Confession: I find comfort in ice cream.
Before I get to that… Hey guys! I know, it’s been a while. I promise, I’ve missed writing. I’ve just been in a weird transitional stage of life, so blogging got put on the back burner. But hey, I’m here now!
Lately I’ve deeply felt the weight of the fallen nature of this world. Have you? Just turn on the news, scroll through twitter, follow a few links on Facebook, or simply spend some time eavesdropping in your local coffee shop. Trust me, give it long enough and you’ll start to feel it. It’s heavy, nasty, heart breaking and oh so very real. Friends, we live in a broken world.
I know most of you know that, and maybe you’ve spent more time wrestling with it than I have, but over the course of the last few months, some truths have been deeply resonating in my heart. I spent the spring semester in a weird emotional place. I loved where I was in life but knew that I needed a change and that the Lord was calling me to take a leap of faith. So at the beginning of May I quit my job (ask me more about that sometime, I’d love to share about that journey 
). While it’s been a month since my last day at work and I’m still feeling confused about life and what’s next, the Lord has used this time and space to reveal Himself more fully.
As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in the Church. Because of that, God’s character was always “common knowledge” for me growing up. I knew that God was loving and kind, that He is merciful and just and that He is sovereign and constant in His character. The older I get, though, the more I realize that I don’t really grasp all of His character. I can list parts of His character off the top of my head, but in the deep dark crevices of my heart, I don’t understand them. Or worse than not understanding, I don’t believe them. I try to find justification in my actions, I try to find joy in my circumstances, and I look for comfort in a carton of cookies and cream ice cream.
Over the last year and a half, life has been heart breaking and yet so sweet. Over the last year I have gotten to see the brokenness of Haiti first hand, I experienced having a loved one in the hospital for an extended amount of time, I’ve walked through some hard relationships and some super sweet relationships, I’ve celebrated with friends and mourned with friends, and I’ve reluctantly followed the Lord into a lot of unknown. I’d like to feel sorry for myself and say that it’s been the hardest of my 21 years, but if I’m honest, I don’t think that it was. I think that it’s just the first time I’ve slowed down enough to feel the weight of it. Instead of my usual downing a pint of ice cream and forgetting about it, “venting” to a friend and then moving on, or simply just suppressing the hurts I was experiencing, I wrestled.
I wouldn’t say I was angry with God, but I for sure processed through a lot of confusion with Him. Every time I experienced something hard, I would scream “God, WHY?” Any time I read something sad or aggravating in the news, I turned around and said “God, WHY?” For every bit of brokenness I encountered (on any level) I questioned God and His motives. “Why would you do this? How could you let this happen? What was the point?” And though I knew the answers to these questions in my head and what Scripture would have to say about it, letting myself wrestle with this unleashed something. For the first time, I began to let the Lord heal parts of my heart that had been broken for so long, I didn’t even realize they needed healing. In the midst of my wrestling, He began to gently remove the cobwebs, dust of the the broken pieces and put them back together in a way that only He can.
I still struggle a lot with the weight and sadness that come with living in a broken world. I still wonder sometimes if something so fallen and nasty could ever really be fully redeemed. I even still have to remind myself daily that God really is Who He says He is and that He is fully trustworthy. But now that weight isn’t quite so overwhelming. Now, instead of expecting to feel better after that pint of ice cream, I know with confidence the source of my comfort and Who that comforter is. I can trust that He is faithful and always constant in His character. Hebrews 10:23 says this:
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who has promised is faithful.
When I trust God in His Character and believe Him for who He says He is, this world becomes much less disappointing. I can say with confidence that there is hope and our sovereign God is making all things new. I believe with everything in me that He is redeeming this world and that those who believe will one day experience His Glory face to face.