teach me that you love me.

I prayed these words over and over for a full two years of my life. I was so lost in my pain--so blinded to everything good and right and hopeful in the world. I was confused. I felt let down and left out by the God who claimed that He cared. I had given life my best shot and had come up short on everything. On joy, on peace and most of all on love.

My journals were wrought with questions. The tear-streaked pages were evidence of the desperate heart that desperately needed to be heard. Even now as I look back on those entries I cringe at the complete loss of sanity I experienced in the midst of the most turbulent season of my life. I truly cannot believe I made it through, and I am thankful to now be in a place where I can reflect thoughtfully on my past self.

However, what is most incredible about the ability to reflect is that I am now able to see the miracle that God was working all along. Yeah, I said it--miracle. Anyone who knew me over the last couple of years can attest that it is true. My life is a miracle.

Here's the thing--people always say that their hardest times in life are the times that they felt closest to God. Now, I wouldn't necessarily say that is always the case. There were times that I felt the Lord's presence in the darkest hours, but then there were also a lot of times that I didn't. In fact, there were times that I felt nothing but emptiness. I felt nothing but exhaustion. I felt nothing but sadness. I felt that there was no possible way that God gave a crap about my life, because the emptiness and exhaustion and sadness were so deeply penetrating and so unbelievably never-ending. No one told me that pain could be like that. That life could be like that. So void of hope and challenging in the most ridiculous ways.

Where was the God that loved me?

And so, that became my request of Him--teach me that you love me.

In my finances--teach me that you love me.
In my relationships--teach me that you love me.
In my job--teach me that you love me.
In my depression and fear--teach me that you love me.
In sickness and death--teach me that you love me.

I could go on. There were so many ways that I had given up on the Lord. So much bitterness and anger in my heart. So much doubt. I stopped believing. I stopped trusting. But I never stopped saying, "teach me that you love me."

I had to. I had nothing left. I think your body and mind get to a point of surrender where you stop fighting the way things are and give in to the process of pain. Its a strangely freeing experience--to know that there is nothing you can immediately do to change your situation or what you are going through. To confront the things that you have spent so much time running from. To ask yourself the honest questions--of yourself and God.

I would never choose to go back to that season. But I would never ask for it to be removed from my life either. Because here's the thing about it--God showed up.

Not in the sense that he wasn't there one day, and then suddenly appeared the next. I think its more that He was there all along, that He knew my heart and knew what I needed to get to the point where I am today. I was just too burdened and weary at the time to lift up my head and see him bowing low to meet my broken life.

I came across this verse in my old journal today. It was towards the end of my fight, right before I was to enter the joyful season I am currently in:

Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him full redemption.

Yesterday, I was talking to my housemate about what God meant to me, and I found myself saying these exact words: "I feel like I have learned to trust God with my whole life, because I know that He loves me and knows me far better than I know myself, and the peace I have in being able to rest in Him is well worth the wait."

Wait, I said that? Those words came from my mouth?

I have learned to trust in love again. I could not be more blessed, or more in love with life as I am right now. I feel whole, I feel healed. I feel this great big hope that I want to share with everyone, that I want to explode with because I feel it so strongly. I know deep in my heart that He loves me. I know that I know that I know. He has taught me in such a sweet way that could never be replaced or reproduced by anything other than what I have been through these past years.

Our God is real. He is unfailing in hope, fully redeeming in love, and absolutely 100% for us.

He loves you. Let that be lesson enough for today.

Restless.

I think we were born into restlessness. As I have gotten older it has become painfully apparent to me that we were not meant for this broken world. Our souls were built for so much more life than what is offered here on earth. And because of it, we are always striving, always challenging, and always in a state of restlessness.

Or at least I am. I had the opportunity to visit some of my beautiful friends from NYC this past week, and I was reminded of how alive I am really capable of being. It was so good for my heart to experience joy and laughter and real, genuine love through my time with them. They bring out the very best version of Sarah there is, and I always leave feeling extra privileged to be a part of their lives.

But this time, I also left with a deep sense of restlessness. And you know, I think much of this stems from a fear of losing control. I want the things that I want when I want them. I want to know that God cares about my happiness, that He is going to deliver the things that I have neatly written out on a list of life expectations for the coming years. And until I receive them, I feel restless.

Or so I think. But really, the truth is--I can be satisfied and fully rested in the here and now.

One of my friends put it so simply when he said "you will never come second by putting God first." And you know what, I think he is right. The fact of the matter is, the Lord created us restless so that we would find real rest within Him. I know it's a typical Christian idea that only Jesus can satisfy, and that I am just another person writing another blog about what is really the whole meaning of the gospel. But here's the thing--so many people write about it because it is really, really true.

I could spend a whole lot of time complaining about my life. I could also spend alot of time planning out my future, fighting and pushing and running really hard after the dreams that I must have. I have already spent many nights in fear of a hopeless future--a terrifying world where I live alone with cats and work as a secretary in a dark office in the most remote part of suburbia.

And so then I feed into the restlessness. I work hard to avoid any possible requests that God may make of me--any challenges that may make me uncomfortable or force me to give up the things I really want.

Here's the thing--God is for us. Did you know that? He loves us. He ultimately wants us to be satisfied and most of all, He wants us to take our restlessness and rest our hopes in Him. I have spent so much time looking for the place where I belong. It is tempting to think that if only this or that were to happen or if I were different or had another job life would be better.

The incredible thing is, we can take our restlessness to Christ and He uses it. He directs us, fulfills us and leads us to the very places we never thought we would be. He does this not because He's vindictive or wants us to suffer, but because He knows there is no greater peace and joy that can be experienced except that which is found in Him.

I don't want to miss out on my life anymore by being restless. I want to be very still, to listen to what God has to say to me about myself and my day-to-day experiences. He can do so much if only I let Him. And that is the tricky part--we have to let him. We can not accept His blessings if we do not learn to let go of our ultimately unfullilling ideals of happiness.

Mostly, I think we want easy satisfaction. We want to be gratified now, and we would rather settle for less love than more. And when we are restless and then run after those things which are short-lived and small glimpses of true life, that's exactly what we are doing. We are rejecting the life which Christ lovingly gave us, we are settling for half of what has already been made available to us on the cross.

So, be restless in the best possible way--run after Him who made you, knows you and wants to see His glory displayed wherever you may be.

You won't regret it.