Somewhere around October/November last year, I stopped writing. I was wiped out. I had that one post about a mean girl, but I deleted it for a few reasons, but now wish I had left it up. I thought we had worked things out, she apologized to my younger daughter and left her alone for a couple of weeks. Then on Christmas day, in the name of “Just Joking”, she went after my older daughter. Not one thing funny about it. Thankfully, my sister’s family saw the texts and were ready to rumble, which made my daughter feel special and loved. Then the girl said something about telling my youngest to stop causing drama in her life when the young one didn’t have a teeny tiny thing to do with what mean girl was doing. Ugh.

Anyway…

Have you ever noticed once you stop doing something good-ish, like this writing thing is for me, it can be so hard to get back into it? But for some reason bad things are super easy to fall back into. What is up with that? I have lots of thoughts in my head, but some things really shouldn’t be shared and some of the other stuff I just have no idea how to put words to it. And, honestly, do you really care and have time to read? Or am I just making excuses?

So here I am in a new year thinking if I start typing again thoughts might break into something somewhat coherent that someone will read.

2015 was a better year in many ways than lots of other years we’ve been through. It was a year of looking at life through yet another lens. A little clearer, sharper picture came into focus more often than in the past. I’m not quite sure how to describe it. I just know that, in many ways, I became more deeply convinced, more often, of God’s love and care for me than I have been before. He seemed to provide more and give more love during those times when I felt very unlovely.

Through the years, I have been taught A LOT about how someone who believes in Jesus is supposed to act. Not much of which, in and of itself, is necessarily bad. Good habits are a positive, except when they become something we do just because someone says so because that’s the way it’s done.

I guess that’s why I have an ever-growing sense that God is not about us having the perfect answer, being incredibly moral, rightly judging all things, voting for the only correct possible person after we’ve deeply researched every single issue known to mankind, memorizing umpteen thousand verses, praying like a champ every moment of every day, having the exact right words at the exact right time…

So exhausting all that pressure to be so perfectly right all the time. Besides, don’t you think God knows our natural bent toward not being anywhere near perfect? Toward acting like petulant, snot-nosed kids? Toward making ourselves the focus?

So perhaps, God is not all about a performance-based, dude-I-really-earned-it kind of love.  That is so easy to get wrapped up in though, isn’t it? It’s a formula to follow. If I do this, then that will happen and God will looovvvee me at least until the next time I mess up. However, as I keep going through lifey [stuff], I find that God doesn’t tend to follow set patterns—except for the whole turning everything upside down or allowing it to flip and pushing us down the hill over the side of the cliff into the water just as an enormous wave comes right in the nick of time to slam us up against the rocks and then telling us to trust Him thing He does.

And then you’re like, what the…? Why do You hate me so much? As time goes on, you inexplicably, mercifully survive the topsy turvy episodes and begin to realize you’re not in control of anything. I mean, come on ya’ll, just think about it for a moment—we’re on a huge chunk of water-covered rock something or other, spinning in circles as we hurtle through space around a gigantically, humungous fire ball and we actually think we have a say in how this life thing turns out.

LOL! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

So, yeah, maybe God isn’t interested in performance-based, earned love and giving out gold stars. Maybe this God, who gave His son to to pay the price for our sins and our tendency to not want to have anything to do with Him, maybe, just maybe, He actually loves you.

Real trust, real faith, real obedience and real freedom will come, but it all starts with believing His real love for you exists.