My love, I know it's difficult
I really stand amazed at God's love. It is nothing like humanly love. It surpasses all understanding.Today I went for a run after... three (?} weeks of not running. I like my long runs. It is my alone time to think about life and about God. Tonight, I heard God tell me: My love, I know it's difficult.
I was always a questioning child. The intensity of the questioning grew as I moved into adulthood. I could never except a simple yes or no for an answer. I needed to understand why. I needed to feel convicted about my choices in life. I needed to understand why people act the way they do, why they make certain life choices, why they love, why they hate. The questioning led to a lot of discoveries. Discoveries about the world, about people, about love. I became good at reading people. I learnt how to speak words that would make them feel understood. I learnt to relate. Every time a friend confided in me I would go away with pages of mental notes in my head about emotions; about what makes people smile, what makes them cry, what makes them angry. Every time I was placed in a new situation, I also learnt much about myself, about how I think, how I feel, and what my boundaries are. I formed a formula in my head about people. I made up rules and drew out boundaries for my relationships. I was always so sure in my ability to read people, understand them, and predict their next move. And I was right. For most of my life, until recently.
Recently, things have been confusing. People don't act the way I expect them to anymore. People and the world have become so messy. I think I don't understand them anymore, and it's unsettling. I remember the first time I was shocked into reality. I thought the world of a person, I believed so much in the integrity and commitment that was represented, but I turned out to be wrong. I thought the whole experience was strange, not so much because I was hurt, but because I didn't know what to think. What do you do when you've had a picture in your head for so many years, but one day you wake up and realise it is a fake?
Since then, the world has been disappointing me. My faith in humanity is dwindling, and I feel helpless. In this situation, I heard God speak these words of comfort. God speaks in special ways. This time, I needed to be shaken into hearing his voice. I had shut my ears for too long that I needed an especially loud wake up call. To get my attention this time, God needed to break me, humble me, in order to mould me. I haven't felt so condemned in a long time. He sent someone to make me feel a condemnation that would cause me question my values and how they had dwindled just like the worlds. Yet, when he breaks you, he knows how much you can take and comes back to sweep you into his loving arms, comfort you, and tell you:
My love, I know it is difficult.