Jeremiah 29:11 - 13 (New International Version)
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
I love the first bit, and for the longest time, that's as far as I read or referred. God had a plan and it was to prosper and not to harm me. That was what I clung to after David's suicide, when I questioned why would God put me in this situation, why would God make me go through these horrible feelings. It's a scripture that my dear little sister gave to me - the reference is tattooed on her wrist - and I clung to it for over a year.
That scripture helped me breathe when I thought my heart would come out of my body, on the weekend that I was so grief stricken and stressed out that I thought I was having a heart attack, went to the E.R. and was told my pressure was something like 210/150 and I was given nitroglycerin. (I wasn't having a heart attack, I was having a panic attack because of not sleeping and not eating for days - my pressure is fine now, this was two years ago - in the event that the above has raised your own blood pressure.) I was still so angry at God, I couldn't really acknowledge my need of him yet, but somehow his having a plan helped me out.
It wasn't for over a year that I was trying to find scriptures to write down and remind myself of how far I'd come that I looked that verse up in my Bible. At the time, I was just starting to really seek a deeper, connected relationship with God. I knew that my simple salvation was not enough. I knew that God was calling me to a deeper relationship with him.
I had no idea what that meant, nor what I was in for.
It was about this time that I met Joan. We were the 'snark sisters' at the Women's Bible Study at church. Maybe we weren't really snarky, but somehow we questioned the same things, our viewpoints were similar. She (blessedly) wasn't a 'church lady', and despite our difference in age, she was hip to me being my messy, authentic, searching self. She wasn't even offended when I slipped up and used 'language'. Because Joan just saw me as a like-minded seeker of Jesus, she just accepted me though that is her character and nature to love and accept people - and I am SURE she prayed a lot for me. (Hello, rabbit trail)
I started going through what Joan described as a desert experience. She talked about her own, and it seemed to me to be that place that matures our faith from needing spiritual milk to spiritual meat (1 Peter 2:2-3 Like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.).
For me, the milk phase was short. The phase where salvation seemed to be enough lasted for about four months. I was seeking forgiveness for years of having run away from my relationship with God. It wasn't till I was seeking God for a relationship that I realized that I wasn't nearly prepared because I didn't have much to give. Therein entered the desert.
Ah, the desert of one's faith. Joan said that I would look back on that (this) difficult time with fondness, and I did (do). When it started and every time I entered church I would cry, because I was so moved. I was SO challenged to give God more of the stuff I held onto, so challenged to be obedient to submit to his will, so broken and in need of him (and willingly having submitted to this deeper challenge). I cried so often that people at church didn't even give me a second glance. I wish I were kidding, but Joan used to tease me that people might be concerned if I ever made it through a service without crying!
Anyway, I started feeling like I would never get to that point of spiritual health that I wasn't always aching in my bones to be near to God*. To comfort myself I started seeking scriptures about God redeeming people. Mostly, it was about God redeeming Israel/the Jews. (Do you know how often God does that? Seriously, it's amazing how many times Israel/the Jews run from God. It started to give me hope that I was not SO messed up and broken that God wouldn't do just about anything to draw me back to him.) I read a lot of Isaiah, Jeremiah. I was comforted with the story of Peter's betrayal of Jesus before his death and then Peter's restoration after the resurrection. I was blessed by Joan's Bible study of the book of Nehemiah - the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
But the scripture that encouraged me the most was Jeremiah 29:11 - 13 God having plans for me gave me peace, but what excited me the most was the statement in verses 12 - 13: "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
I could believe easily that God had plans for a hope and a future, but that I could call on God, I could come and pray to him... and he would listen. My friends, HE PROMISED TO LISTEN! He said I would find him when I sought him with all of my heart. I WOULD find him. I don't know about you, but some days I feel like I am praying to the ceiling (or in my case, literally a computer screen, as I tend to write out my prayers). And I know what the problem is... the problem is that bit at the end of that verse: all my heart.
That's when I sigh, and let go of my pride, and open myself up and am honest about where my heart hurts and what's going on. When my whole heart is involved, he lets me find him. Him who my heart so desperately wants, allows me to find him. A Most Holy God allows this human; flawed, broken, sinful, messed up human to know him.
Dearest friend, he wants to you to know him like that too.
*Adding this: I still ache to be nearer and nearer to God, but many of the impediments are cleared and it doesn't feel horrible.
*Adding this: I still ache to be nearer and nearer to God, but many of the impediments are cleared and it doesn't feel horrible.
