I left the 99

We are all in search of relationship. It is one of humanities greatest needs. As little girls, we fantasize about our wedding day and the bliss of living life with “the one.”

Our greatest dreams become failures in the ruins of divorce. As our happily ever becomes a distant memory, we are left with disillusionment and are untrusting of love. It is difficult to understand another reality when we have been abandoned and betrayed by the one person we gave our love and trust to. The one person we vowed to love until death do us part. 

Overlooked and abandoned…what’s left?

Alone and isolated, who will care enough to listen to our heart’s cry? Every angst and tear shed. Does anyone really care enough to take the time to listen, every time we are hurting? 

When we put our faith in Christ we become a member of the family of God. As His child, we can approach God with all of our hurts, disappointments, failures and weaknesses. 

When I spend time in God’s presence I am reminded of His love for me. I am comforted with the knowledge I am not alone. There have been precious moments in my quiet time with the Lord where He has shown me His deep love, comfort and peace. I have felt His presence in the area of my heart that has longed for a father’s embrace. He is my Heavenly Father and I know I can come to Him. Unlike those who have abandoned me, He always has time for me. His love is unconditional and there is no shame in His presence.

There have also been moments where the Lord has shown me areas of my life He has longed to heal. Other times He has shown me areas of my character that have needed to be molded and made new. He has not been stern. Instead, He has done this gently and lovingly. Many think of God as standing over us with a rod, ready to punish. We live with a perpetual guilty conscience because we know we can never measure up to His standard. We beat ourselves up and instead of coming to Him in our brokenness; we continue to try to fix it on our own. In our hearts we compare Him to our earthly parents and carry the preconceived notion we have to be “perfect” before we can come to Him. We don’t allow ourselves to experience the love and comfort of our Precious Creator because we are afraid of His judgment. 

“For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Psalm 22:24 NIV).

God hears our cries and wants to comfort us. He is loving, gentle and kind. He will not force us to trust Him with our pain. We have to willingly lay down our burdens at the foot of the cross. This is why Christ died. He died not only for our sins, but also for our shame, weakness, and pain. He willingly took it all on the Cross of Calvary. He died so we can have peace, healing and wholeness. 

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:3-6 NIV).

His love for us knows no end. In His eyes we are more than our current circumstances. We are His children there is no pain or circumstance, He cannot heal.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” I (John 3:1 NIV).

 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16 NIV).

“Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken” (Psalm 55:22 NIV).

The above verses are so encouraging to me. I often feel like an island of one. How often are we really able to share our heart’s cry? Even our loved ones have their own lives and for the most part unless they have experienced divorce, they cannot understand the intensity of the emotions.

I am so grateful my Heavenly Father always has time for me and encourages me to share my heart’s cry. Nothing in my life is insignificant to Him. He knows me from the inside out and continually guides me, one step at a time, to my destiny.