Wow... I slept til almost noon. It's raining out. I could use the sunshine today. Hopefully this will stop so I can mow the lawn. The back is only half done... I guess for now I can try to work on the laundry and garage...
Or my heart. Maybe my mind. Then there's my body.
I do not deserve Your love. I do not deserve Your mercy. I do not deserve Your forgiveness, Father, let alone your grace.
And yet You offer all of this to me... You offer all of this to us...
Please help me through this. Please help me do what I need to do, face what I need to face, take those necessary steps. You know I can't do it without You.
Help me see it through to completion. Help me see what You see, feel what You feel, know what You know. Father, give me the strength to show Your love through it all.
Thank You for loving me... thank You for choosing this--for me, and for us.
I think that describes it best right now... not even numb, as I first thought. Just stunned. Like the opposite of numb but so close you have to strain to feel the difference. To where I feel everything at once and it all sort of neutralizes one another until it's almost numb but not quite the same.
I'm stunned. I'm shocked and hurt and stunned and blown away and betrayed and confused and deceived and lost and all these things...
I got beat down... I got depressed and hurt. I had held on to what I knew, and what I had, and was told for a long, long time... but recently, it started becoming more and more faint--or weak, I guess you could say. I stood steadfast. But I began to doubt. I ignored it at first, turned away from it. But soon I began to believe there was no way to deny it. I guess I've been a fool. I guess I only saw what I wanted to see, and believe what I wanted to believe, and hear what I wanted to hear... for so long. The reality of it slapped me in the face and told me to go away. There's no denying anymore, it told me to go away.
I was so hurt. I was angry. With that reality, with myself for buying into it... with God for letting me be such a fool. For letting me think He wanted me to remain steadfast. Wait and bear the burden I have given you, Jessica. Hold tight, for I know the plans I have for you... How could I have been so wrong? The weight of it was crushing. It threw my whole world into a tailspin. I wanted to stop it.
I was so deceived...
Scott,
Jessica wrote this letter for me about two years ago. But I never let her send it. She kept wanting to, almost did so many times. But it had to be saved for when I was ready for you to see it. Neither of you knew or imagined that the time I needed you to see it would be now, because neither of you could foresee something like this ever happening. And if she wouldn't have written it so long ago, if she wouldn't have heard these things in her heart from me, then none of this could have worked. So yes, I do work in mysterious ways it may seem. But whenever I do something, whenever I get involved, no matter how bad it may hurt, it is always to get you back to what I want for you, to the good that I have planned for you.
I know you have a lot of really hard questions right now. But know that I love you. Know that I am intimately involved in your life right this very minute and in what is happening. This is not just a bad thing that happened to you in life. There are some very good reasons for it, and for why I allowed it and am working within it. But we will talk some more after you've read this letter...
Hi, Scott. It's God. I've been trying to talk to you. I know things are hectic and stressful right now, I know you're busy. And I know you're not happy. That's me, trying to get your attention. But you haven't done a very good job of putting two and two together, so I'm taking a more direct approach.
Yes, Scott. You're getting older. Everyone does. I made you that way. I know you don't like it and you're doing everything you can to fight it, but I didn't design you to go backward. I designed you to go forward. I also know what's best for you, even more than you do. I know it's hard to understand that someone else could know you better than you know yourself, but I've even tried to help you with that---by giving you another person that does. I made her that way too. Maybe you think it's unfair---I know she does sometimes. But she's ok--she's doing what she needs to do, even though she doesn't understand it. She listens to me--she doesn't always obey, but her heart is pointed toward me.
I haven't told you as much about my plans as I've told her. I haven't told her everything, but I've told her as much as I needed her to know in order to hang on... I've told her with dreams, with whispers, with inexplicable feelings. But you... you don't play a good game of poker when your hand is forced. I should know, since I made you that way. But she has more faith in me, and in what she cannot understand. I gave her that too, because I knew she would need it to be able to go through this fire and still hang on.
But like I said before, you haven't been listening. So I'm going to tell you what you've been missing, why everything is in such conflict, why you feel such discord and why none of your attempts to fix it all yourself have been working, or will work. I'm going to tell you that until you stop and listen and make sound decisions as the man I made you to be, it's only going to get worse. I know you've heard the saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." That's how I made you, only more extreme. She, on the other hand, is more pliable for me. Not for everyone, but she is for me. She trusts me. I made her that way on purpose. I made her that way for you.
You are a complicated creature, Scott. You have desires that seem to conflict with one another, but they don't really. You don't have to choose--you can realize fulfillment in them all.
