Learning to Accept Love Again

Lately, I've been volunteering at a daycare in my free time, and the experience has been a continual blessing and source of revelation to me. When God says we must have faith like a child, we often think we know what it means or remember what our childhood is like, but we quickly forget. Spending time with these kids has been refreshing, reminding me of what life should look like.

Just the other day, one of the four-year-old girls cut a "picture" for me out of blue construction paper and taped the pieces of paper together, carefully assembling what she called a house. After she was finished and was preparing to leave with her mom, she told me that now I needed to make her a picture. So once she left, I sat down and cut out a simple heart, writing her name on the front and signing mine on the back. I left it in her classroom cubby for her to find the next day.

The next day at the daycare, she greeted me and then thanked me for the heart. What surprised me was when she then asked what it had said. I suppose I had assumed she'd already asked her teacher when she found it, and therefore knew it was from me. But no. She didn't even know that it was my name written on the back! She already knew it was from me...sure, probably because she couldn't think of anyone else who would leave her a heart, but also because she expected me to give when she asked me to.

It got me thinking in a way that filled me with joy and sadness at the same time. I realized how confident she had been in me--she never once doubted that I was going to return her act of friendship, never thought I'd let her down. She expected something good and wasn't surprised when she received it, just happy and thankful. It opened my eyes to how little we as adults (or at least how little I) expect from others or even from God.

After years of finding that others often fail to give back to us and only take, after countless disappointments, after a long list of broken promises and hurts from other people, how easy it is to distrust others. How hard it becomes to even accept love, gifts, and affection. We no longer expect it. In fact, we expect the opposite. We are suspicious of everyone, even of those who offer us acts of kindness or tell us they care. "What do they want?" "When will they change their minds about me?" The doubts plague us. We wonder if we even deserve love.

Worse still, we fail to anticipate love and blessings from God. Will He let us down like everyone else has? Do we really deserve anything good?

O to be like a child again and accept love, to be confident that the ones we love will love us back. To expect others to be dependable and to follow through on their words, to trust them to not let you down or hurt you. Maybe we can't place that kind of confidence in fickle, selfish, ever-changing people anymore (our scarred hearts have learned better over the years), but we can and should learn to place that type of faith in God again. He wants us to accept His love without doubt of its strength and constancy. He wants us to expect His blessings.

For some reason, this thought astounds me. It's not greedy to expect to be blessed in the simple way a boy expects his mother to welcome him to sit on her lap, or a girl anticipates her father's hug and kiss when he returns home from work. So why shouldn't I expect good things from my Father? Wouldn't He be overjoyed to see me waiting in eager anticipation for the next gift or act of love He extends in my direction?

What if I came to God like this little girl did, offering Him whatever love-gifts from my heart I have to give, and fully expecting Him to reciprocate with blessings and love for me?

Trust and Hope in Brokenness: Psalm 55

Psalm 55

Listen to my prayer, O God,

do not ignore my plea;

hear me and answer me.

My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught

because of what my enemy is saying,

because of the threats of the wicked;

for they bring down suffering on me

 and assail me in their anger.

My heart is in anguish within me;

the terrors of death have fallen on me.

Fear and trembling have beset me;

horror has overwhelmed me.

I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!

    I would fly away and be at rest.

 I would flee far away

    and stay in the desert;

I would hurry to my place of shelter,

    far from the tempest and storm.”

Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words,

    for I see violence and strife in the city.

Day and night they prowl about on its walls;

    malice and abuse are within it.

Destructive forces are at work in the city;

    threats and lies never leave its streets.

If an enemy were insulting me,

    I could endure it;

if a foe were rising against me,

    I could hide.

But it is you, a man like myself,

    my companion, my close friend,

with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship

    at the house of God,

as we walked about

among the worshipers.

Let death take my enemies by surprise;

    let them go down alive to the realm of the dead,

    for evil finds lodging among them.

As for me, I call to God,

   and the Lord saves me.

Evening, morning and noon

    I cry out in distress,

    and he hears my voice.

He rescues me unharmed

    from the battle waged against me,

    even though many oppose me.

God, who is enthroned from of old,

    who does not change—

he will hear them and humble them,

    because they have no fear of God.

My companion attacks his friends;

    he violates his covenant.

His talk is smooth as butter,

    yet war is in his heart;

his words are more soothing than oil,

    yet they are drawn swords.

Cast your cares on the Lord

    and he will sustain you;

he will never let

    the righteous be shaken.

But you, God, will bring down the wicked

    into the pit of decay;

the bloodthirsty and deceitful

    will not live out half their days.

But as for me, I trust in you.

Today as I read these words from David, I could feel some of the raw emotion he is writing with, and I sympathize. How often do I turn to words as a way to pour out grief, anger, suffering, confusion!

His words reveal his brokenness, the deep wounds of his soul, and his desperation for God to just show up.

