Choosing to see when I can't see

Tricky title, right? Hopefully it will make sense by the end.

As our children age their problems get a little bit bigger. They start dealing with real world stuff and they keep entering arenas where you can’t protect them. They are supposed to go to all these places, but as a mom, even though I’m not in those places, my heart still goes with them. Every time they hurt, I hurt. I feel all the feels so I’m not just managing my emotions and fears and hurts, I’m also managing all of my children’s emotions and fears and hurts. I’ve heard people say that you need to compartmentalize as your children age. They have told me that sense of needing to carry their burdens dulls. I hate to burst your bubble if you are hoping for this dulling, but this has not been my experience at all, nor do I think it’s what I’m really supposed to do.

Today while I was praising through tears in my jeep, wind whipping my hair, music extremely loud to drown out the pain I was feeling over one of my children's current situations, I know God said, "I feel it too", I heard His voice in my head. Before that minute, I hadn't thought it was the same for Him. He’s my dad and like any good parent, when I am sad or hurt or afraid, He feels all the feels with me. It was the most parental and comforting moment. I know He spoke that to my heart in those moments that I was choosing to praise Him in my pain.

He’s with me and that He loves me and because of that love, He can’t separate himself from me. He's with me, ride or die, to the end. Just like what I feel for my kids, but better because it's not imperfect.

I’ve decided that in the light of that truth, the answer to the days that bring an overload of emotion is to keep feeling it all, but to let it expand my trust in God. I can feel all the feels and use them to grow my trust muscles stronger by directing my emotions to the truth that I know and letting that stabilize me. God loves us more than we can imagine. He loves my children even more than I do. I just have to trust it when I am struggling to see it.

God saw Jesus on the cross. He saw him every moment and He could have stopped it. He didn't because He loves us. He knew the end. He knew it was worth it.

God loves you. He loves you so much, more than you can comprehend.

Whatever you’re feeling and struggling with, if He could change it, He would. He knows that you need it for some reason that we just can’t see. He knows the end. Trust Him. He loves you and He feels it. He is strong enough to choose the best for us.

There are some words in John 15 that I struggle to comprehend and believe about God's love for us. I know they are true:

 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15:9-11

Read verse 9 again. Jesus is saying that He loves us just like God loves Him. That blows my mind a little, that God would love us as much as He loves Jesus. Let that sink into you.

The thing that keeps us in His love is obedience. When we are abiding in His love, we obey out of an overflow of love. You know what God wants most? He wants us to believe Him. He knows that it will bring us joy, His joy to fill us.

I know it because He says it in John 6:29 when the disciples ask Him what work they are supposed to be doing, He tells them that the work God wants is for them to believe Him.

This next verse lets me know that we aren't supposed to stop feeling all the feels:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (verse 12)

Love one another. While love is not a feeling, it's a verb, it does have the byproduct of a lot of feelings. Loving well means you will feel pain. Obedience is feeling all the feels and declaring that you believe God with your actions and your words. Allow the feelings and then drag them to the truth and stabilize them. Stand on the belief that God sees the end.

Choose to see when you can't see.