You told me that you won't buy in to the white-picket-fence deal. So I burned it out of her. She used to long for it, as all little girls do. But she stopped believing in it, even though I gave her parents that showed her it was possible. She doesn't know why, she doesn't know what happened to cause that desire or that belief to fade away... she just knows that it has. I had to do it that way, so that there was still that small spark of hope buried deep inside. Because there is still that small spark buried even deeper inside of you. But for a long time, I had to keep that hope hidden from her, so that someone else couldn't steal what I was crafting for you.
You told me that you wouldn't be with someone that would hold you back, and keep you tied down in a small town with a factory job, going nowhere in life. So I gave her adaptability, and a restlessness. I gave her the ability to endure hardship for the hope of reward. I gave her a heart that, once fixed, never gives up--I just never let her fix it on something before. I gave her a mind that works constantly to build upon and improve everything she touches. I developed in her an uncertainty about what she wants or where she's going, but I tempered it with the comfort of not really being concerned with the specifics of the outcome... just that there must be an outcome, that she goes somewhere, does something... I made her more concerned with fulfillment of the heart... so that she could embrace your dreams without reservation, and keep you moving toward them, helping you, pushing you, challenging you, sharpening you, holding you accountable.
You told me that you would not be with someone that you had to be dependent on. So I let you prove to yourself and the world that you could survive on your own--but I leave your heart unfulfilled because alone is not how I want you--and alone is not how you want to be.
You told me that you would not be with someone who was dependent on you. So I kept blinders on her and let her float through early adulthood on autopilot letting others make decisions for her, going with the flow, emulating the lives of those she saw around her--not living as a puppet or a leach, still a bright, strong girl, but just not fathoming the responsibilities of life--not grasping how vast a world I've made. Then I woke her up--hard and fast. I changed her entire life in an instant. She was horrified at what she had done--that she had wasted 20 years staring at this little part of the picture and never feeling like she belonged in what she saw, but never having the presence of mind to look for more. That she had wasted 5 years of someone else's life and knew that she had to hurt them, that she was not where she belonged. I did this to her to make certain that every move she made was on purpose. I did this to her to make sure that she would never again give up control of her life. I did this because you need someone with their head screwed on straight, that lives with their eyes open, in control of themselves and making their own decisions, who takes responsibility for their own actions, who cleans up their own messes. Unless a person has lived and loathed dependence, they cannot cling with certainty to independence.
You told me that you wouldn't share the credit for what you've overcome. And so I didn't let you meet her until you'd already overcome it.
You told me that you wouldn't be with someone who wasn't in control of their own life, able to survive and find happiness apart from you, able to be without you, able to pay their own bills and take responsibility. And so I gave her a child, Scott. And in thrusting her into motherhood, I strengthened her core, her foundation. I forced her to prioritize and make hard decisions without regret. I taught her to care that there be order and structure. I put her in a situation where she is forced sometimes to go without so that she can learn that not having every physical thing she desires does not keep her from being happy and fulfilled. I gave her a child to show her what she was capable of. I gave her a child to center and balance her. You need the passion I created her with, the appetite for life, the untamed spirit, the wild heart with which anything is possible. But you also need balance--that grounding, that sober responsibility and reason and logic. You need someone who can play as hard as you but work as hard as you too--and what's more you need someone who can know when it's time for one or the other. So I created her with that wildness that allures you, and then I fostered in her the balance that comforts you.
You told me that you can't stay with anyone because no one can keep you interested... Your fickle heart loses interest so quickly and so it just won't work. I gave you that fickle heart, Scott. I left you unsatisfied by any other encounter so that you would know her when I gave her to you. And so I give her magic... I give you someone so enthralling that you cannot get your mind off of her... It's been more than two years since you first touched her, first tasted her... And still you burn for her like it was the first time. I gave her a body that torments you. I gave her a voice that intoxicates you.
I've put her through so much to prepare her for you. That's why I gave her such an amazing mother... To help her and guide her as she endured these trials. To remind her that she is loved and that more good than she could imagine will one day come of all of this, if she would just hold on and allow herself to be molded by My hand. Her mother was her lifeline. Her mother is the one who taught her what love is, that love that so confounds you with its depth... Her mother was her teacher, her mentor, her comforter, her truest friend... And when the time drew near for me to present her to you, when she needed to know you in order to be molded for you, I took her mother from her... Otherwise she would never have opened up to you and all My work would be for naught.
So you see... you think she is perfect for you, save for certain events that occurred in her life. But the very things you claim negate her perfection for you as a mate are the very things that I put her through in order to make her perfect for you. Rather than see how life's events have shaped her and built her character, you label her and judge her by their very occurrence. Nothing is perfect, Scott. Nothing in this world ever can be because of the fall. But sometimes, and for my own reasons, I allow a closer taste of the perfection that awaits after this life. You are one of few throughout time that I will ever do this for. Don't waste it. And don't waste her...
More love than you can fathom,
God
