God Loves the Blubbering Woman
I had a hard day.
Matt called me when I was driving home, and I blubbered all of it to him. Apologized. Hung up.
Then I got home and cried some more. Pulled it together to go get pizza and enjoy it with the family, until the layered stressors of the day crawled up my back and forced tears out again.
So I quietly got up and put on tennis shoes. I’m going for a walk, I said, on my way out the front door.
Matt said, Wait! I’ll go with you.
That’s okay, I said.
Just wait for me. I’m getting my shoes, he said.
Well, we weren’t past the end of the driveway when I was crying again. (Why do men marry us, I wonder often.) With all his counseling skills Matt tried to figure out what specifically I was crying about. Except, come one. Does there have to be something specific? Can’t a girl just cry about everything sometimes?
Really, I was kind of annoyed that Matt joined me on my walk, mostly because I was heading out to have a good cry for a mile and see if I could figure out my weepy woman’s heart. I said to him, You don’t want to be with me right now, because I’m all a mess.
He said, Isn’t that when you need me the most?
It’s good to be pursued.
Girls, that’s who we are, and that’s who God is. We’re mostly a mess. God says, Are you okay? And when he does we push him away and say, I’m fine. But really we’re not. Hello, it’s not like he can’t look at us and tell in half a second that we’re struggling.
Because God “forms the hearts of all.” (Psalm 33:15 NIV)
And when we least feel like being with him, that’s when we need him the most.
Matt brought a pocket full of Kleenex on the walk. The man knew what he was in for.
But he put on tennis shoes and joined me on purpose.
In the same way, will we open up and let God join us when we’re having a hard day?
I had a similar situation Sunday morning. Couldn’t pull myself together for the life of me, and my husband came into the bedroom trying desperately to get me to talk. I clam up like you, and prefer to be alone until I can figure it out on my own. He did mention that he thought I was under spiritual attack. I disagreed. I am typically attacked after writing a particularly powerful blog message, and usually with depression. But I hadn’t been writing, and my devotion time that morning wasn’t very good either. But it turned out that he was right. I almost skipped church that morning, and decided only at the last minute that I would go. I sat through an hour of listening to teenagers talk about their experiences on summer mission trips before I knew why God wanted me there that morning, and why Satan didn’t. Our church is starting a class on spiritual gifts this fall. God wanted me to hear that announcement, and to offer to speak to the class about the gift of prophecy that He has called me to. There is someone who needs to hear it, and someone Satan doesn’t want to hear it. I have not battled as much depression in my life since I started following God’s leading in writing my blog. I am not denying the mess our hormones make of us, but is it possible you, too, were under attack and there is something Satan was, or is, trying to keep you from?
In my case, I think it was more stress from a lot of huge transitions happening at once. I’ll be blogging about this soon! I definitely have experienced Satan’s attacks before, though, so I know what you mean!!