Remind Me You’re Here (when faith feels far)

I remember the moment that I heard God. It gives me bumps all over my body distinctively remembering the sound of His voice. I haven’t told many people this story, #one – because it’s hard for me to recall it without choking up & crying in front of everyone is hard to recover from and #two – because it’s sometimes hard for people to fathom. Call me weak maybe, but having to think people are judging such an intimate moment in my life to be made-up is sometimes not even worth the share. But part of your path through life is sharing the good, bad, and the ugly. God’s path for you is not Instagram-ready. That’s 100%. No filters, no prep, no good angles, and definitely no skin-smoothing edits. It’s raw & real – ugly cry and all, girlfriend.

I was in one of those moments when God in my life was farther than hitting my knees on a cold, hard floor. I had all but dissolved my relationship with Him; much less to think that I could call myself walking by faith. In order to ‘find myself’ like many young adults do, I felt that I had to disconnect myself from EVERYTHING to choose it on my own. This meant friends, family, faith, moral-code. The gamet of unwise. I wanted to see what the world had to offer me & then have the divine pleasure of choosing what I felt I needed in MY life. I felt that at least everything I knew growing up would be a safety blanket if I needed it. God had other things in mind. After a few pain-staking years of Him having to watch me be a fumbled football down the field of unguided disappointment, enough was enough. It was time for Him to start redirecting me – though it would be years (YEARS) before it unfolded to where we are now with me sharing this experience.

I would often frequent my mom’s house between work and going home to sometimes just raid her pantry, grab some quarters from her giant coin jar for a snack at the gas station, or to borrow a cute shirt for an interview. I was exhausted & threw myself on the bed in my old room. It was just a few moments of my head hitting the pillow and then a sudden storm. I heard cracking, rumbling, and can still recall hearing clouds parting. I felt cold and completely, emotionally naked. A loud booming, and yet somehow familiar voice echoed through the entire house.

“DO YOU HEAR ME NOW?”

I could hear God talking to me and I felt immediately disappointed in myself for having shut the doors to Him as if dishonoring my father. Everything went dark and then an earth-shattering BANG. I woke up shaking & shivering. I felt terrified. I ran upstairs where my mom was working on her computer.

I said “didn’t you hear that sound? That GIANT thunder and lightning?” It was sunny – not a cloud in the sky.

She looked at me completely confused and I just started sobbing. I couldn’t even tell my mom the whole story. I have always felt almost too embarrassed to tell people the whole story, because that comes with having to admit that I was in a place where God Himself would have to shake me to my core; literally. Now to be fair, the choices I was making in my life were far from “being in a troubled place”, but more the fact that I had severed my umbilical cord with God. I was running dry and starving for Him back in my life. It was the start, though painfully slow, to a journey back to Him. 15 years later, here I am – looking back on that journey and starting to understand why I went through it all.

I can still feel that separation from God & now, in this place in my life, I can’t imagine feeling as though He’s not right there. But we very often find ourselves feeling as though God is far away.

The book of Mark paints us a picture that gives us a spoonful of reassurance in the reality that even Jesus; Son of God, felt abandoned within His walk on this Earth.

Mark 15:33–34: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

A beautiful message that I’ve heard when referencing this cold, dark hour nearing the death of Christ, is that if Jesus genuinely felt as though his own Abba; Father had abandoned Him in this time of need, “if he is crying out to God, he is still in relationship with God. We need to distinguish between a person’s believing that God is absent and feeling it”.

There is this genuine place of our most desperate need; a cry and desire for providence and being held – emotionally, spiritually, sometimes physically; lets be honest. If you’ve ever felt the presence of the Holy Father, you can attest that God has a way in His spiritual presence to feel like a cable-knit sweater to our discontent.

So how do we feel reminded that God is here when we feel that faith and His outstretched hand is far?

We call this the ‘waiting period’. Seek Him continually and wait for Him.

Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.”

Patience can sometimes be not at all my virtue – especially as a mother. Unfortunately, my lack of this at times [atop being chronically human] can rear its head & I’m working on it. So when it comes to my faith, it’s easy to rock my boat in the waiting period. But I have felt more content in my life in waiting on the Lord than allowing myself to sever ties from Him. I could never again BELIEVE that He’s absent even if it FEELS that He is far. Genuinely, in my heart, I know that He’s working in ways I do not know. And perhaps this waiting period is His way to bring us back to Him intentionally & more intimately than ever before – for it’s in that time that we seek the Lord in prayer, meditation, reading, journaling, being quiet, being still & listening for the ways He is trying to communicate to us.

It is my prayer to be strong in my time of waiting & stay strong in the faith that I have in His plans for me. May the earth not have to shake under my feet for me to be in Him.

“God is aiming at a deep, strong, doctrinally-sound, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, unshakable new you.” – John Piper