So, these past couple of months of my life were basically wrapped in darkness and engulfed in flames. LOL.

I have had such hard conversations, not only between me and the people I love, but between me and the Lord. I have seriously struggled as I’ve reentered the world of singleness, as I’ve faced my first fatherless Christmas and mourned the anniversary of the last day I saw my dad. I’ve struggled as I wonder what it’s going to be like when I move back to Nashville… Will it be like before? Where I had no church and no community and struggle to make ends meet? Also, how the actual heck am I gonna get all of my stuff back up the stairs? HAHA. I don’t have a clue.

I feel like I’ve been mourning so much… the death of dreams, the death of relationships that I treasured, the death of my dad. I’ve even been mourning the way I thought my relationships would be, after I found out that I don’t think I matter nearly as much to others as they do to me. And maybe that’s an overestimate, maybe I’m being dramatic, I’m unsure. But even my uncertainty about certain relationships make me feel like I am in a sinking ship!!! Misery. These have been miserable months.

But, I was reading in Job this week and I came across a passage that really struck me.

“Are the comforts of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?”

Job 15:11

And while these may not have been the words that Job needed to hear, seeing as these words were given by a very miserable comforter, my heart needed this like my body needs water.

Because it got me thinking. Are the comforts of God too small for me? Basically, is the God of the universe and the promises He gives me really enough for me? Even when my family walks through years of darkness, and my favorite dreams become nightmares that leave me in tears? Even when I am so overwhelmed because I have actually no idea what’s next for me, or how God’s going to provide for me? Even when I feel like my world is full of proof that God is against me?

And ya know what? If I’ve learned anything these past two years, I’ve learned that the comforts of the Lord are absolutely no small thing. The comforts of the Lord make life worth living, and even make really hard seasons enjoyable. His comforts are deep joys even amidst deep sorrows. They are feelings of peace amidst uncertainty and chaos. They’re like the helmet that Sandy wears under the water in SpongeBob… Ya know? The helmet that allows her to breathe fully and not gasp for air even when she is so deep in the water that she can’t see the sky. That is the comfort of our God. These comforts are no small thing. As long as we know how to find them, they give us strength and peace and joy no matter what fires are burning down our world as we once knew it.

And truthfully, I don’t think these months would’ve been even half as miserable had I read this sooner. Because, though of course I’m still grieving and moving on and whatever, I am not a hopeless woman. I’m not a woman at the mercy of my circumstances. I’m not a woman whose future can be made out as darkness before me because I have been adopted into the Kingdom of Light and made co-heirs with Christ. No matter what happens to me, God is for me, with me, and able to work all things together for the good of those who love Him… and boy, do I love Him!!! I can have peace, knowing that mere mankind cannot thwart the plans of God, add or take away the value given by God, or take away the love that I’ve been promised in God.

And this is true for you, too.

Don’t hear me wrong… We are allowed to have a hard time. We are allowed to grieve things our hearts will dearly miss. We’re allowed to cry, to ask questions, to go to Jesus in our confusion. Believe me, I have!! But we’re also told that He is the Great Comforter, the Healer, and the Helper that our souls need; and it would be a shame to have access to the Almighty God and have our hearts so set on what’s been taken that we don’t see the deeper joys available to us now and forever: the presence of God Himself, and the wonderful things that come with Him. I pray that our hearts will learn to find the comfort offered in Christ, treasure the comfort of Christ above all other comforts, and teach our wayward hearts to hope in the comfort of Christ and the promise that God Himself will be with us each step of the way. I believe in you, and I am with you.

All my love,