This has been a difficult week.
This week I’ve had a bit of an attack of the insecurities, brought on by a big attack of the loneliness. Sometimes I get so annoyed at myself. I hate that I can feel jealousy flitting inside me underneath genuine happiness when I see all my friends paired off together, or confusion when the younger girls in my community come to me asking for “heavenly wisdom” (their words) about how to go about beginning to date some guy when I have no experience from which to speak, or heartache when I listen to a sermon at church about how God made man and woman together to be his image—not just one alone like me, or frustration at needing to talk about these issues and more temptations to sin that are being brought up only to find that those closest to me whom I trust the most seem to have no time for me. It makes me want to scream into my pillow. Loudly. Suffice to say that lately I’ve felt very lonely and almost attacked for being so this week. And for me, loneliness is the gateway emotion into all sorts of sin. I start questioning everything. Am I too much? Am I not enough? When I question who I am, I question who God made me to be. I question who God is. I doubt his promises and attempt to replace them with my own immediate realities because I don’t trust that His word is good and will be fulfilled. Or if I do believe it, I don’t care enough to wait. I took great courage from a message I heard this week from my friend Justin. He spoke about when the Creator God first made a covenant with Abram. He gave a whole new meaning the passage by sharing cultural background I never knew. But God was speaking something else to me. “And Abram believed the LORD, and it was counted to him as righteousness” –Genesis 15:6 Sometimes I think, “Yeah, I could totally trust in what God said if He’d just appear to me in a giant pillar of fire and spoke clearly, too.” But in a way, it should be easier for me to trust in God than it was for Abram. Abram didn’t have thousands of years’ worth of stories about God’s faithfulness the way I do. Abram didn’t know when God’s plan to redeem the world through Christ would take place. He had just met God; what evidence did he have of God’s faithfulness? None, compared to what I have. And if he was able to take it on faith that God would fulfill his promises, then how can I possibly say that it is too difficult for me to do so? God had Abram look at the stars, and said that his offspring would be so numerous. I imagine every time Abram began to doubt God, all he had to do was look at the stars and remember God’s promise. So even as this week has been really difficult, I’m trying to find ways to remember God’s faithfulness. Just because it was cloudy last night didn’t change the fact that there were still stars out. Just because light pollution completely obscures a huge portion of the stars even on the clearest of nights doesn’t mean they aren’t still there. I thirst for a righteousness from God. I want all this sin and insecurity in me to burn up completely. I want it. And so I have to take God’s promises on faith. People talk about faith and action as though they were opposite; but the way I see it, faith is only shown in action. My faith means nothing unless I am living guided by it. If I have faith in God’s promises, I need to act like it and not allow myself to be ruled by my fears. And faith doesn’t mean I don’t have doubt—if I was certain, I wouldn’t be using any faith at all. But it does mean not allowing my fears to rule my actions and skew me into sin. I’ve never before felt so conscious, so aware of the tugging between paths before. But I know what I thirst for. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, out inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Rachel Fruit and Labor
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In my last entry, I mentioned that I’ve entered a “season of life” in which God is emphasizing my sinfulness in all areas. Yeah. So that’s still happening. It’s not gotten easier. If anything, it’s become more difficult, more intense. I become more aware of my sin the moment it happens, almost as it happens. Which is good, if not very painful to have pointed out every single time. And I sin a lot in one day. I’ve been listening to The Reign of Kindo lately, and while many of their songs have really been resonating with me, the lyrics to this one stick out. I am painfully aware of this process right now. Of everything in my being burned up by the sun’s violent fire.
And honestly, I can’t wait for it to be completed. I know it’ll be a lifetime coming, but it’s worth the burning I feel right now. Rachel Fruit and Labor |
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November 2019
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