I am trying to understand how to walk this weary land.
Make straight the paths that crookedly lie, oh Lord, before these feet of mine. When my world is shaking, Heaven stands. When my heart is breaking, I'll never leave Your hands.
The song "Your Hands" by JJ Heller has really reached into the depths of my soul and so beautifully extracted the exact words that have been in my heart for the past year of my life.
I am at a place in my life where the future is rapidly unfolding before me in an overwhelming way. I am making decisions that are affecting the rest of my life, determining relationships that are worth keeping, but also solidifying the values that I hold dear. I am learning that there are times in our lives where we must shed relationships that are toxic to us - the relationships that steal life from us and break us down in ways that leave us a little less free. There are times when no matter how painful letting go of a relationship may be, we must enter into that pain and face it head on while also basking in the loneliness that we all so deeply fear.
Why do we fear loneliness? There's a place in a lot of us that fills up our schedules to the brim to escape any glimmer of loneliness until our stress surges so deeply that we become hardened to the world or an emotional basket case [either one!]. We have a breakdown, we prune our schedules, we decide that we can take on more, and then the process begins all over again.
I'm taking this time in my life to just stop. To sit on the morning bench with the Lord. To bask in the frightening loneliness. To work through the hardships in my life and let them continue to mold my character.
I think we are afraid of loneliness because it is so encapsulating. We allow loneliness to take over our whole being. We lose control and give in to the power we falsely believe it has over us. We let it creep in and slowly take control of every aspect of our lives until we can't stop it. We fear loneliness because we are told that it is an equivalent of weakness. We fear loneliness because the Christian community tells us that if we feel lonely, then there is something terribly wrong with our relationship with Christ.
I have felt terribly lonely over these past six months. I've lost several relationships that once defined who I was. I'm learning that I must define myself by the One who is perpetual, by He who provides me with unconditional, everlasting, true love. Not the fleeting love I want to feel.
I've learned that it's ok to feel lonely. We must take that time to run to the Lord head on with everything we have, even when it feels like a hopeless and daunting task. It is in the moments of loneliness that the Lord so profoundly shapes our character and our relationship with Him, even if we don't feel like any change is happening. Loneliness is not weakness, however you must expose and confront the feeling of loneliness before it takes control of your whole self. And loneliness is not always the mark of a broken relationship with the Lord but rather an opportunity to bask in the fullness of His enduring love that will never abandon or forsake us.
I'm at a really interesting place in life right now. I'm learning what it means to be a true sister in Christ, and let me tell you it's not an easy task to learn. It's painful, lonely, and frightening, but it has been such an overwhelming experience of growth for me. I think I can safely assert that I have never really known what true friendship looks or feels like. I've had a bagillion "best friends", but I have let go of a majority of those relationships. I've always felt like that person that has given so much of myself to a friendship, nearly identified myself by them, and never truly felt the same support and love that I value and work to achieve in return. But I'm realizing that not only was I wrong, but that I'm learning what true, Christ-centered friendship with women is like, and it has been something that I didn't know I was truly searching for until I found it. I think Christian women put up a wall of fake vulnerability. We reveal struggles to each other that we know will be accepted by the Christian community and met with a "Oh hunny, I've been through that. Pray about it, and God will change your heart." It's not good enough. I've made it a goal of mine to break through those false barriers and be uncomfortably real with those around me. I'm not telling you that you should go spill your guts to whoever is closest to you and just automatically trust that they won't tell the whole world. It is important to check your motives behind sharing with others. But what I am saying is that when we can be genuinely vulnerable with each other, our friendships will be so much deeper, so much more fulfilling, and so much more glorifying to God.
And praise God for providing these genuine friendships in my life.
I'm learning that there are some relationships that you must let go. We are human, we are not meant to be stifled but to live. We must allow ourselves to bask in the loneliness and move on to bigger and better things, allowing God to move and work in our lives even when we don't see or feel Him there with us.
We will never leave His hands.
