For times of longing in the midst of your Plan B

"...You have seen my affliction, you have known the distress of my soul." Ps. 31:7-8

I know I've been better than I am. But I know I can be better than I've been. I now put my trust in you...even when "...my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing."

My pastor once said, "God cares more about your character than He does your comfort." I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Not because I've realized that truth deep in my heart or because I have awesome character or because I'm trying to be more contemplative and think about what I've heard. No. The fact is that phrase has been ringing in my ears ever since I heard it because I don't wanna believe it. When life faces you with a job that drains you emotionally, with loneliness and a lack of (or lack of the 'feeling of') belonging...when life smacks you in the face with bills and expenses beyond your control or family complexities too dysfunctional to even talk about...when life whispers lies to you of your not being good enough, deceiving your heart even on a good day...when all these things happen and your mind is shattered and your heart exhausted from the fight of trying to prove yourself, the struggle of trying to mend every relationship, fix every problem... when all this is happening--I wanna believe God cares about my comfort. I wanna believe he wants to just make everything perfect for me. I wanna believe he wants to just change my circumstances so I'm completely happy. I don't wanna believe he cares more about my character than my comfort or my circumstances. I don't wanna believe that all the crap that is happening around us can actually make us better. That all the stress, all the hardship and all the heartache can somehow shape us into better people with minds more whole and hearts better equipped for love.

Regardless of what I want to believe, however, life sometimes sucks. And I think we can get into a lot of trouble when we start believing in a God who cares more about our comfort and making us happy than about our character. I think that kind of God would make us all kinda crazy--changing life around all the time so we can experience only elated emotions, and never the awful ones.

Yeah, sometimes life is stupid and nothing seems to make sense. Sometimes you get dealt a bad hand or live in a terribly long season of darkness. But its the times of sorrow that help us appreciate even more the times of joy, right? Its the times of mourning that give us new life in future rejoicings. Its times of loneliness and despair and disinterest and aimlessness that bring us more fully into times of great belonging, of peace and of purposefulness.

So...
-May you, in whatever season you find yourself in, discover a peace that helps you believe life is more than what it seems to be.
-May you find REST in a God who is desperately longing to walk with you in the midst of a stressed out life.
-May you experience your darkness fully, that your coming light will be all the more beautiful.

May you trust firmly. Amen.