Colors

I was trotting down the stairs when that question popped into my head. It’s a question that has constantly pleaded for attention. It has attempted to pop in every now and then ever since I was little. I have learned now to demolish every ounce of credibility it tries to gain in my brain. Even as I thought of this question, I actually yelled, “Get out,” at the wall at the bottom of the stairs. But for some reason this question lingered longer than usual.

“Will you ever not feel lonely Lisa?”

I know that that assumption is absurd. I have so many people surrounding me constantly and I have an endless amount of people who love me. But in that moment the question is evolving. Why is it that I often feel completely misunderstood by those around me? Why is it that I feel like those who have understood leave once they do? It’s the age old question of: What am I doing wrong? I want to go to my bed and let myself sulk in lonliness and lost friendships even though it’s hardly 8:00 PM.
But what do we do in those moments where our heart starts to slip into our brain and what isn’t true suddenly feels true? I know what I want to do. I want to sit in it. I don’t want to fight false assumptions that are flawed, because in my head it seems true and I don’t want to break down the perceptions.

I realized something in that moment. If I know in my head that I’m not going to be forever lonely but for some reason that is constantly on replay because of how I feel, then I need to get my emotions reset.

Resets aren’t bad. They allow things to clear and for things to run at their ultimate capacity. So in that moment I grabbed one of my favorite books off the shelf. It’s a love story. It’s a story of a girl who was sold into prostitution at age 8 and how she learned to love and be loved. So many of the lines start to hit home. So much of the story hits home. So much of the love hits my heart. And then I hit page 418.

“Though you deny me, I love you with an everlasting love.”

The thing about this book is that the girl is me and the guy is Jesus. And in that moment, I’m  a mess. Because my weeks have been spent on focusing on my achievements and buying new clothes. I’d been spending all of my time looking to anything but Jesus to define myself. I continue on and read the part about how after a life of abuse, runaways, and pushing away, she is loved, desired, and pulled close to God. And that changes everything.
At this point, I’m crying. Because what a simple message this is. Even if you don’t believe in God, I guarantee he is still working in your life. Even if we spend 40 years trying to find fulfillment in everything else, Jesus sits there waiting, just as excited as the first moment he sat down on that chair.
No wonder I feel lonely when I’m forgetting my first love.
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I am brought back to a sunset I saw two years ago. It’s so simple yet I’m still amazed that God is not about performance. If it was, we never would have had any of the characters in the Bible. It’s about love. It's about God offering us everything he has and everything he is. God wants to offer us this.
​ This is the life he wants for us.

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"This is the life I want to give you. That's what I'm offering you. I want to fill you life with color and warmth. I want to fill it with light. Give me a chance"-Redeeming Love

And suddenly, I'm not lonely anymore.