with arms held high
Lord I give my life
knowing I’m found in
Christ in your love forever
with all I am in your
grace I stand
the greatest of all
romance…. love of God my Savior
I still remember the first time I heard the words
above. It was one of those Sundays where
you are there, but not really. You know
the ones I’m talking about. The Sundays
where your body is there but your heart and mind are a million miles away. Yeah, that’s the one. I was going through the motions that
particular Sunday because deep down inside I knew that pain and heartbreak were
right around the corner for me and I knew that it was going to be Gods fault
and we were getting ready for a battle.
My very presence in church that Sunday was almost a plea for Him not to
do what I knew He was going to do.
But before we go there, maybe I should back up a little
bit. You see, fifteen years ago my heart
was broken. A man I thought I loved
walked out on me and I’m talking ripped my heart out of my chest and stopped on
it while heading out the door. I
remember being so hurt that I didn’t know how to breathe and then going
numb. And then I stayed numb. For almost fifteen years. Don’t get me wrong, there were other men that
came along but I knew in the end they would walk away, so I helped that process
by sabotaging before they got a chance to hurt me. But during that time God began to work in my
life and slowly heal the hurt. I began
to forgive and put the pieces of my broken heart back together. During that time, God brought along an
amazing friend that would not only love me through the hurt and pain, but love
me well. No matter how hard I would
push, he would push back with love. But
one beautiful summer afternoon he was diagnosed with leukemia and too soon
after that he was gone. And my heart was
once again broken. I spent the next year
of my life going through the motions until one September afternoon, God and I
had a come to Jesus moment on a park bench in New York and I finally agreed to
let Him begin healing my heart if He would restore my joy. Being the faithful father that He is, He held
up His end of the bargain, and slowly the pieces of my heart came back
together. And this time it would beat a
little stronger because someone had shown me what it was like to truly love.
So let’s fast forward to the Sunday not too long ago. I had started seeing someone and was slowly
beginning to open up my heart once again.
He was charming and funny and seemed to be all the things I had always
prayed for. He wasn’t perfect, but then
who is. He understood my ugly parts and
I his, well for the most part. At first,
everything was great. But then things
started to come up. Things that caused
me to internally question while externally I was telling all of my girlfriends
how sweet and wonderful and amazing he was.
The more into the relationship we got the more problems that seemed to
surface and although my mouth was a long way from admitting it, in my heart I
knew that the end was drawing near. I
knew the fun times of double dates and finally being invited to all the couples
events was about to end. I also knew
that I was about to go back to RSVP’ing for just one. Ladies, can you feel my pain! The fairy tale
that I was trying so hard to force into existence was becoming the chick flick
that doesn’t end the way we want it to.
One this particular Sunday morning, I remember walking into
church with my closes friend and her soon to be husband, who, on a side note,
is so close to couple perfection you don’t know if you want to hug them or
punch them, so I just love them in spite of their annoying perfection! I
remember looking at them and thinking how nice it would be to have that one
day. That train of thought led me to
“you’re dating someone, you should be happy.”
But to be honest, in the moment I was far from happy. In my heart I began to get angry with God. And in the moment I started to tell Him that
I was angry. I admited that I felt let
down and wondered why He would bring someone into my life that I seemed to have
so much in common but yet there were the blatant red flags that were getting
bigger and bigger as each day progressed.
About the time we hit the chorus, my pouting hit an all-time
low and my heart said “God don’t you love me enough to give me that kind of
romance, the kind that I see in the two people to my right?” Talk about being hit between the eyes. God knows that I tend to not be so bright, so
in this moment of self-pity He spelled it out in big bold letter written on
three huge screens. The greatest of all romance, love of God my Savior!
I’d like to tell you that I went home that day broke it off
and have been happily serving Jesus every day since, but that is not how this
story ends. Truthfully, I stayed in the relationship longer than I should
have. I believed that if I loved him
enough and prayed for him enough that one day God would miraculously heal all
that was broken and we would sail off into the sunset. Even now there is a part
of me that still hurts to relive the story.
A part of me is still grieving the loss of the fairy tale. I would like
to say that I am fully healed and that it doesn’t feel like something is missing
from my life, but that just isn’t the case.
The truth is that there is in fact something missing in my life right
now. There is a hole that once belonged
to a person who made me laugh and filled my Saturday nights with fun dates and
Mario Kart competitions. But there is
also hope. There is hope that God is
still at work and He has a plan. I am
leaning into the words of Psalms 130:5 “I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope.”
I love the bridge to the song above. The words have become my anthem these past
few weeks and I hope that I will be singing it through all of life’s trials and
troubles.
to the one who has
rescued my soul. to the one who has welcomed me home. to the one who is Savior
of all….
I sing forever
