One of my favorite things is when a dear friend of mine speaks into my life the very words I have spoken to her time and time again. It amazes me how easily I forget the awesome graces of our Lord. I had one of these moments a few nights ago. I was talking to a friend who I have walked with through many tears in the past year. This time I came to her and confessed my own doubts of the Lord's faithfulness to provide. All I saw in front of me was fate deciding my life and my own passive acceptance of this path. But she reminded me of the Lord's condesencion into this world of ours. His promise that He is with us today and tomorrow. And His mighty sovereign hand that holds all the earth together.
I've been contemplating the pain of love not returned. With many of my friends starting relationships I find myself content where I am, but contemplating where I am not. I am not in a relationship. I am not in a marriage. Even though I do not feel it right now, I am alone. Not in any cosmic sense, but then again lonliness is rarely actual cosmic solitude. Instead it is the feeling that no one is with you in a deeper sense. No one understands you. No one "gets" you. And I am there, but I don't feel that despair that often comes with such a situation.
But back to the point, I have been contemplating lost love. What does God know about the pain that comes from a love unreturned? I'm young and fairly unexperienced. I haven't lived long enough to know much, but one of the few things I have learned over the past few years is the pain of love unreturned. When you feel so much for someone and they can't return it with anything satisfactory. The pain and humiliation. The questions that follow. Why not? What am I missing? The gross desire to change into someone else, someone who might merit the love you can't seem to get.
But, as my friend reminded me, God does get this one. While He might not desire to change and He doesn't question His own perfection, He understands the pain and humiliation of a love rejected. His love for Israel ran deep and is often described as the love a husband has for his wife. Israel was not only the object of God's love, but He actually created her for Him. Yet Israel in the grossest way rejected God. He loved her. He loved her even in her painful rejection. He loved her so much that He came down to her and suffered and died for her.
Now my own pain and feelings of rejection are no where near what God has suffered through with Israel. But I can see through my own pain the shadow of the depth of God's pain. And it amazes me to know that this Lord over all the universe has been here, he's been here in pain and suffering. He is no stranger to the lowside of being human. And yet, He loves perfectly. There is no bitterness in Him, no jealousy. And He calls us to be faithful to Him, to be conformed to Him, to be bearers of His image. What a God we serve!
I've been contemplating the pain of love not returned. With many of my friends starting relationships I find myself content where I am, but contemplating where I am not. I am not in a relationship. I am not in a marriage. Even though I do not feel it right now, I am alone. Not in any cosmic sense, but then again lonliness is rarely actual cosmic solitude. Instead it is the feeling that no one is with you in a deeper sense. No one understands you. No one "gets" you. And I am there, but I don't feel that despair that often comes with such a situation.
But back to the point, I have been contemplating lost love. What does God know about the pain that comes from a love unreturned? I'm young and fairly unexperienced. I haven't lived long enough to know much, but one of the few things I have learned over the past few years is the pain of love unreturned. When you feel so much for someone and they can't return it with anything satisfactory. The pain and humiliation. The questions that follow. Why not? What am I missing? The gross desire to change into someone else, someone who might merit the love you can't seem to get.
But, as my friend reminded me, God does get this one. While He might not desire to change and He doesn't question His own perfection, He understands the pain and humiliation of a love rejected. His love for Israel ran deep and is often described as the love a husband has for his wife. Israel was not only the object of God's love, but He actually created her for Him. Yet Israel in the grossest way rejected God. He loved her. He loved her even in her painful rejection. He loved her so much that He came down to her and suffered and died for her.
Now my own pain and feelings of rejection are no where near what God has suffered through with Israel. But I can see through my own pain the shadow of the depth of God's pain. And it amazes me to know that this Lord over all the universe has been here, he's been here in pain and suffering. He is no stranger to the lowside of being human. And yet, He loves perfectly. There is no bitterness in Him, no jealousy. And He calls us to be faithful to Him, to be conformed to Him, to be bearers of His image. What a God we serve!
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