NOT MADE WITH HANDS

Loneliness has a funny way of finding us in the moments when we should feel surrounded by love. I have a family that loves me more than anything in the world, a boyfriend who would lasso the moon and give it to me if he could, and friends who would do whatever it takes to be there for me. Yet right now sitting in my room I feel the loneliness call. It’s louder than the music I play; it’s louder than all the Netflix I watch. It’s almost deafening as it screams out—they’re not what you need. When loneliness calls I’ve learned it’s not calling me to go make a new friend or ask my boyfriend to come hang out, it’s calling me to call on Jesus. My heart is lonely because it hasn’t been fed. No matter how many friends I have or how many distractions I can find the loneliness will always creep in when I don’t spend time talking to the One who has my heart. I get so caught up in life sometimes that I forget to rest and spend time getting to know who Jesus has called me to be and what I truly need. I need to work so I can pay rent, I need to sleep so I don’t pass our from sheer exhaustion, I need to spend time with friends so that they don’t think I’ve become a hermit. But through the work and the sleep I still find my heart hurting. It aches from a loneliness that is brought on by my lack of desire to listen. God calls to me in the moments of loneliness. Draw near, daughter. Allow me to heal your lonely heart. Yet it’s always hard for me to listen. I’m a big time over committer. I always have a million and three things planned, so it makes it easy for me to ignore when God is trying to speak to my heart. I can turn up all my so called obligations and turn down the voice of Love, but praise the Lord His love is always fighting for me and His love fights through the noise I create. It calls me straight into the loneliness and asks me why my heart could be so lonely when surrounded with such love. Every time the answer I return with is that I haven’t been filling my heart with the one love that sustains. I’ve been filling my heart with busy schedules and earthly loves that can never compare to Christ’s love. So when loneliness calls now, I try my best to answer and draw near.

One would think that working with the elderly and being surrounded by death on the daily I wouldn’t be so afraid of things, but nevertheless I’m a chicken-shit (pardon my French). I think if I made a list of all the things I’m afraid of and printed it out I would have enough paper to keep a fire burning for weeks. I’m afraid of the fears that make sense: sharks, spiders, snakes and all the other creepy crawly things of the world. Then there are the less rational fears: shower drains–don’t ask, crocodiles even though I live in Georgia, and clowns. Lastly there are the big hitters, the fears that keep me up at night: not being enough, being ordinary, and not living up to my potential. Some nights I can hardly sleep thinking about all the times people have walked out of my life signaling that I wasn’t good enough to stay for. At night all the shadowy ghosts of my past run back into my mind and whisper to all my insecurities. Most nights I can’t drown them out until after midnight, but some nights it’s an all night battle. I try to pray but sometimes even my own prayers can’t drown out the voice of self-doubt.

Fear seems to bridge the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary. People who are seen as fearless are people who we view as extraordinary. Jesus wasn’t afraid of anything—not even death. He conquered death, which I’ve always pictured as a hogtie for some unknown reason. He wrestled death and showed that even death wasn’t something we should fear. So why then am I so afraid of everything? Some people say it’s a lack of faith and trust in Christ. To those people I would say—please step into a pit of crocodiles and tell me you aren’t frightened. I don’t think Jesus meant that we would never feel fear when he said:

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” -Isaiah 41:10

I think he was trying to tell us not to let fear overcome us. He was telling us to recognize fear and stop it in its tracks. To take back the power we’ve given fear and realize how much more power we have with Christ.

I wish this were a post that claims to have to the cure for self-doubt and fear, but I’m not Jesus. I can’t conquer my fears without Him, much less help anyone else conquer their fears. I haven’t told anyone—until now obviously—I’m starting a new challenge with myself. I want to conquer my fears daily. I want to be unwavering in this. I don’t want anything to deter me from stepping up to my fears. I want to be the person who sings loud and obnoxiously, because they don’t care what people think. I want to dance off beat in the middle of the dance floor, because life is too short to be on the outskirts of fun. I secretly want to ride a bull, but a real one–at least that way if I die it’ll be one heck of a story. I want to skydive, even though I get nauseous just looking down from heights. I want to talk to the cute boys first, because why wait. I want all of these things, but mostly I want to train myself to be fearless. I don’t want anxiety to overrun my mind anymore. So I will conquer my fears—Lord willing and the creek don’t rise as my grandma would say.

Have you ever felt so absorbed in something that all of a sudden you look up and cry out–Jesus “Where are you”? Well that’s where I was five months ago. Five months ago I found myself so taken over by a relationship I completely forgot who I was. I began to think only of the future. I craved marriage. I wanted to be engaged. I needed a life with this boy to begin immediately. I spent the majority of the relationship making little compromises in who I was. I temporarily misplaced my love for people and friendship, all so I could play the role of girlfriend. I lost sight of just how important I think it is to be there–to be present for people, but I told myself I needed to be present for him. I spent more time obsessing over what he thought of me, that I forgot…IT DOES NOT MATTER.

The Word says,

“But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living.”

-Psalm 52:5

July came and my heart shattered as I heard the words of a breakup recited to me on the front porch of my new home, I couldn’t see what God was doing in me. For a month I couldn’t understand that He wasn’t taking away this boy I loved because He hates me, He was taking this boy away because He loves me too much to let me settle. I can say now months of healing have revealed, I was settling. I’m not saying he isn’t a wonderful boy, but he was most certainly not the man God had intended for me. It hurt and still hurts to seek out rest in knowing that we were just not God’s plan for one another. How could my heart have been so deceitful? My heart was preparing itself for a life of questioning my worth, hiding my true self and losing who I am in an attempt to make a boy stay. God saw this in my heart and gave me so many opportunities to choose better for myself, but I didn’t want to. It’s hard to hear truth when you know it’s going to hurt. I had fallen into sin and when they say sin is comfortable, boy do they mean it. I began to forsake my relationship with Christ because an “I love you” from a boy suddenly meant more to me than the ultimate love of Christ. I began to notice myself qualifying sin and questioning what the Bible really means when it speaks against immoral behavior. I began to think that I wasn’t worth a relentless pursuit. My heart had fed into all of these lies. It was incredibly painful. I watched myself slowly forget what Christ says about who I am:

“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.”

-Psalm 139:13-14

Christ has since shown me that I was made in the image of beauty and life. I was created to personify beauty. Not in the physical fashion, but in the soul. God created me with a predisposition to love fiercely. He gave me bones that ache for adventure and a spontaneous spirit that has catapulted me into some of the most incredible friendships. Christ took my relationship, because He was calling me into a love that satisfies and a love that endures forever. He looked into my heart and saw that I was giving it away without consulting the King I gave it to first. I’m learning now that you can’t give your heart away more than once. When you give your heart to Christ, it’s all or nothing. He doesn’t just want what is easy or comfortable to give, He wants the whole mess whether it beats with all it’s pieces in tact or whether the next beat could be the one to break it all apart. He wants all of it. He calls not just for our wholeness, but our brokenness. He sees the agony and the quiet anticipation that the next beat may be the one that breaks it in two, but He hears us in the pain. He stays there with us steadfast and unrelenting, listening. In my brokenness I’ve felt His love cover me like never before. I’ve been able to rest in the knowing that Christ is jealous for me. He longs for my entire heart.

So, I hope this finds whom it needs to find, because this is my call from the valley–a call to say that I’m standing in the bottom of this valley, but I’m starting the challenging ascent to the top of the mountain.