Waiting for you is like waiting for rain in this drought. Useless and disappointing.

 Hello, my faithful readers, 

First, I’ll love you forever if you know the title’s reference. 

Second, I’m facing a challenge that I want to process with you for a moment. I sometimes feel writer’s block not because I don’t have things to say (though that happens too), but rather because I feel unsure about how much I want to share in this space. I love writing about my life when I can use my stories and experiences to demonstrate a larger point. I don’t necessarily like writing about it just for the sake of writing about it. It feels as though I’ve trended toward the latter lately. 

I’m surprised at how private I’ve become since effectively leaving social media, with the exception of my Saturday spurts, over two years ago. Y’all know that I’m still quite the open book, but I’m much more intentional now than I ever was before about which stories I share and which ones I hold close. 

Transparently, I’m too absorbed with my own problems right now to think about the world that lives beyond my own brain. I’ll gladly take correction if anyone is willing to slap me over the head with perspective, in love of course. I can barely latch onto any larger point or social commentary because my mental reserves don’t extend that far.

In writing this, I remember the times when people in my sphere or beyond it have shared their words, written or lyricized, when they were suffering and how those words made me feel seen and less alone. I’ve appreciated their honesty and their fearlessness in sharing their stories. Maybe that’s the larger point. Maybe, if I can channel even the smallest bit of that energy, I can help one of you now or in the future to feel seen, cared for, and less alone. 

Thanks for letting me think out loud. Let’s get into it. 

Let me start with this: humans will disappoint you. I am continually shocked by how much faith we put into mere humans whether that be through politics or relationships or something else. There is no political party that will save you. No boyfriend or girlfriend that will fill the cracks in your soul. We think so often that if the humans in our lives just did x, y, or z then everything would be better. That’s a lie. 

I cringe a little when I watch wedding videos and the bride or groom says something like, “I promise to make you smile every day,” or, “I promise to put you first always.” Don’t promise impossibilities because you’ll never be able to keep them. Where are the vows that say, “I promise to forgive you when you disappoint me?” Or the ones that sound like, “I promise to love you, even when you don’t like me?” The other stuff is just idealism. It’s not real.

I feel comfortable saying this because I have been wrestling with my own unrealistic expectations of humans lately. As some of you may know from my previous post, I experienced something deeply traumatic a few months ago when one of my closest confidants exploited that relationship by putting a hidden camera in my bedroom closet. This season of life has been the most devastatingly disorienting. It feels like the liquefaction phase of an earthquake when everything you thought to be true, like solid ground, suddenly isn’t. 

There are so many things I could talk about related to the fallout of this event – the betrayal, the grief over broken relationships, the physical manifestations of trauma and sexual assault, the struggle to forgive, or the way my brain has, at times, convinced me that my life is devoid of purpose and that my days have been wasted. I’m sure I’ll get to some, if not all, of these themes eventually, but right now I’m so totally in the trenches that it’s hard for me to see straight. 

My dad told me the other day to hang in there. I told him that I loosened my grip a long time ago. I’ve been falling for a while, it’s just a really deep cave. 

I’m sort of embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve struggled lately with believing that God is good and that he loves me. I get that he loves us, but does he love me? Specifically? Personally? I know these things in my head. I’m even willing to bet my life on them. But I often don’t believe them in my heart. The reason I’m embarrassed is that I feel like this is such a “basic” Christian struggle. I felt like I had already checked this one off the list of questions. I used to have a neat response that I can barely remember now when asked, “How could a good God do [insert bad thing here]?” or “If God is good, then why does [this bad thing happen]?” I’m humbled by my own arrogance, like the seed planted on rocky ground that hears the word and receives it with joy but falls away in times of trouble. 

I’m also a little embarrassed to admit that up until this year I thought life operated one major trouble at a time and anything where that wasn’t the case (e.g., overlapping tragedy) was an exception to the rule. Again, I am humbled by my own arrogance. Life does not automatically build in time to heal. 

As I’ve wrestled with doubts about Jesus’ character, I’ve turned to humans, in-person and content creators on the internet, to fill that void. I’ve heaped my expectations onto them for how they should be caring for and supporting me in my time of need and I’ve been deeply hurt by them when they don’t live up to those expectations.  

I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until last weekend when I got into a bit of a spat with my mother about our plans for Christmas. To make a long story short, she had thought that I wanted something for Christmas that I didn’t. Because of that, I felt hurt by her assumptions, and it validated in my unhealthiest place that people don’t know me, don’t care about me, don’t want to give or sacrifice for me, and don’t love me. Isn’t that always the way... that underlying pain comes out sideways through the silliest of arguments? I remember another example when my sister and I were having issues a couple of years ago and it all came to a head when we got into a yelling match about our favorite colors. That was the cue for us that we needed to address what was really going on.  

