But I stopped believing in him. I often look my swimmers in the eye and tell them, "I believe in you, you can do this." But I couldn't tell this to God, because I didn't believe he could do it, I stopped believing in his promises. I couldn't put my faith in him, and I didn't trust him with my future.
I'm not sure when that happened. It may have been in the hours I spent budgeting every penny I had over and over and over again. It may have been when I stopped seeing sunrises as a breathtaking metaphor of new mercies, but as a sultry symbol of new problems and obstacles. Or when I stopped seeing sunsets as a doorway to the stars and heavenly glories, but as a doorway to darkness and fear. It may have been when I started carrying my planner and color coded pens in my purse instead of my bible and journal. It may have been when I became comfortable in how I was living. Or it may have been when I stopped choosing joy.
I don't know when or even why it happened, but I stopped believing in him, trusting in him. I stopped wanting to hear from him. I let myself succumb to anxiety, encouraged it. I lived my life with a constant ache in my stomach, with a dull pounding in my head, with a pressure in my chest that felt like someone was slowly wringing my heart like a wet clothe then undoing it over and over again. I felt my light go out. My passion toward life was dulled and my desire to seek out joy and to find Jesus in the daily was hidden.
I know I never truly stopped believing (as a bible student I have a lot of head knowledge that even when I don't want to believe, has pointed me to Jesus and I am a firm believer that God has been written on my heart since the beginning of time. So no, I never stopped believing the theologies of God that I have come to know).
But as I found myself on the floor, in the middle of work, shaking because I was crying so hard because I didn't think I could survive any longer, I realized I didn't want to believe in the God I knew. I didn't want to believe in a God who loved every single person the same. I didn't think it was fair that he cared about my minuscule problems just as much my friends' major problems. I wanted him to focus his energies on fixing other things. I was angry with him. I was angry with him for choosing to be the God he is rather than the God who fits perfectly into the box of my understanding and desires. And I didn't want to believe anymore.
But even in that time, he never stopped loving me. He still gave me friends who know how to love me and love me well. He continued to paint the sky with majestic colors in both the evening and the night (which obviously was just for me ;)). He gave me coworkers who allow me to be myself. And he never gave up on me.
So daily, in the midst of crisis, when I don't want to give over my life, I seek him. I find him in crispness of the California fall evenings. I see him in the development of the babies in my life. He shows himself to me in moon rises and stratus clouds. He speaks to me through the simple words of friends and coworkers. And as he tangibly exemplifies his love for me, I know that I can make it through another day because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and because I am loved and chosen and a child of the most high king.
And I am so very thankful.
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