Disengaged.
I am struggling to spend time with Jesus at the moment. I would rather watch Desperate Housewives, read, mess about with YouTube, go on Facebook, tidy my room, make a phone call, have coffee … you get the picture. So why…..
Maybe it is because spending time with Him would mean engaging with reality and right now reality bites. Most of the time I struggle with reality anyway and would much prefer to live in the land of hope and possibility – the future.
Right now I am feeling a level of failure about leaving the city I have lived in since I was 18 because I haven’t done what I most wanted to do here – get married. If I speak to Jesus then I have to face the truth – my friends will grow, develop and change without me. I won’t be a part of their lives in the same way as I have been. I will hear about the things that happen to them, as opposed to being a part of the things that happen to them. I haven’t achieved the things in ministry that I hoped to do. I will not be a part of the new season that our church is stepping into. I would have to acknowledge the level of failure and grief I feel as I leave for pastures new.
But right now I am seeing a side to God that I really haven’t seen that much of recently. It’s the God who sits next to me in my pain. I do not know if that is theologically correct but I feel like He’s just there…. sitting next to me, not offering me clichéd condolences or advice, most of the time He’s silent but every so often He says to me, “I love you”. Sometimes He speaks through my thoughts, sometimes He speaks through the Bible, and sometimes He speaks through a sunny day or by blessing me with things that bring me joy and through people who love me.
Even when there are no words to communicate how I feel, I know He knows how I feel and I don’t need to express myself. He just knows. When I don’t want to speak to anyone, when I don’t want to journal, when all I want to do is be on my own, disengaged from people – He is there. He knows me more intimately than any one.
And I know I am loved.