I have been replacing Jesus, the only one who is consistently trustworthy, with humans who sometimes succeed, but often fail. I notice that people tend to turn inward when they have a similar experience of realizing that they depend too much on others to fulfill all of their needs. They become self-reliant, self-obsessed, even, and it reads as empowerment. This ties back into my previous post. I believe there is a healthy and important dependence on others. I believe that there is also a healthy and important way of being self-sufficient. But I mostly believe that if those two things are modeled after our own ideals and expectations and not after those of Jesus, then they will crumble, eventually.

I am going to get really real with you for a sec. Over the past five months, I have felt many things toward God. I have felt that he’s a toxic boyfriend who love bombs us enough to justify him when he devastates. I have felt like an angry child, wanting to tell my father that I hate him. That he did this to me and that he finds pleasure in it. I have felt untrusting and discouraged. I have felt beaten up, targeted, and attacked. I have felt as though I will never have what I want in life because it will always be one step forward, three steps back. I have felt like a perpetual victim. 

I am wrestling through these things now. I do not have all the answers. However, I pray for the Spirit to shift my eyes and show me what’s true. Faith is built in these moments. It is not built by the pithy phrases, the bumper stickers, or the well-intentioned, “yeah I know life sucks, but Jesus sure does love you.” 

And all of this brings me back to weddings. Last Sunday, in the midst of my grief and sudden awareness of my unrealistic expectations of humans, I started thinking about love. There is a passage, that I’m sure almost all of you have heard, that is often read at Christian weddings. It goes like this:

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (CSB)

It usually stops there(ish). I have historically had strong feelings when this passage is read, 1) because it means you’re not original, and 2) because it is a totally impossible standard for humans to meet and makes it seem like the two people getting married don’t actually love each other at all if they can’t love each other this particular way. 

The thing is, this was never meant to be about romantic love.

In thinking about love, I remembered that God is love. So, if God is love, then what is love? Well, love is patient, love is kind... This passage is not about human love though it can certainly be used as a tool to humble us, by recognizing our own inadequacies, motivate us, by recognizing areas we can grow, and encourage us, by praising God for how he is sufficient. 

My life really was changed when I turned to this passage a week ago and put it in its right context. 

Let’s look at it again together, with the verses that are often left out.

If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love – but the greatest of these is love. 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (CSB)

If you don’t share my faith, you may be wondering why I fight so hard for it. That’s why. It is that love that changes, that transforms, that serves better than any other human love ever could. That’s not to say that human love isn’t great. It totally is. But it’s great because it’s a reflection of that ultimate love. Why settle for just a crumb when you can have it all accessible to you?

When I was six years old, my parents broke up. In the two years that followed, there were many moments when my family felt like it was falling apart. My mom wasn’t around as much and, when she was, we’d sometimes find her crying alone in her darkened closet, beer bottle in hand. We shuttled between our home base in Capo Beach and my dad’s apartment in Huntington Beach. We had a nanny that was an absolute trainwreck and we were the picture of chaos when we tried to get ready for school and out the door in the morning. The front desk women at school got used to me being late, but I never got used to the stress of being an organized, rule-following girl in a broken and hurting home.

If it isn’t obvious, I love my parents and they did their best. But it was hard.

However, we were also surrounded by love. Our friends showed up. Our church showed up. Our people were persistent in prayer and service. They “broke into” our home to do laundry and set up the Christmas tree. Some of them served as liaisons between my parents. They believed that redemption was possible, and they prayed earnestly for it. 

Two years later, my parents reconciled and got back together, the two of them humbling themselves enough to be forgiven. It has been the most beautiful demonstration of forgiveness and transformation that I’ve ever witnessed, and it would not have happened without people who put God’s kingdom above human expectations. 

I’m believing that for myself in the midst of my current circumstances, even when it seems hopeless. Which it often does. I’m thankful that I have others who can carry the burden with me and believe for me when it all feels too impossible.

I don’t really know how to close this. I guess just to say that life is messy, and humans are messy, and faith is messy. It’s ok to honor that, I guess. To enter into that, I guess. To acknowledge when we don’t have the answers, I guess. 

There’s something to be said about humans disappointing you, but still entering into that relationship because it isn’t their love that defines you, but rather the love of something greater.

I love you. Not well, but I do. Thanks for listening. 

Xo, 

Abbey