Sweet Freedom

I started realizing a several months ago that, through all my heartache with N, I had almost completely stopped trusting God to treat my heart with care. Until recently, I didn't realize that I had been trying to take control of my own heart again, to take responsibility for protecting it and guarding it myself. It felt like He had allowed me to be given soul-piercing pain without offering any explanation of why the pain was necessary. I didn’t understand what He was doing until I came across a passage in a book I was reading earlier this year that suddenly made everything crystalline clear to me.

From Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge ~

Why did God curse Eve with loneliness and heartache, an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill? Wasn’t her life going to be hard enough out there in the world, banished from the Garden that was her true home, her only home, never able to return? It seems unkind. Cruel, even.

He did it to save her. For as we all know personally, something in Eve’s heart shifted at the Fall. Something sent its roots down deep into her soul – and ours – that mistrust of God’s heart, that resolution to find life on our own terms. So God has to thwart her. In love, he has to block her attempts until, wounded and aching, she turns to him and him alone for her rescue.

Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;

I will wall her in so she cannot find her way.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;

she will look for them but not find them. (Hos. 2:6-7)

Jesus has to thwart us too – thwart our self-redemptive plans, our controlling and our hiding, thwart the ways we are seeking to fill the ache within us. Otherwise, we would never fully turn to him for our rescue. Oh, we might turn to him for our “salvation,” for a ticket to heaven when we die. We might turn to him even in the form of Christian service, regular church attendance, a moral life. But inside, our hearts remain broken and captive and far from the One who can help us.

And so you will see the gentle, firm hand of God in a woman’s life hemming her in. He’ll make what once was a great job miserable, if it was in her career that she found shelter. He’ll bring hardship into her marriage, even to the breaking point, if it was in marriage she sought her salvation. Wherever it is we have sought life apart from him, he disrupts our plans, our “way of life” which is not life at all.

God had hemmed me in with thornbushes, confused my way until I had no alternative but to fall to the ground weeping, and gave me no choice but to call out to Him for my rescue. I had been looking to N for my validation, my encouragement, my worth. I was thirsting for living water but drinking from an empty well. No man can replace my Lord and my God, and He will not stand for any attempt at doing so. He was drawing me back to His heart, which I had forgotten. And then I did it again with BT. I was looking to him to fill the places in my heart that only God can fill, and then I was upset when he couldn't do it.

So I began calling out to Him. I asked Him to reassure me that I could trust him with my heart after all. I began taking baby steps to trust Him with places in my heart again. I began releasing the direction of my relationship with BT to His guidance alone, no matter what direction it was leading to. I also began asking him to romance me in the way I so desire to be romanced – to be cherished, to be wanted, to be tenderly embraced and caressed and told that I am beautiful. Blessed be His name that He heard my cries and came to me, scooped me into His tender embrace, and told me that I am beautiful and still wanted. He has brought me back to the ultimate source of living water and given me healing to be able to receive love with rejoicing again.

When BT and I broke up, it was the first time in my life that I had complete confidence that, between the three of us, we had come to the right conclusion. While I will dearly miss things that BT and I shared, I know without a doubt in my heart that we made the right decision at the time. But while the Father had nurtured my ability toreceive love again, I was still terrified to give unconditional love. I was only comfortable with letting someone in so far. So when BT and I broke up a couple of months ago, I fully intended to stay single and avoid dating for, oh, around six months or so...at least. I was happy with that idea. I was content with that idea. I was comfortable with that idea. As selfish as it sounds, I was grateful for the chance to not have to worry about anyone else's heart for a while, where there were no worries about whether I was doing the right thing or making sure I treated that person exactly right. After so many years of heartache, singleness looked inviting...it looked safe.

And then God surprised me with a gift – M. And He is gently nudging me out of my hiding place through him. As a convict grows comfortable and secure within his walls, I had grown comfortable with the solitude of the wilderness. But God intends no one to live life either content or alone. Contentment brings stagnation, and solitude brings numbness. So M and I found each other in the wilderness, and he is walking with me out of the wilderness back toward home. Where fear of intimacy had grown in my heart, He began replacing it with a desire to love deeply and unconditionally again. He has gifted me with a new relationship -- one that is Christ-centered. Who am I to receive such a gift, as one who has sabotaged her previous relationships through so many mistakes? Who am I to be trusted with M's invaluable heart? But that’s just it. I am not responsible for either of our hearts! That is the vocation and joy of God Himself! That beautiful realization finally leaves me unhindered to love in sweet freedom when He asks me to.