18 March 2014

I Have Forgotten

I began reading Restless last Sunday. I sat in my room, in my sofa chair covered with mismatched pillows, anticipating what this book would bring me. I opened the book and knew instantly that I was in for the journey of a lifetime. 

This is not a review of the book because I highly recommend you each go and grab yourself a copy, sit down in a quiet place and run head on into the questions, thoughts, and battles that we all face at one time or another. Jennie Allen created this intimate place to share in each other's disappointments and dreams and to collide with the surrender that comes in finding God's will for ourselves.

I poured through each chapter with an open heart. I prayed that my flesh wouldn't hold anything back as I took notes. This was my personal time, right? This is the time where I should be the most revealing with my deepest, darkest sins but, in reality, it is my hardest time because that is when I'm easily and constantly reminded of where I messed up, chose the wrong path and had to make my way back again and start over. It is one thing to believe in the relentless forgiving heart of God but it is another when it comes to actually forgiving yourself.

I read Chapter 3: Die to Live and I was shocked. In awe. I thought to myself, I've had all these same thoughts that Jennie is talking about. I've had a divided heart. I've felt like God had forgotten His promises to me. I felt like He forgot how hard it was down here. I felt that He had given up on me in my struggle and sin. The following is an excerpt from Jennie's book, sharing a personal story from her life as she sat next to a hospital bed to one of her dearest friends. She, too, asked those same questions of feeling like somehow he had forgotten and messed up in all of this:

(Page 22)
"Or is it us who's forgetting? Maybe we forget that we see days and you see eras... 
You get to be God whether we like it or not. You get to decide how this goes, and we can only beg at your feet. And when you seem forgetful to me....I walk past the statue and you yell to me from your cross: 
I have forgotten nothing. And I am not passive about my approach to this problem. 
I deal. I deal with this sickness and pain and death. 
I do not forget. I bleed out for this. 
So as you walk past me on that cross, Jennie, into a room that feels out of control and full of suffering, don't see a weak, distant, forgetful God. 
You see a God who tells oceans where to stop and a God who tells evil where to stop. 
You see a God who bleeds out for those you hurt for. 
You see a God who suffered first. I AM with you. 
And I have a plan here."

I sat in my little sofa chair with a heart full of pain and agony and tears that wanted to pour from my eyes. I began to wonder how I could ever think He had forgotten when He died for me in the first place. He knew every moment I'd have to turn around and start over yet, He loved me anyway. When we think He has forgotten, it is really us who have forgotten. He feels the pain we feel but we can live with the understanding that His view from up there is much more beautiful than what we see down here. 

Take heart, my dear friend, He has not forgotten. I'm learning this along with you. 
He is only just beginning in fulfilling your calling. 





                                            

JENNIE ALLEN
"My passion is to inspire a new generation of women to encounter the invisible God. I love words and I believe God uses them to heal souls and to reveal Himself to people."

You can learn more about Jennie Allen here

Want to join in on the #restlessproject? You can purchase her book, Restlesshere.

2 comments:

  1. I found your blog from brave love and I love it! Would you be interested in a button swap? xo danica

    ReplyDelete