My connection to God has changed significantly since becoming a mother. I feel an endless cycle of gratitude, contentedness, planning for the next hour/day/week/month, while battling ugly and intrusive thoughts and then back to gratitude (since that is my way out of the darkness, typically). Truthfully, I am struggling. I no longer feel the pangs of wanting that I was used to in my relationship with God because He has blessed me with everything I could have ever asked for: an incredible husband who loves the Lord, a happy and healthy (and might I add totally lovely) baby girl, a job I adore, a home that feels like the safest place I have ever existed in, and a life that feels like a dream. I want for nothing. For the first time in my life, I am not seeking or striving, but I am sitting in everything He has for me… and you know what that leads to? Feeling completely unworthy. Fear that it will be taken away. Worry that something will happen to my loved ones, and I will have to go back to survival mode, but now that I know this joy and happiness, I am not sure I would be able to do it again.
I have known loss. I have known sorrow and desperation and deep brokenness. This life feels unreal, and I don’t fully trust that it’s mine yet. I feel God in my soul yearning for me to embrace the gifts He has given, and I have so many friends say, “This is not honoring Him for you to spend your days and energy worried, or fearful, etc.” but they didn’t know what it was like to be me, the same way that I could never understand what it is like to be them.
I told my husband of these thoughts I was having. He held my hands and said, “You are brave, you are worthy, and God is here in this season with you too.” God is with us. He is in every single season. He is in the seasons of great strife, and great celebration. He is in the seasons where we pray for every bite of food we put in our mouths, and when we forget to pray for what feels like days or weeks on end. He is with us when we have sinned, or when we are enjoying walking the path God has for us. He is with us. He never forsakes us.
Right now, I connect to God by knowing He is the giver of my daily bread, He has forgiven my trespasses, He delivers me from evil for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
I connect to Him simply by knowing He is there. He is with us. No matter what.
– Kelsey Paul, Arts Administrator & Downtown LifeLight Worship Leader
