God loves a fixer-upper
I hate being sad. Okay, that may be obvious, but even worse than the part of being sad (which isn't too peachy to begin with) is the conviction I feel that I must be doing something wrong. I must have made some wrong/awful/selfish/life-shattering decision (which is sometimes true) somewhere down the line that has left me in a place of heartache. It must be my fault. And I must be the one to fix it.
The day that God told me to write my love story,--the story of his love for me--I was in church and I was really sad. I felt disconnected from friends, disconnected from work, disconnected from God. My life wasn't following the script I had written for it, and I was quickly retreating into anxiety and isolation. I was anxious about work, anxious about being anxious about work, and yet even more anxious that I didn't know how to fix it.
I pleaded with God to fix me. To fix my anxious heart. To fix my discontent. To fix whatever was wrong with my brain that was blocking me from figuring out how to fix myself. To fix the brokenness. To fix the sadness.
His response, in a clear-as-day-fit-of-unwarranted-compassion:
"Aly, I don't want to fix you; I want to comfort you."
The revelation shot through me with a jolt of awe. My polite church worship became a snot-fest as he continued to echo to me, "I want to meet you in the sadness. I am here with you. I am sorry you hurt."
What? It's okay to hurt? It's okay to be sad? To grieve lost dreams? To feel overwhelmed?
Hope began to stir.
I was not alone. I am not alone in this.
And then God said something even stranger, "Write my love story."
Even as I questioned the logistics and the cheesiness of writing God's love story--and perhaps my sanity--I was struck by the fact that I did, in fact, have a love story to write.
I did know he was moving.
That he was there. That he never left.
And a strange thing happened: I felt comforted.
Not fixed, but comforted.
I was hopeful that I would see past the darkness and the anxiety and the fixing. I was hopeful that I could write the story of all the times that I had been broken, depressed, angry, confused, or heartbroken, and completely unable to fix it myself. I could fill a book with stories of all the things I didn't fix. Of all the things I couldn't accomplish without his love and his grace.
Tonight as I write this, I pray for the courage to release my fists from their grip on blame and their stronghold on fixing. To allow myself to be comforted and rejoice in all of the things I couldn't fix, but he did.