Sometimes it Doesn’t

My heart wanted to connect. I needed to know that hope was still possible even in the middle of emotional and situational chaos. I desperately wanted to hear, but I didn’t know where to start. As I stared at my Bible, the life within its pages drawing me in, I started aimlessly flipping through it.

Ever been there?

Sometimes meeting with Jesus looks like a curated Bible reading plan or devotional book with highlighters, journals, and your favorite pens.

Sometimes it doesn’t. And that is okay.

For the last five months, more days than not have been “sometimes it doesn’t” kind of days. Meeting with Jesus has looked like repeatedly praying with my husband as we keep asking for wisdom and provision. It’s been counseling sessions dealing with anger, fear, and the desire to give up. It’s been weeping on the floor of the shower when I have absolutely nothing left to give. It’s been falling flat on my face in the middle of worship because sometimes in the surrender the strength to stand or even kneel is not there. It’s been multiple conversations and prayer on my couch with a dear friend who continually chooses to fight with me and for me. It’s been my Bible, a highlighter, and the book of Job, learning that God is big enough to handle the difficulty of my questions and the depth of my hurt. It’s been challenging conversations of conviction, laced with grace, where I’ve been approached in love. And sometimes, it’s been aimlessly flipping the pages of my Bible hoping I’ll land on just the right thing.

Whatever it’s been and however it’s looked, over and over I’ve been reminded that Jesus meets me where I am and that nothing escapes His notice. He knows exactly where I am, how I got here, and what it is going to take to move me forward.

As I aimlessly flipped through the pages of my Bible that morning, I landed in Isaiah, specifically Isaiah 30:18-22.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him! People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

In verse 20 Isaiah uses the imagery of bread and water for adversity and affliction. Bread and water…the very things needed to survive, the essentials. That which is hard, challenging, and painful is being identified as essential. But, keep reading. He won’t leave me to figure it out on my own, nor does He require that of me. Verse 21 says there is a voice behind me saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” It doesn’t matter which way I turn or what I have to walk through, His voice is there. He is there. Always.

Then things shift. Verse 22 talks about releasing idols. An idol is anything I let consume my thoughts and/or steal my focus away from God, right? Where and how am I letting fear be just that?

As I sat and read these verses multiple times it became clear that I was encountering God through His Word as He reminded my heart that hope was still possible even in the middle of emotional and situational chaos. He wasn’t making the sheer exhaustion or hurt disappear, but He was giving me hope and reminding me that He’s still working. He was helping me see the truth that the pain and hurt I experience isn’t purposeless.

God is with me in the middle of what He allows. It’s a promise. A promise I can trust He won’t go back on.

Recently, Andy and I have been reading through Romans together. When we got to chapter 4, verse 21 “being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised,” I found myself asking, am I fully persuaded? Am I convinced? Of course, God, in His kindness, would bring me to this passage in Isaiah that gives me a promise that speaks to where my heart is at in this moment. “Your ears will hear a voice behind you.” God is with me and I will hear Him. His answer to my pain is to give me Himself.

The enemy wants my vision and understanding clouded. Jesus tells us that the enemy’s sole purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Later, Peter reminds us that the enemy prowls around like a lion looking for prey to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Satan doesn’t mess around with messing us up. He will do whatever it takes.

When I am (physically, mentally, and/or emotionally) tired, exhausted, and overwhelmed, of which I’ve been a lot recently, the enemy capitalizes on that. It becomes REALLY easy to lose focus of the truth and it becomes REALLY easy to want to give up.

It’s a hard place to be, especially when it feels crushing, but I’m finding that it’s in the crushing that I’m becoming more of who I was created to be. With as much as I’ve wanted to give up and with as many “sometimes it doesn’t” kind of days that I’ve had, from somewhere deep within and with a strength that’s not my own, I’ve continuously told Jesus I’m going to keep clinging to Him, even when it doesn’t make sense. I’m going to keep worshipping, even when I don’t feel like it. I’m going to trust that He can take the brokenness and what feels like complete emptiness, and do something with it.

And I’m going trust that, even when I feel like I am, I am NOT my brokenness.

God doesn’t look at my brokenness and say, “that’s who she is.” He see ME, His daughter, created in HIS image, who happens to have some brokenness that He is fully capable of restoring.

This season has and continues to challenge me, stretch me, and grow me, but one of the most beautiful things I’m learning is that it’s in the raw vulnerability of the “sometimes it doesn’t” kind of days where I experience the realness of His love and the closeness of His presence in ways I wouldn’t otherwise experience.