugging Him about stuff all the time). Even in those moments of quiet desperation, though, I am assured of His diligent love for me. There are those that say God has decided to play dumb about our future; that He has “restrained His knowledge” of things to come. I don’t know about that from a theological perspective (I never understood it in Bib Theo, and I couldn’t get Richardson to explain it to me-if you understand it, let me know!), but from Love’s perspective, it makes no sense to me. How could God create us, love us to the extent that He has, then leave us to uncharted waters without His guidance?
Deeper thinkers than I say that God has done this because “how could we be free to make choices if God knows the outcome. Wouldn’t His knowledge dictate our decision? We wouldn’t be free to choose something else.” Shallow thinkers, like myself (or at least those not so caught up in Free Will) might say that God is the God of the oxymoron. He is Adonai God; He can do both and not change His nature. Theological tangent aside, I am assured of His love and concern for my life, not because I ALWAYS see Him in action (although I very often do), but because I have to. If not, the disappointments, delays, hurts, heartaches, and difficulties of life would have conquered me years ago. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (I Cor. 13:12) Just as I am known by my creator and lover, so I seek to know Him. And though the voice in my head tells me I will never be good enough, holy enough, studious enough, righteous enough to please God, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” And what is the prize? “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2-3) Eternity with the lover of my soul.
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)