Later.

I’m bitter. Tired. Sinful. Exhausted. Confused. Hurting. Cut open. Irritable.

I’m everything but joyful. Sure, I laugh. I have fun, I vacation. But ‘happy’ is different than joyful. My friend told me today that we can be sad, but we can’t forget to be happy too. And that didn’t sit right. Because I can be happy all day long, but if that deep-seeded JOY of life isn’t anchored in my soul, way down deep, how long will the happy last? If that true bubbling-over, thankful to be alive feeling is diminished, how will I stay happy? It will fade. It always fades. Its why we pick up the bottle, dabble into drugs, drown ourselves in social media, let face-less men and women put hands on us without thanking twice. Forgetting this deep joy is how I’ve been experiencing incredible ‘happiness’ one moment and complete darkness in my soul the next.

I’m tired of seeing sadness. I’m tired of encountering broken individuals day after day after day who’s lives and eyes are empty but who’s souls have no desire to fill their emptiness. It’s because they (ME) think we can fill the emptiness on our own. We think we know what makes us happy, what makes us full, what makes us content. But we don’t.

I’m tired of not seeing results. Of pouring into people, but seeing nothing in return. I commented to someone the other day that I was completely fine with pouring out to others even if they never give anything back, love, change, thankfulness. But I’m not.

And it hits me, like the cold Chicago wind hit me at Christmas when I walked out of O’hare.

I don’t believe.

I thought I knew Christianity. I was confident in my Jesus. I was perfectly anchored in my soul with who He was and who I was in Him.

And then I was shaken. I was poked (stabbed) with questions that made me think, I was taunted with insults about my belief in this so-called Jesus and I poured love and kindness into people that turned the other way. That didn’t care. That didn’t acknowledge. That didn’t want to hear how much I cared for them, how much He cares for them. Because they think they know. They think they know this Jesus, but do they? Do I?  If I do, why am I shaken? Why do I doubt His power to change hearts? Why do I fill my time hour after hour with affection from others and avoidance of Him?

Where is my faith. Where did it go. How did I go from faith that weighed a thousand tons to faith that’s the weight of a feather.

But as my mind trails and regret comes, He cuts in. The interception is completed and He whispers again, as He has been whispering hour after hour, day after day, month after month this past year.

He whispers it kindly, soft as the tears that are trickling in the middle of Starbucks, gentle like a spring breeze tickling fields of wildflowers…

“Though you are faithless, I remain faithful.”