This morning I found myself praying to God that He bring me back to the place I was before, where I’d felt so connected and in community, serving my purposes intentionally…filled with His joy, my strength.

The quiet response was something I’d considered in passing prior, but needed to revisit.

The last few years have been crap, while the several years preceding had left me feeling more alive than I can recall in my history. Heck, right up to three days before shutdown, I was praying with women I didn’t know in bar restrooms. That’s not me. That’s heeding the Christ IN me, and I felt ever so alive.

The first several weeks of lockdown, when connecting with my Christian girlfriends, we agreed that God felt far away and difficult to hear, but that He was simply calling us to be more intentional in our relationship with Him. It’s not His character to be distant. He never leaves nor forsakes. Can’t happen.

But it can feel like it. We have seasons of disquiet and isolation that lead to loneliness. And once you’re lonely…you have to be VERY intentional in 1. seeking out community, and 2. ensuring the community is what He desires for you. Otherwise…well….”apart from Him we can do nothing.” What we try to accomplish apart from Him will fail.

I then asked myself: if He wanted me where I was before, connected to Him as I was before, why didn’t He leave me there? If I was accomplishing what He desired be accomplished in my heart and life, in my purpose for being created, why did He allow for such a dry, painful, and utterly devastating season?

There’s something yet for me to learn. There’s more. And there’s reason to be excited, rather than anxious. I think about what He allowed me to do for His glory and my/our good over our “more connected” years; the times I was hearing my Father’s heart and intent, and following willingly. I think, “I was dreaming small as I felt led, and He blessed my socks off. He felt SO close.” It follows, based on what I know about my Father, that He loved that too. So why would He “ruin” it? Allow for so much pain and destruction?

Because there’s more. So much more. He who started a good work in me, you, is faithful to complete it. He gave me a TASTE. I tasted. I saw that He was good. I knew that THAT was what I wanted. It was enough for me.

But it wasn’t enough for Him, and not in a, “not good enough” sort of way. It was a teaser, a trailer to get me excited (and make me resilient) for what He was GOING to do. And, if He’d allowed me to see this future, now present…I’m not sure I’d have taken the journey. But, here I am. I’m lonely. But I’ve tasted. I’ve seen. He is SO good. And He’s not finished with me. And He’s certainly not finished with you either.

If it’s not good then it’s not done. Greater things are still to come.

God, today, please grant me the serenity and patience to trust your process, that what you’re doing in me is good, and remind me to claim the victory you’ve already guaranteed me as your child. Amen.