What do you do when in moments when what you KNOW to be true (God is faithful, He is our provider) doesn’t feel true…at all…as in, the furthest thing from it?

I’m talking obstinate, anger, hurt feelings. Frustration and hopelessness.

I want to be in a big city.

I am tired of waiting.

Nothing is coming.

It must be me – I must be the problem.

I must be broken.

I must be unusable.

No, I really don’t want to hear how God is working behind the scenes anymore – we’ve been through that. I want action  – on the stage – and now please. Right.Now.

Are we not supposed to talk about those moments? Well, too late. I’ve been rolling around in those moments for the last week knowing with my head that God loves me and is/will provide for me, but feeling with all  my heart like life couldn’t actually be further from these facts – and here’s what I’ve come to land on:

I can’t always trust my heart.

I hate to say that, because I want to trust my heart. I have all these pinterest-worthy sayings about following your heart, leaping into the unknown, believing in yourself, bold adventures, the untaken path, dwelling in possibility, being unafraid, and on and on to prove it.  It feels like I should be able to trust myself. I feel like I know a lot, well, enough anyways. But me, my heart and mind are not always the most trustworthy of guides. Most particularly when me turns angry with God. The One who is my very breath and life. The One who has filled my life with the best gifts, the One who is the love and light of all that I am. That’s when you know you have to close the door and step away.

In those moments, I think we have to throw everything – every feeling, every thought – in the garbage so that we’re left with only what the Bible says to stand on, cling to, make sense from.

Follow your heart? We need to follow after God’s heart.

We have the power within us? The Holy Spirit fills us to do great things.

We are trail-blazing, world changers? Jesus is the one who turned the world on its head.

Apart from Christ, our hearts are sick and broken, ever turning in to gaze upon ourselves. And even if we love Him, if we don’t stick close to Him and His words, our hearts are bound to get poked and then bleed from sin. It’s only through His power and love that our hearts are made beautiful and full, like gardens in bloom.

So when we succumb to those moments when no promise feels true, I suggest we cling even tighter to them and repeat them over and over. Over and over. Over and over. Because even when they don’t feel true, they are. It’s our hearts that need to be rescued.

Even as I sat in a Good Friday service last week, I was fighting my frustration and trying to repeat His promises when I felt Him telling me, I didn’t bring you out of the darkness to then leave you on your own. I didn’t break your chains to then leave your hands empty.  I am not done.

That same night, a thunderstorm woke me up in the darkest hours of the night. The peels of thunder were, at first, soft and low and far, far away. Yet with time, they came closer, louder, stronger. They kept coming, rolling on and on until they were on top of the house; and as I lay in bed letting the rumbles fill my ears and the lightening flutter light into my room, I felt God telling me that He was like this rolling storm. That He is on His way with something. It may feel slow-moving and far off, but just in a moment, it will suddenly, strong and roaring, be above and all around me.

The thoughts came upon me so suddenly and in such a personal way, I knew it was Him – and I fell back to asleep, soundly resting.

It would be great if that’s where the story ended – I struggled, God sent a beautiful response and then I doubted no more. Ta-da! End of story. I wish that was true – but every day since, I have fallen again and yet again to the desires of my plan and my timeline, weighed down by doubt and hopelessness. Yet in my brokenness, His joy arrives to be my strength. Every time. I have no easy answers to tie this post up in a beautiful bow, but I do have a verse of His Word:

Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes on not what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4: 16-18)

I may not always be able to trust my heart, but I don’t want to lose heart either. I can’t lose heart, we can’t lose heart– that’s where the redemption is taking place, after all. Rather, I am trusting the One who made it and continually speaks to it. Over and over. Over and over.