If I am Unfaithful {Part 1}

This weekend I moved into my new apartment. I've only slept there one night but my stuff getting up those three flights of stairs is a step that way. I met the new roommates and it is all happening and I know it is so, so good.

And then of course there are the tears shed in leaving a family that has become so dear. And in a sense, grieving the loss of that life which has become so normal this year. And so here I am entering a week where I learn to cook for myself again. Where I just wash a handful of dishes rather then a dozen. Where eleven goodnight hugs and I love yous are happening miles away and the void seems catastrophic in this quiet little room.

This is the week where faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word because my heart is just feeling all wacky. I think that part of the chaos deep down is just a lack of trust. It is the voice that says God is one way out under those country stars and that He will never work on the third story of this apartment building the way He did out there. God could never redeem the way He has this year...again. That without this mamma and daddy, perhaps His protection is limited.

So I exhale to the strum of doubt and I melt beneath the weight of myself because me is a mess.

Why is it so hard to trust Christ even when we see His sufficiency and grace abundant over and over again? We forget. So quickly, we forget. Some wise words from Chan at Passion this week have led me to wrestle here.

I think unfaithfulness is is a curse passed down and we learn it. 

We grow up watching our parents promise forever and then it ends. Our best friend says things will never change and then they do. Our dad names us his forever baby girl and then he hurts us. Mom says she will never be like grandma, not to worry—and then she's an addict. Dad says if you don't eat your veggies at dinner, they will become your breakfast but when the morning comes, he pours your cereal like any other day.

And at the time watching your parents marriage crumble or eating cereal when you should have been eating veggies may not seem life-chaning. And yet I am learning that this lack of trust in man can feed into my relationship with God. And when you add in decades of those little things...well I think it matters a lot. It primes us to become desensitized to it—and before we know it, the curse seeps into our offspring too.

Days come when I find myself wondering if a loving God would really send people to hell. I wonder if Heaven is going to be all it's cracked up to be. I wonder how much God means it when He says He loves me because there was another man I trusted who once said that too. I wonder if I could make it apart from Christ and some days I really think I could.

And yet somehow I always find myself falling short. And I'd like to say that when my dad landed in the pit from his alcohol addition yet again this year and tore our family in all kinds of ugly directions, I loved him through it the way the Lord does with me. But that would be a lie. I was mad and hurting and I needed time. A lot of time. In fact, I still havn't talked to him in nearly a year. When someone is unfaithful to you, it affects you. We all respond one way or another and personally—well, my flesh ain't pretty.

But God can't stop being who He is. 

"Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations..." Deut. 7:9

I might not walk through the pit with my dad or show up to my bible study every Sunday...
but Christ can't go back on what He promises. Even if I am unfaithful.

So as I lay my head down this first night in this little room and I listen to the wind blow fierce across the window and I let fear twist up through the cracks, I fight the floods streaming down my cheeks and I send desperate texts begging for any sort of instant reprieve and none comes. So I finally cave into the weight of it all and I realize just how wind-tossed and wave-ridden this unfaithful heart of mine can be. How easily swayed and lacking of trust. How forgetful.

And I think I begin to see glimpses of my need for His promises that are true. I see that I need them enough to defend them and I want to go down fighting. I see the way my kids are going to need them even more. And something once overcome by fear and failure gains hulk strength inside. I spit out a few desperate words with origin across the expanse of the Psalms and He quiets me and sleep comes.

With the morning comes light of His unfailing love and I learn He is trustworthy in a whole different realm escaping anything I could find through a few words on a screen or even deeper inside of myself.

He is who He is in spite of my unfaithfulness—and this promise is binding me up today.