It is December 26, 2016, the day after Christmas. Most businesses are closed and I suspect many
people are doing what I am doing, getting their house in order after the
holiday. As I was rummaging through the
many papers on my desk, I came across some notes I wrote for a Bible Study I
had taught at church. The subject matter
was “Believing God Can & Trusting God Will.” As I picked up my notes and began reviewing
their content, I thought to myself, YES!!
I believe this 100%, STILL…
I have been accused of over-sharing in my blogs. My parents especially worry that I give too
much personal information through my writing.
Perhaps I do, but I wonder, what good are lessons if I cannot share them
to offer hope and encouragement to others?
So alas, I will share my innermost thoughts with you, my readers,
whomever you may be.
I titled this blog “The Space Between” because I am living
in the space between believing God can and trusting that God will. This space is heartbreaking, scary and
empty. With that said, I have no doubt
that regardless of the current circumstances or the outcome, I know I am going
to be ok. However, knowing that I am
going to be ok and hoping for an outcome that I had dreamed of are completely
different things. The entire topic of
“Believing God can and trusting that God will” references a specific thing and
begs the questions, “Believing God can
what?” “Trusting God will do what?” The answer is, grant you your request. That is what it means. We pray for something specific and we either
believe or doubt whether or not God will grant us our request.
For the past two years, I have been praying for a specific
outcome to a prayer request. Over the
two-year period, I had many reasons and signs along the way to indicate God was
working the situation out the way I had hoped and believed he would. I had many moments over the two years where I
thought things where changing for the good, only to learn that the change was
temporary at best. I thought many times
during the two years whether or not God was waiting on me or I was waiting on
him. I didn’t know. The reason I didn’t know is because I serve a
God who can do the impossible and so I just believed he would do the impossible
in my situation and waited for the change to come. I thought that by giving up on the situation
was giving up on my faith in God to work it all out; but over and over I felt
the lord whisper to me, “can you trust me to let it go?” I thought I could
trust him to let go of my hope for this situation but I found that in doing
that, it devastated me.
Letting go is very tricky.
In my case, the situation I was praying about and hoping for was my
marriage of eight years. For the past
two years we have lived apart. Living
separate in a marriage was hard enough for me to deal with but after two years
of working on things and seeing some changes here and there, I was
hopeful. I wanted to honor my vows and
of course I loved my husband. I whole-heartedly
believe marriage is God’s will and this belief also kept me hopeful for the two
years of separation. But as 2016 began
coming to a close, I wondered more and more if perhaps God was waiting on me to
fully let go of all my hopes and dreams about my marriage and trust him blindly
with a new future. The thought of this
was extremely hard and full of emotions I didn’t want to feel and certainly
didn’t want to accept. But, it was even
harder for me to remain in a marriage while being separated for two years without
any sign of reconciling our separate households. That thought was harder to swallow than
blindly trusting God with my future.
So, here I am. In
between what I am leaving behind and not knowing what I am moving toward. The decision to end my marriage has been an
incredibly sad one. How do you leave the
person you love? There is no easy way to
do that. No matter how I think about it,
leaving was not a choice I ever wanted to make.
I am empty beyond a point I can explain.
I am sad beyond an ability to articulate. I am starting over at 50 and
although I have started over many times in my life, this time is scary for
me. I don’t feel like I have the
strength, but I know God is with me and his strength is made perfect in my
weakness and trust me when I say, I feel very weak. I cannot see what is in front of me and I
cannot imagine how my life will change in the months ahead. But I do know who holds my future and if
there is one thing that I know in my heart is that God DOES work everything out
for my good. My past reminds me that
through every hardship I have ever faced, God always made something beautiful
from it. That is what I hold onto in
these moments of uncertainty and sadness.
I am writing this blog today because this space I am in,
this “space in between” is the space where people give up on God. This is the space where people loose their
faith. This is the space where people
relapse. This is the space where people
die, either a physical death or a spiritual death and both are permanent. They die because they really don’t believe
God can and God will.
The space in between is really a matter of Love. It is a discerner of motive and belief. What do you do when faced with a let
down? What do you do when God doesn’t
answer the way you hoped he would? What
do you do when you have no direction? What
do you do when you pray and God is silent?
LOVE is the only thing that will keep you from taking matters into your
own hands during this space in life. It
is not just our love for God that will keep us, but it is KNOWING that God
loves us that keeps us. For me, the one
thing that keeps me going in spite of all the uncertainty is knowing, not
believing, but knowing that God loves me and IF this situation is happening,
contrary to my desire and hopes, then there is a reason and that reason will
work for my good because GOD LOVES ME!
He is always on my side. He
always has my best interest at heart. He
is always faithful. He loves me. He loves me and I will be ok because he loves
me. My husband will be ok because he
loves him.
I have no idea what a day will bring but I know who holds my
future. Today I am grateful to find the
words to pen this blog. I haven’t been able to write for several months but
today I was able. I hope that in some
small way what I have had to say has helped you. May you find your strength and hope in HIM. He loves you ! He is love. Don’t give up on God and don’t give up on
yourself. You are made in his
image. You are fearfully and wonderfully
made. He knows who you are and what you
need. He is just a whisper away. Call his name. He will meet you where you are…
