It seems that every Friday brings a fair amount of frustration for me. I wonder if it comes from the anxiety I feel as I head into every weekend. Free time is very hard for me. Being busy is often all that distracts me from missing Nathan. Every Friday, I spend most of the day nearly in tears just waiting for the day to end so that I can go home and feel all of the things I'm feeling. Every interuption at work sends me a little closer to the edge of reason. I spend Fridays trying to maintain composure and focus on the work at hand.
Despite the fact that we are half way through the month of July, I still feel like there is an eternity between me and Nathan. I am anxious to have him home with me, even if it is just for a time. I want to see him and to touch his face and to feel his arms around me. The longing I have for him just grows every day and I often feel as though I am at the end of my rope. I spend much of my time just going through the motions and it is often a great struggle to feel my connection with God. This is a time in which I am learning how real God is even when I can't feel Him with me. I know that He is here and that He is with me because I am able to make it through this day. I don't always feel His presence in that tangible way but I know He is here. There is a line from a song that I listen to that says, His grace is sufficent for me. The truth is that sometimes sufficent doesn't mean overflowing and abounding. Sometimes it means just that, sufficent. Today, His grace is just what I need to make it through. I don't have a surpluss today. I have just what I need and not an iota more than that. I know that it is days like today, when He has given me just enough, that I learn the most about leaning on Him and trusting in His provision. When I'm riding the waves of abounding grace, I tend to forget that I need His grace. It is easier to take His grace for granted when I have a surpluss. When I am in that place where He has supplied my needs and given me just enough, that is when I realize how close I would be to ruin if I didn't trust in Him or seek Him for my spiritual provision.
I know that a day like today in my life before Christ would result in a lot of bad choices. I know that in my life before Christ, today would be a day that would end with a half a pack of ciggarettes and a beer at a seedy bar. I know that the way I feel to day would have resulted in a long night of seeking comfort and staying out until the bar closed and even later, if I had found the temporary comfort I was looking for. I would have woken tomorrow morning reeking of stale smoke and sour beer. I would have felt more empty in the morning than I did the night before. I would have spent the day hiding from the world only to head back to that seedy bar as soon as the sun went down. I would not have cried. Rather I would have tossed and turned in my state of numbness and continued my search for love and comfort in all the wrong places.
No matter how difficult today might be and how much I miss Nathan, I have peace and I have joy. Most importantly I have Truth. I no longer desire to seek comfort and validation after dark in dark places with dark men. I know that I will get through this night and this weekend without any darkness because I dwell in the Light. I can praise the Lord in my trials because I know what living in the darkness is like. I know that the pain I feel and the tears I shed are volumes more valuable to the Kingdom of God than the numbness I used to rely on. I know that I will wake in the morning refreshed and renewed because I will seek God before bed and I will rest peacefully in His arms tonight. I know that He is with me, even when I can't feel Him because my life is changed and I am a new creation. Only God can do that. Only God can take a numb, lifeless heart and make it beat again with transparency and love. Everything I feel is on my sleeve now. I don't hide and I don't run, I just feel. I'm thankful that I can feel anything at all. I'm blessed that what I feel is the love of a Godly man who misses me just as desperately as I miss him. I'm blessed that God kept me from seeking false comfort in Nathan and guided me to seek Him above all else. In the pain of today, I can see all of the blessings of God and I'm thankful.
