Little Boy

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

It’s like I can’t breathe, as if the world itself is strangling me. One moment has me rethinking everything. One thought brushes against the childhood wound and ignites the flaming anxiety within. 

God is speaking clearly. He’s telling me to trust Him, to ignore my own understanding. But I can’t. The evidence is overwhelming. My mind races to fit every piece from the last months into a gutting narrative. 

Searing emotion fills my chest, and the food that’s supposed to taste good suddenly makes me want to vomit. “You idiot!” “You’re so stupid!” Little hurt, Noah deep inside begins the abuse. 

I want to run. Hide from the world. Cry. But people surround me, and appearances must be kept. Abba is so loudly urging me to trust Him; the words are almost audible. But my own understanding shouts louder, and misled hope would make me look even more like the fool I’m starting to believe I am. 

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My current season has been and continues to be really hard. The previous desert moments seem to pale in comparison with the work the Lord is doing in me now. He continues to confront me with the painful wounds deep inside. And though annoying, our God is not one of avoidance or dismissal. Though He may leave things mercifully undealt with for a little while, the time must come when brokenness is faced. 

Maybe it’s meant to be obvious, but only recently I realized that every moment with Him in the difficult has brought me closer. Every “Trust me, Noah,” Every “I can’t tell you that,” Every gentle smile as He says, “I want you to hope!” has brought me deeper into communion with the Almighty. The good, the hard, and the mundane with Him are and always have been invitations to intimacy. 

I want nothing more. To encounter the Living God is to understand Asaph’s aching words, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you (Psalm 73).” To wrestle with the Creator is to comprehend David's longing, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple (Psalm 27).” It is with the Wonderful Counselor that my wounds have begun to heal. The further into relationship I go with Him, the deeper He meets me. Four years, and we have now reached the hidden brokenness of betrayal, distrust, and fear.

Illustration by Anna Rendall

He touches me there in those wounds, and I jerk away. I blame Him for the pain and cry out for Him to stop. But for Him to comply would be to deny His very love for me. No. He presses further. He takes my shattered heart into His gentle hands and holds it to His own. He smiles and whispers, “Noah. I love you.” And with every expression of His love, the hurt finds rest ever so little more.  

Hear the invitation for intimacy. Take on the task of knowing Him and make it the very deepest pursuit of your life, for it is within this pursuit that you find life. 

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Psalm 139:1-3