Have you ever felt this way? Everyone, at some point in their lives, has experienced a sense of betrayal. Maybe we don't fear friends-turned-enemies who seek our lives, but it may feel like they have death and war in their hearts when they have hurt us so deeply that it feels like a part of our hearts have died. We scream against the injustice of what was wrought against us and maybe we despair of ever seeing real goodness in the world again. Who can we trust now? Everyone around us is full of lies, of evil, of betrayal. The human heart is sick and forever changeable, corruptible.

At the same time, David is surrounded by enemies, real enemies. They desire his life and his friend has aligned himself with them. We, as Christians, have a very real enemy in Satan. When we are going through sorrows, trials, and difficulties...he is throwing a party. He longs to see us break down and grow weary. If he cannot have our souls, at least he can render us weak and miserable. Maybe even cause us to cry out and question God's goodness, or give up trying to serve Him. And when someone close to us lets us down, it can feel as if they've allied themselves with our enemy. At the very least, the devil has surely made the most of their sin or carelessness. He sat back watching in triumph as the wound was inflicted. What more does an enemy long for than to see his prey turning against one another and harming each other?

David is surrounded by evil and it is all he can do in the darkness to look up and see a far-off glimpse of God's goodness.

I sense the agony in David's words as he writes of someone who was once a close friend, who walked with him in fellowship with God. They worshiped together! They were brothers! He had probably given much to this friend and fully shared his heart and his trust with him. They'd had each other's backs and counted on one another. When everything seemed to go wrong around them, when they had a common enemy raging against them, they knew they could depend on each other. And then...the deep cut of betrayal sliced into David's soul. How? Why? What had he done to deserve this?

Haven't we all felt this way to some degree? "God, how could you let this happen?"

David's words speak of bitterness as he talks about the wickedness filling the city. It's as if he's saying, "It's everywhere. No one is void of it. Everyone has their own agenda; everyone is ready to turn and back stab one another. I am so tired; everywhere I look there is evil, evil, evil. Where once I saw some goodness, I see deception. Where I saw hope and kindness, I see despair and cruelty. I can't trust anything that looks good because it is a lie. I'm sick of this world. I wish I could escape...but I can't. I can't outrun this pain, because it's in my heart and soul, so I carry it with me everywhere. I can't look away."

I think this is also why he makes an important point later in the psalm: God does not change. This is a comforting truth, something he clings to in the midst of pain. "I need someone I can rely on," he's realized. "Someone who will never change and whom I can always trust. Someone that is always my friend and is forever good." He needs someone who will listen.

But I also sense desperation. Even though he writes of God rescuing him, we can see that it has not happened yet. The pain cannot be undone; the wounds have not yet healed, and even when they do, they will turn to scars. Still, he trusts that God will pluck him out of this terrible place. He has questions. He doesn't understand why so much bad is happening. He is still waiting, and maybe he is even running out of patience. He sounds weary. But he refuses to give up.

"But as for me, I trust in you."

It's this simple declaration that shouts words of hope into the pain. God is listening. He is unchanging. If He came through for David (us) in the past, then He will come through for David (us) again, because He is the only One who does not change. Whose words are trustworthy. Who will not betray or disappoint.

I love the psalms because they are honest, real. There is pain, confusion, fear, and loss in David's writing. He was a real man, with real problems. He knew God wouldn't just snap His fingers and make his enemies, his deceptive friend, or his pain vanish. The pain would not be undone. But he trusted that God had his best interests in mind and would stay by his side to the end, no matter what. Even when he did not fully understand.

Surrender

Somehow I'd forgotten how therapeutic music can be. Maybe because after a pretty dark period early last year, my life went through a "summer" season for most of last year. I still had ups and downs, but I spent most of it feeling the happiest I'd felt in...well, a long time.

A couple songs have been rather bittersweet for me lately but helped remind me that there is always hope with God.

Tenth Avenue North's "Worn"

Thousand Foot Krutch's "Breathe You In"

Last year I often prayed for "more of God, less of me." To surrender myself to Him and His will. I wanted that. I trusted God and trusted He had something good for me. I felt I had little to lose. Then it seemed as He worked on growing me, He began opening new blessings and dreams up to me and I continued to pray, to try to seek His will. I began to heal from old hurts and see God work and learn more about Him in ways I'd never had before. Then, when suddenly it seemed like I had everything to lose, He began to take away again. In some ways, in all of the hurt, I am afraid to trust God again. Why give to just tear away?

Some thoughts occurred to me, especially as I listened to TFK's chorus and prayed.

When I am afraid of surrender, I need to focus not on what I have lost or what more I could lose, but on what I most certainly will gain. If I want to live for You, I have to die to myself. Death is hard. It is a terrifying, lonely, painful struggle--a tug of war between despair and hope--a last gasp in the dark as you wait for a distant morning. It requires wrestling with all of our doubts with God, all of our questions, all of our deepest fears. But life in You is worth it. Without that, there is nothing left to hold on to, there is no reason to keep fighting. It is hard in the night to remember what the sun looks like; it is hard with teary eyes to see the hope ahead; it is hard when you are weak to take steps forward in the blackness. But I don't know of any growth, any renewal, any miracle, or any transformation to life and beauty that does not require some amount of pain and loss before glory.

I have to believe He has not abandoned me.