Alone…at church.

I am shaking as I start to write this because of how many thoughts are bouncing around in my head, how many tears I’ve shed this morning, and how vulnerable this post might make me feel. Honestly, I should probably be writing this in a secret journal somewhere, because these are the thoughts I rarely share…but I think maybe my blog is right where this kind of honesty might belong.

I have only gone to church intermittently since my ex walked out the front door of the blue house. I don’t like going alone. Well, that’s one of the big reasons I voice. It’s awkward to sit alone. And then the crying, because I cannot make it through praise and worship, or the message, without crying. Rather uncontrollably at times. I feel very weird among the sea of faces when my eyes are puffy from all the tears.

Okay, so that’s uncomfortable and if you’ve ever cried in church, you probably understand. That’s the “everybody understands” reason….you want to know the worst reason?

I do not want God to ask me to do something I cannot do…this something is a very specific something, and it’s truly the only thing in my life that I can really think of that I have allowed to separate me from God like this. I made it to church this morning, and I cried like I usually do, and God reminded me that His grace is sufficient.

I needed that right now.

I’ve walked through some pretty crazy things in my life, and I am once again ready to disqualify myself from good things happening in my life. Yet, there are good things happening, and I think God reminded me this morning that it wasn’t Him who forgot me…it was me that was hiding. I don’t want to hide anymore. I’ve struggled with being “good enough” my whole life, and I am walking through a season where I am feeling less than good enough again, and I am sorting through the mess that is my past. The coating of “normal” that I pull over the memories is chipping away, cracking and falling to the side. I’m left looking at a mess, and the enemy is telling me if I wasn’t good enough then, there’s no way I’m good enough now.

And then, I walk into church. I am never more broken than I am in church…or maybe than I am in the presence of God. I wasn’t alone in there today, and it didn’t matter what people thought of the tears, because I wasn’t there for them. God reminded me that I don’t have to be good enough – I’m not good enough to earn my salvation or the right to be in His Holy presence – but He took care of that for me. And as I sit here crying again, I’m trying to soak that in because I’m so tired of fighting to be good enough….and I’ve been fighting for so long that I can’t even tell you who or what I’m trying to be good enough for….

Oddly enough, the message at church was about hearing the voice of God.

I’m sure that I rambled a bit, but I hope some this made sense. I have to get ready for work now, which is a good thing because otherwise this blog would be ten pages long.