Hi, I don’t know what you need, I don’t know what you are desperate to happen in your life, I don’t know what you plead with God at night when everybody else is sleeping, and you can’t. I don’t know what you are missing. I don’t know any of the ins or outs of your feelings and emotions. However what I do know is this: your desperation isn’t ignored.
And as annoying as it feels, God gives us exactly what we need. But to this you may say, ‘wait Abbie, you say you don’t know what I’m desperate for and you are right, you don’t know what it’s truly like’. And you know what? You are right, I don’t.
But this what I do know, I have been and still are desperate too. I have been desperate for my mental health to improve. I have been desperate for a relationship with certain people. that I can’t have. I have cried, I have screamed, I have been silent. I have begged God and I have ignored him. I have done everything possible to make God give me these things. And I haven’t got them.
And I think we need to remember that more than God’s gifts (which are beautiful and great), we have access to God himself (which is by far better). We have access to the one who is everything that is missing and empty in our lives. And as painful as it is to face the loss of the thing we want so bad, we can take great comfort in knowing that he is enough. And as a small child doesn’t truly know what is good for them, when they want chocolate for every meal instead of the vegetables that their mean parents force them to eat, we often don’t know what we truly need. I know I don’t.
I have wanted things in my life that are so opposite to good for me, I have wanted to do this that seemed like a great plan at the time (like the time I tried to get on a train to Scotland with no things, money or a plan at 9:30/10pm on a sunday when no trains where running, or like the time when I disappeared cycling into the night about 11pm with no lights and no idea where I was going or whether I’d be back or not, and if you want confirmation I am sure my friends would be happy to supply the stories) and maybe you are smarter than me and wouldn’t be so stupid. But at the time I genuinely thought it was the best idea since sliced bread (as a gluten free human I need to come up with a better line than that).
But I was desperate for relief from my mental illness, a good thing to not want, yet doing what I wanted wasn’t going to be successful anyway.
And sometimes God giving us himself doesn’t help with the fact i need a job when I graduate but spending more time with him allows us to see that he is in control and the more we know of his character the more we know we can come to him and we can rest in him even when nothing makes sense. And this breads contentment in us. And I’ll be honest this isn’t not something I have achieved yet, but I see people who have been a christian for decades and they have this. I know it’s possible.
And even if I don’t get everything I want, but it is well with my soul because the one thing I do have is him.
Before I Understood 