Fear is debilitating. I am afraid. If, for one moment, I take my eyes off my Father and try to muddle through on my own, I fall. And when I fall, I lay there for a good while, wallowing in self-pity and paralyzing fear. It's these long, cold winter nights that I feel it the most - alone, unloved, unprotected, incompetent. My biggest fear is that I must go on living, and that nothing is going to get any better than it is now; the best is over - gone. There are too many ways in which I am incapable of living a productive, happy life. If I had found myself in this unenviable position - being divorced - a decade earlier, I might have had a fighting chance. But I'm only days away from my forty-fifth birthday (for crying out loud, that's halfway to ninety!), and I am tired. I can't even honestly say that I'm tired of trying, because I haven't tried. I'm just tired - tired of pain, tired of sorrow, tired of betrayal and lies, tired of life.
...But that's when I take my eyes off of my Father. Of course I am incapable, incompetent, and incomplete on my own! I must be united with Christ, my true Bridegroom, to be whole, and to be able to do anything. "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13. On my own I can do nothing; I am nothing. He is my strength, my joy, my love, my life. Why should I expect to have any of these things - strength, joy, love, or life - without Him? Perhaps that is part of the reason He, in His infinite love and wisdom, took things away from me - things that were idols to me. I was basing my love, strength, and joy on something other than Him. Instead of praising God for the rich blessings in my life and loving Him even more for them, I saw only the gifts, and dropped my eyes from the Giver. What unfaithfulness! What idolatry! Father, please forgive my unfaithfulness! Thank You for being faithful to me, despite my failures. Thank You and praise You for being eternal and unchangeable. And thank You for Your great mercy toward me!
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