Love of my Heavenly Father

I have not walked this earth for decades and decades but I have been here long enough to figure out that dissapointments and hurt feelings are just part of the human experience. So why are we so surprised when we encounter situations, circumstances, and people that seem to leave a wake of pain behind them? Jesus clearly stated while he was here that "we would have tribulations, but to be of good cheer".  So He told us that we would face times that left us breathless, times that made us want to scream at the sky and times that would leave us curled into a ball and crying so hard that we could barely catch a breath. And most of the time when we find ourselves in those places, we want so badly to rage at a person, at a relationship and deflect any part we may have played. Because lets face it, sometimes our own choices set us up for the flood of pain and consequences that will ultimately follow. It is the simple principle of sowing and reaping....there is no way around it. But what about the times when we are walking through the consequences of reaping what someone else sowed?

I am in that place today......what is to be my response? Am I to even have one? Do I have the right to once again begin rebuilding the wall around my heart? Does the wall even help?

From my experience I have found that once you start building the wall of self-preservation you cannot choose what it keeps out. It is a wall....it has a purpose.....it protects....but it also keeps out joys, peace, potentially healthy relationships, visions of what the future can hold. A wall keeps you locked in with yourself and with the unforgiveness, the dissapointments, the bitterness and all those unresolved emotions that you don't deal with.

A wall is not worth it. It might keep out some bad stuff but it locks you away from the joys of life and the life you could have if you just lay it all down at the feet of Jesus. He said that He would carry our burdens. He is not offended by our pain, He is not surprised by our failings, He alone is strong to carry it all.

He is the ONLY one that walk us out of the darkness and into the light of His salvation and deliverance. No other man was meant to fill me up, not my father, not my husband, not a friend, a brother, a pastor, a teacher. Man is human, he will fail us, he will dissapoint, he will not understand, he will offend, he will get it wrong. And if we as women are tying who we are to how we feel when we are with them, then we will always feel like we are lacking, we will never be validated, our self esteem with always suffer, we will feel unworthy. Because at the end of the day others will make choices that hurt us, they will brush us aside and we will feel that pain of that rejection. Many times those people don't know that they even had that profound impact on us.....they are simply sinful people walking through life just like we are. I wonder how many times I have made others feel that way because I was so wrapped in myself that thinking of how the impact of my decisions would affect others just wasn't as important as my own wants and needs.

My Heavenly Father is the only one that will not dissapoint and let me down. He is constant in His love. He never changes, He created me so He could love me and to be loved in return. I need to rest in the fact that He will hold my heart in His capable loving hands and He will never drop it or let it shatter. And Jesus is faithful to take those places that feel raw and hurting and he will rub in the balm of His love and acceptance and make it new. I praise the love of my life, Jesus Christ, for loving me enough to not shy away when I am upset and crying out for justice.....instead He draws me close in His arms and sings over me the songs of grace, mercy, joy and peace. I cannot fathom the depth of that kind of love. But I am reminded every day, for His mercies are new every morning. I may not have gotten it right today but He loves me through it and He loves me into being the woman He created me to be.