Love Wins: Part 2

Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote this blog post called Love Wins. I was going through a very tough summer in my personal life where I moved, changed jobs, and attended more funerals that I wanted. It was a season in my life where pretty much everything that I was looking forward to either marred or didn't happen due to unforeseen circumstances.

Even though I ended that blog post with faith knowing that God would come through for us, the following year has been rough as well. Due to all the ups and downs of the year, I have been struggling with the depression the whole way. The ups were fantastic with wonderful family vacations and little victories. However, the downs seemed to plague us. Jared and I never seemed to get time together. When we did, I had something at work come up that he had to come help me with if he wanted to see me. I had a period in the fall where I was having nightmares pretty much every night and caused me to have low sleep and a higher sensitivity to stress. Christmas was brutal for me at church. So when January came around me and God has a serious amount of time to discuss and talk about what had been going on and how I was going to process through it all.

It seemed really scary to me when God called me to do Redeemed full time. It was one of those things where I was going to have to step out on faith again, and hope that everything would be alright. However, after the beating my hopes had taken last year, I was really second-guessing every decision I was making. But, I knew the end of the story. I know that love wins. And so, in obedience, I stepped out in faith again and God has seriously opened the floodgates of favor and provision.

Ever since stepping out in obedience, God has just shown me over and over that he has my back. While little things may come up that I begin to fret over, I just remind myself that God has this under control and he comes through every time. When all my donor checks got lost in the mail, God provided. When my dog has gotten a serious infection, God provided a cure and the funds to pay for it. When Jared is home, I actually get to see him. When I prayed for volunteers to come fill the positions I needed, he brought them out in droves. For the first time in a while, I feel like I now have the tangible evidence that I can point to that didn't happen years ago whenever things get hairy or scary. While I still have my PTSD moments and we still have to deal with the things life throws at us, we have a summer ahead of us full of exciting things for Redeemed, time with family and friends, travel, weddings and just an overall celebration of life. Things are finally looking up.

So to you who may be going through where I was a year and a half ago, I would encourage you standing this far down the road of the race that it does get better. Don't ever lose faith in God. Because...

"We have seasons where things seem dark and dry. We don’t feel God close to us. We feel isolated from those around us as we think, “Who could possibly understand what we are going through?” We are tempted to give up, because we wonder who cares about our seemingly wasted efforts to bring life and love into such a broken world. 

But we must remember that just because we can’t feel God close doesn’t mean he’s not there. Just because things are dark doesn’t mean they will be dark forever. You are not alone! God is with you and has placed people around you to go through this season with you. Our efforts are not wasted. They are seeds to bring glory to God in the perfect moment. Hold onto that as you go through whatever you have going on right now. You are loved by the one who created love.

And I read the end of the book. Love wins!"