There she was again. I watched as she walked up the front walk to ring the doorbell. What would I say to her that would help? The look in her eyes told me how troubled the past year had been. Breathing a silent prayer for help, I asked that in some way I might lighten the heavy load she carried.
Mugs on the table, filled with the wafting aroma of coffee freshly brewed were ready. Cookies on the plate waited to be dunked in that warm brown liquid. I waited for her to start. I knew her mind was whirling with thoughts of where to begin.
After dispensing with the “pleasant” conversation about kids, house, spouse the real reason for her being there started tumbling out.
“I don’t know where I belong and I don’t know what my purpose is,” she said. “What do you mean,” I asked? She wanted to trust me with her hurts but it was hard for her to be transparent. She had been hurt by those she had trusted in before. Sharing her deepest feelings with a particular person she had once trusted turned around to bite her in the back. It was as if a dagger had been inserted into her heart and the betrayal was more than she wanted to remember.
I waited a long time, minutes seemed like hours, and finally out came all the things she had been holding inside.
“I can’t really trust anyone. Everyone thinks I have it all together and I don’t.”
She was the one people turned to for help. She was the one that prayed and read scripture with them. They never knew she had weak moments. Her doubts and feelings of emptiness were well hidden. She was the spiritual rock. Everyone knew her story and she was admired for overcoming so many things, but had she?
Kids gone, change of location, and retirement left her feeling adrift. There was nothing to anchor her. She felt used up and tossed away. Reality said that was not true but she felt that any way.
She watched as others achieved goals, goals she wanted to achieve but were delayed by circumstances beyond her control. Angry, frustrated, devalued, that’s what she thought of herself.
I listened. Praying silently that somehow I could penetrate this wall she built around herself.
She loved people, she really did but so afraid that if they got too close she would lose again and the cycle would repeat. The load she carried now was enough she didn’t need more added guilt.
She spoke and said, “I let resentment knock at my door. I let “him” in and he brought a host of other friends. Doubt, jealousy, Mr. Inadequate showed up and he brought seeds of bitterness to plant in her life. I don’t want this but the more I pray the more I try to surrender it seems these unwelcome guests become entrenched and comfortable. I’ve almost given up on trying,” she said. “I know they are not pleasing to my Heavenly Father but I am becoming comfortable with them and afraid they will never leave.”
She became silent and let the salty tears flow into the cold coffee.
Again, breathing a silent pray, I choose my words carefully. “You are not alone in this. I have talked with others that feel this same way. One reason or another has brought them to the same place you are.
I want to tell you that your Heavenly Father loves you so much. You are not a failure in His eyes. You are walking the path He has set for you and when you think you have failed, and if you did, He gently draws you back to himself. Even when we justify the way we feel, and maybe we have or think we have a good reason, the Father still cares.
“Those feelings are there, and maybe we don’t want to give them up but ask the Father to help you be willing to surrender,” I said. “Tell Him you can’t love those that hurt you but ask Him to help you to be willing to love.”
The battle is never easy. The enemy of your soul wants nothing more than to distract and destroy what God is trying to accomplish in your life. Ask God to send you a true friend, one that you can trust. When you experience those feelings rise up call the friend God sent and pray together. It may take time but as we surrender to God all of the areas of our life He will come and make us into the vessel He has called us to be.
Those feeling cannot stay as God moves into your life and consumes you.
In Acts 17:28(ERV) it says:
It is through him that we are able to live, to do what we do, and to be who we are… We all come from him.
If you feel like this I want you to know God cares and He loves you.
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