knowledge vs. feeling

most people know this by now but jim and i met and married within five months.  when i share that story with people they never say "when you feel it, you feel it." they say "when you know, you know"

knowledge.


the human experience is fraught with emotion.  they are difficult, unwieldy, and maddening.  there have been numerous times throughout this experience where my feelings have been the darkest.  abandonment, deep grief, despair.  my feelings have made me wish for death.  there have been times where i have truly FELT that it would be better to be dead.

in those times it's when i operate on knowledge.  the knowledge it won't always be like this.  the knowledge that it gets better, that there is still joy, hope and beauty ahead.  knowledge.

my husband gave in to his emotions.  everyone says "what was he thinking?" he wasn't.  there is no logical reason that one could have for going about this.  he had a beautiful life filled with much hope and beauty ahead- the greatest of course was found in his children.

after counseling on Friday I went for a run and was breathing in deep, the green, the air, the wildelife.  resting in my breathe.  i was struck by the verse "be still and KNOW that I am God.

know it.


I don't have to feel God.  his existence, sovereignty, and goodness is not based on my emotions.  It's almost a relief, because I've got to be honest, I'm not feeling God much at the moment.  When the cop told me he was dead, after I finished screaming, I cried out "my God, my God why have you forsaken me" it's not a detail I have shared with many.  that moment was almost inhuman in it's intensity of pain.  I felt in my most true being, abandoned by the One who made me.

I do not have to deny my emotions in this experience, I can embrace them, approach them, with the knowledge of God.  There is nothing to be said for hiding from our emotions.  They creep up in the shadows, they lie in wait, waiting for weakness, waiting to strike.

I have the knowledge, I have the knowledge of the One who made the stars made me and I am not forgotten.  I am not abandoned and when I don't feel it, He is with me.