"...but God, Who called me here below will be forever mine."

My title today is from the original last verse of John Newton's "Amazing Grace." The first part of that particular verse says, "The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forebear to shine..." But the two parts together, and you have an amazing statement as to the constancy of God. Even when life as we know it is falling apart, God is still present, still working, and still personal. I think it's easy when going through times of hardship or worry to begin to feel like God is not personal. As a person who has grown up in the church my whole life, it's hard for me to imagine a time when I might think God wasn't present because in my mind, He's always been present. But that doesn't mean that I've always seen Him as personal.

I come from a family system that used a lot of isolation as a manipulation tool. My mom did not encourage me to have a lot of friends or to have any kind of social life. She got jealous and upset when I did have things to do that took me away from the house, and she even began to use church youth group events, at some points, as examples of how I was never home spending time with her to try to manipulate me into staying home. I have some understanding now for WHY she did this, but nevertheless, it hurt a lot and caused me to feel like a very isolated person. So, when life gets hard and I feel overwhelmed with challenges, I start to retreat into myself because that was my defense mechanism when my mom was challenging. But I also isolated myself because my mom made me feel like I was un-like-able. I have a hard time acknowledging whether she made me feel unlovable or not, but she definitely made me feel un-like-able. I would retreat into my shell because if she pushed me away and thought I was an awful person, didn't everybody else??

As I have grown in my faith, I have come to recognize that knowing God is there is not the same as knowing He is personal. When I would isolate myself, I would even retreat from God. I was so afraid of relating with Him, afraid He would only re-enforce what my mom had already made me feel. So, though I knew He was there, I was loathe to open up and be personal with Him for fear of what I would find. So, I spent years and years trying to relate to God while also tiptoeing my way around, fearing that all the love I thought He had for me would be snatched away and the bottom would drop out of my faith, all because I was a screw up. I didn't tell a lot of people this because it's not a very Christian thing to think. I have been a Christian since I was 7, and I knew enough to know that you don't tell people that you're afraid God's love won't endure your imperfections. In my mind, I thought they would either tell me that meant I wasn't actually saved or they would give me some trite answer that didn't really address why I felt so much self-loathing.

Loving Justin and having him love me really began to change my view of myself and, more importantly, God's love for me. But it was a slow process that involved sifting through 20+ years of emotional, mental, and spiritual garbage. We thought it would take years for me to really come to a whole and complete view of God's love for me. Notice the operative word here is "thought," not "think." About 3 months ago, I was in a Bible study group that was studying 1 Samuel. One of the main characters of 1 Samuel, King Saul, made some decisions without listening to what God was telling him. Our leader, who is a good, good friend of mine, asked us, "So what is it that you aren't listening to that God is telling you?" It took me a couple of hours, but one my way home that evening, I knew. It was like someone dropped it from heaven into my head and I knew. My whole life, God has been telling me "I love you and you are Mine" and I hadn't been listening. I had kept Him at arms length, afraid He would corroborate all the ugly things my mom had been telling me, while the whole time He had been speaking love, beauty, and peace into my life.

What's all this got to do with anything? For me, it has everything to do with everything. Life has its challenges-that's true for everybody. But my God is a personal God who cares. In the highs, in the lows, and in all the in-betweens, I know that my peace can come from the God of the universe Who looks on me and calls me His own. So no matter how my world may be falling apart or staying together, I "will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'" Psalm 91