I sit at my kitchen table. The house is quiet, silent and still and peaceful around me. But my heart is anything but still.
Steam rises up from a cup of hot tea, and I sit there with The Word – words of life and truth and promises of unfailing, unrelentling love. And for the first time in months I feel that love.
I have wandered, lost and alone and in search of some way to piece together the broken and shattered shreds of what used to be dreams.
I have ignored Him.
I have avoided Him.
I have questioned His will.
I have loathed the story He has given me to tell.
I have cried out to Him in bitterness and grief, wondering if He hears my silent heart cries.
I have laid in bed at night, my pillow wet from unbridled tears, silently screaming at Him.
I have wrestled with Him. The kind of wrestling that leaves you emotionally broken, mentally wounded and completely wrecked. Like Jacob I will feel the effects of my wrestling with God for the rest of my life.
But this wrestling…it has made me stronger.
Through months of wrestling with the One who created me, who gives me life, who redeems my soul…I have grown. Developing faith muscles that I never knew were there. A spiritual strength-training that exposes my every weakness, while also making me unshakably stronger.
Wrestling with God.
Wrestling with the One who pursues my heart with relentless, unfailing love.
Wrestling with the One who hung on the sinner’s tree – a cross of wood, rugged and ugly and completely repulsive, in one history making, earth changing, veil-tearing act of love.
And He calls me beloved.
And He calls me beautiful.
And He calls me daughter.
And He calls me friend.
And as I sit here at my kitchen table, with morning sunlight on the window pane, and quiet stillness all around me, I am ready to wrestle again. Because I still have unanswered questions. And I still have unfulfilled dreams.
Yet now I embrace this one beautiful realization: He let’s me wrestle with Him. I am not forgotten. I am not abandoned. I am not ignored.
For He wrestles with me.
Blogging & Family Q & A with Danette Dillon
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ARD? Is your family supportive of your blog/business? How do you use your blog/business to bless your family and strengthen the family relationship?
DD: My sister, Dalayna, is also a blogger, but the rest of the family don’t quite understand this blogging thing. I’d say they are supportive as much as their understanding allows.
When it comes to using my blog to bless my family, I do stumble across crafts and products that I can pass on to my family. For that they are grateful.
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Love this. I love that his grace always covers our doubts, and weaknesses and questions and He never let’s go of trying to pursue our love….
Oh Julie, I love this about the Lord too. That He never lets go, He never gives up, He never grows weary of pursuing and reigning in our wandering hearts. What grace! What glory!
I understand Amanda. I really do. Probably for different reasons. I think that is why I love Jacob’s story. It tells me that it is normal to wrestle and that is so much better than being luke warm. Keep talking and listening to Him. Big, giant hugs. xo
Hi Sarah,
I love the Biblical stories of the patriarchs wrestling with God for the same reason. There’s a sweet comfort in knowing that we’re not alone, that it is “normal” and even welcome to wrestle with the Almighty!
I love you and wrestle with Him for my own life. And wrestle with Him regarding yours, too.
You are beloved. . . . . .
I love you Mom!
I wish I could edit my comment because shortly after I posted it, this arrived in my email., and I would just add to that.
Regarding Joseph’s captivity, “God made him fruitful in the very things that afflicted him. In the land of your affliction, in your battle, is the place where God will make you fruitful. Consider, even now, the area of greatest affliction in your life. In that area, God will make you fruitful in such a way that your heart will be fully satisfied, and God’s heart fully glorified. God has not promised to keep us from valleys and sufferings, but to make us fruitful in them.” [Francis Frangipane, Place of Immunity (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Arrow Publications, 1996
So beautiful Amanda. No matter how much we push him away, he is always there and always present.
Beautifully written post. It is so tough to wrestle with God during difficult times. I’ve had a 3 year struggle with starting a family and it is so hard not to run away from God. Why would he allow these things to happen to a family that wants a child so bad, etc! I’m still working through knowing God has a plan. Thanks for sharing.
I absolutely LOVE this post. It is so beautifully written. I appreciate you sharing this. <3
Amanda, I know the pain you feel, and I know that every pain we suffer and valley we enter has a reason. We may never know the answer, which irritates our human selves something fierce. Keep wrestling. You don’t know the ways God will bless you, but he will.
I hear this on KLOVE radio all the time, and it goes something like this: God can redeem us from our struggles. He can also redeem us through our struggles.
Big difference. You’re on your way.
i truly admire your heart friend and no you are not alone!
I love you friend and am still praying for you. It is also during the hard times I have grown the most. (or during one particular hard time, I grew bitter. Growing in the Lord is much preferred!) Thankful for a God who wrestles on our behalf!
Thank you for reminding me that it IS ok to wrestle with God, that I am not the only one to have times in my life where I get so torn that I turn away from Him. I love the heart and truth you have put in this post.
Good words. Thankful that He lets me wrestle with Him!
I so love your heart shared here friend. Beautiful. Blessings.
hOLY MOLY. This speaks to me today, Amanda… even though I’m a couple days late in catching up. I have been wrestling with so many burdens that are on my heart lately. This is a beautiful way to look at it and a wonderful reminder that He is wrestling WITH us, not against us. Thank you, my dear.
I have no clue how I’ve come to find your blog or the others I’ve link up with because of the camera contest. But I must tell you I am better because I found y’all thank you.
Amazing post. Like you I have wrestled with God and have questioned His will. There are times where I feel like God is punishing me for some wrong that I have committed. But God puts us through this trials to help us grow spiritually. Sometimes its easy to get caught up in the pain, the sadness and forget that God loves us and would never give us a trial that is too hard for us to overcome. Again, amazing post.
Thanks for sharing.