things are hard these days.  hard.

decisions.  questions.  steps.  needs.  wondering.  sometimes wandering but feeling completely stagnate at the same time… strange.

there are these strange seasons we walk through at times.  of feeling like we’ve made a mess of things… of wondering how we got where we are… of feeling loneliness… of feeling numbness… or of wishing we could be numb… of struggling to believe or remember the truth of who God is… and to remember how the Gospel impacts our lives and what it means for us.

these strange seasons where we feel very acutely that we have to fend for ourselves.  in this faltering-though-being-redeemed Body of Christ, where we all struggle to see beyond ourselves, or–more accurately perhaps–to LOVE beyond ourselves.  in this hyper-individualistic privacy-obsessed surface-oriented culture, where again we cannot–and often don’t want to–see beyond ourselves.  in a time where “adulthood” means you are out of the house, out of the family structure, and well on your way to being a heavily indebted consumer by the time you are 18.  and perhaps particularly as single females we feel it all the more acutely:  that we must fend for ourselves… that we are in it alone.

during times like these i so often think i just need someone to sit down across from me and grab me by the shoulders and say, or rather frustratedly scream, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!  YOU ARE BEING SO FOOLISH!!!  WHY DO YOU KEEP THINKING THIS WAY?!  SHAPE UP!!!  GET IT TOGETHER!!!!  GET OVER IT ALREADY!!!!”  that i need someone to slap me around a little verbally.

but i think that i am wrong.  time and time again of revisiting this all-too-familiar place i begin to think more and more that i am wrong and that that way of thinking is just the prideful bent of my heart.

i do need to be reminded of the truth.  absolutely.  in all things.  but perhaps not in that way.  perhaps what i really need is for someone to sit with me and let me lay my head in their lap as i cry… someone who will hold me and wipe the tears from my eyes and speak volumes with their quiet presence that assures me of His love.  perhaps grace is exactly what i need.  grace that lends itself toward healing and assurance and rest and comfort and strength.

perhaps that–that type of embrace–is the very thing Jesus holds out to us in seasons like this… pursuing us though our temporarily blurred and bleary, tired eyes don’t see it… loving us though our hearts feel cold and heavy.

Jesus didn’t come to destroy or smack down or mock or be cold-heartedly indifferent to the broken-hearted.  He came to bind us up.

sometimes, in seasons like these… i wonder when i will finally start letting Him continue that in me again.