When you feel you've disappointed God.

You can still come to Him.

This week was terrible. It felt like all hell broke loose and it felt like I was hit with a wave and just couldn’t come up to the surface. Instead of running into God’s presence and dealing with what I needed to deal with within me, I avoided it like the plague and resorted to numbing behaviors and avoidance.

Numbing behaviors for me are engaging in distractions. It means I distract the heck out of myself by whatever means necessary to avoid facing what is painful and needs confronting. I also retreat into myself like a little hermit crab and if possible, attempt to drop off the face of the planet socially.

This week I also prayed lots of honest prayers that essentially just looked like tears. I journaled so truthfully that I’m still tempted to burn the pages because it was that raw. But still…I didn’t fully deal with what I needed to deal with.

Tonight it came to a head when I knew I couldn’t avoid it anymore.

When I opened my bible, I was comforted by Psalm 56:8 “You yourself have recorded my wanderings, put my tears in Your bottle, are they not in Your records.” I felt like the Lord was saying, “I saw your tears, I’ve got You, your tears matter to me…your heartache matters to me…and I’ve GOT YOU. You can still come to me.”

And that made me cry! Because even though I was praying and journaling, I still felt like, in a way, I was avoiding the Lord because I wasn’t fully surrendering everything to Him. I was a little bit angry with Him for even letting me deal with some of the pain I walked through this week. Because haven’t these past four months already been hard enough, in terms of loss, sadness, suffering, and the list goes on? Is there a point where I hit the quota for it and then I’m just GOOD for like the rest of the year?

Long story short…when I came to the Lord tonight, I came with lots of baggage, shame, and guilt because I felt like a failure and like a letdown. Despite all of my many feelings, I still felt the Lord say, “Come.” He doesn’t push us away when we feel like we’ve screwed up. He still says, “Come.” We get the opportunity to ask for forgiveness, repent, and move forward. And I was reminded of that tonight.

If you’ve ever felt like a disappointment to the Lord and like You’ve failed, He still wants your heart. You can still have a fresh start because His mercies are new EVERY morning. Not just when we feel like we are worthy of them.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash