Dear friend,

I don’t know where today finds you. Maybe you woke up this morning and found out your spouse hasn’t exactly been faithful to you. Or maybe you haven’t been feeling well, and you’ve got a check-up soon and you’re afraid it’s cancer.

Or maybe your life is a little more “normal” and you just woke up to a wrecky house and loud kids and a long to-do list and not very much energy. Probably, if you’re like me, you’ve got some struggles of some sort. There are things that bug you and things that nag at your heart and there are unanswered questions and hard relationships and fluctuating emotions.

Probably, if you’re like me, you keep meaning to get all the pine needles in the yard raked up, from last year, but who has time to rake pine needles? And you keep wanting to be a runner, so you can feel good about yourself again, but then when would you read or write or rest or catch up on laundry?

And if you’re like me, you might have read the headlines and got scared for your kids growing up in the world. Or you might have laid awake at night, praying for the people that you love.

I don’t know, exactly, what you’ve been going through, but there are some things I was wanting to tell you.

I was wanting to tell you that God is real. He’s the kind of God who grabs hold of your hand, if you want Him to, and walks with you through all your stuff.

He’s the kind of God that is working, though you can’t see Him, in the details of your life and He’s doing more than you think. And if you could just catch a glimpse, every great once in a while, of all the beautiful and miraculous things that He’s doing in the world, it would take your breath away.

You would be surprised at how often He is showing up in the dark places. And you would be astonished at what He can do with your ache. For one thing, He can come close and comfort you. (Have you called on Him lately?  Have you sat still enough and quiet enough to hear Him?)

And He can take the crud that’s been dealt to you and start the healing process on your heart. It might require you to lay your heart out there for Him to tend to. It might require you to forgive some folks, recalling to mind all the times that Jesus has forgiven you. It might require some flat-out honesty and vulnerability with your Maker. But, He could mend what’s broken in you, little by little. And then He could help you go and reach out, with a radical compassion, to others who are struggling too.

The other thing I wanted to tell you is, God really does love you. I know it sounds cliche’, but I mean it with all my heart. While you’re busy mowing your yard, or stirring up another batch of sweet tea, and getting dressed and driving down the road and checking your email, God is loving you.

He’s not mad at you all the time, like you think. He isn’t holding you at arms length. He’s not waiting for you to get your act together. He’s not beating His head into a pearly gate up there somewhere because you’re “just not getting it.”

When your Creator looks at you, He sees you through the lens of His Son, Jesus, and what did Jesus do for you? Jesus lived a perfect life, then took on all your sin and your crap and your failing ways and everything that separated you from God and He died so that you could walk across Him and get back to God again. Jesus is like the best big brother you could ever imagine. He absorbed all God’s righteous wrath so you and God could be friends.

So, stop running away from Him.

Walk here with Him. In your falling apart marriage. In your body that’s sick. In your house that’s wrecky. At your job that’s stressful. In your yard that keeps needing mowed.

Sit down sometimes and read His Word. When you’re walking around or laying on your bed, pray. Reach out your hand and take hold of His. He loves you. He does. And He’s real. He is.

Enjoy this life He’s given to you. Enjoy those people He’s placed right beside you. And enjoy Him.

“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)