May 28, 2016

Once upon a time, I blogged constantly, and I also emailed a certain best friend every day, which means I have a very detailed (at times, overwhelmingly so) record of the first seven or so years of my adult life. Today, in mining my inbox while working on my book, I stumbled upon something I’d written four years ago: “The thing is, I know God’s promised me a future, and it’s not going to be constantly loud or miserable or lonely. But sometimes, I get completely overwhelmed by this immense task of living by faith, and I start to have panic moments where I’m like, ‘Hey, Joan of Arc—that’s not God talking to you. It’s actually a malignant brain tumor.’ Because then I start to think, am I really this loved, this blessed, that God would want to take care of me, give me a good life, love me? And I know the answer is yes, but that’s surprisingly easy to forget.” In many ways, I’m still in that place. I’m still overwhelmed. I’m still pretty certain I’m crazy. But in other ways, I’m more conscious of His provision than I’ve ever been before, and though I continue to struggle beneath an ocean of doubts, the times they hold me under are fewer than before I knew Him. Maybe this is what it means to live by faith: not that everything becomes easy or suddenly starts to make sense, but that the times when you remember who God is and how He loves you are greater than the times when you forget.