Nothing Else Matters

"His desire is for us to cling to him. There will come a time when nothing else matters, but God."

That was something I picked up from the sermon at the church we visited this week. This and the entire sermon on Jacob spoke to my heart. There were two different directions this tugged at my heart.

I typically don't have a lot of self esteem issues and I'm not sure that's what I have going on now. Lately, I have just felt too broken, too dirty, too much. Not for anything or anyone in particular, but just in general.

That's not a big revelation or confession of guilt or some huge sin in my life. Believe me, I lead a rather dull life these days. I think it is probably more of realization that there's a growing distance between God and myself. Possibly because of my very real discontent with church. Possibly it's my world experience bleeding over into my view of God.

I have spent a solid three years feeling very disconnected from church and people. Even now, I don't feel like I have a lot of friends or even human contact. I have made efforts to change that, but it doesn't seem to work. I told myself in Ohio, that it was the people. Here, I am having a harder time not taking it personally.

In fact, I'd say I am taking it very personally. There's probably not a week that goes by that I don't think that maybe I'm too this or that for people to want to be around me. I have spent hours and days wondering what I could do to make myself more attractive to people.

Now, I do think this has led to me feeling like I'm unattractive to God. If people don't want to be around me, then he probably doesn't either. It's been an ongoing battle between heart and mind for months now.

I woke up last week with Natalie Grant's song Clean in my head. This is song I haven't liked much. But, it really does touch on exactly how I have been feeling. It's a process. My heart and mind will eventually get on the same page, but it's a slow process.

This sermon was a reminder of exactly what the song says. The way I see me, the way others see me, that's not the way God sees me. What I've done, my sin, none of it matters. He makes me clean if I cling to him.

The other part of this for me has to do with my family. When we moved back, we had a strong connection with my brother and his family. After Thanksgiving, we lost it. I have no idea why. We've gone about seven months without much more than a couple fb messages. It isn't from not trying. We've tried to see them, call and text. We've gotten nothing back.

I won't lie, it's been hard. Super hard. I have felt abandoned all over again. There's no words that can describe that kind of pain.

What I got from yesterday was that I still have God. I sacrificed my family once for God. If they want to abandon me again, that's fine. I still have God. He won't leave me. It doesn't' make it any less painful. But when the tears are dried up, I still have this good thing in my life.

I probably need to write this reminder on something that I look at everyday.