The Terrible Lie

The weather and leaves begin to turn and I put away lime and lemon, cherry and watermelon and pull out cloves, all spice, nutmeg and cinnamon. In a few weeks peppermint and caramel will find it's way into my baking as Christmas approaches. Seasons.   

There are four seasons to every year and multiple seasons to every lifetime.  Seasons where life is quiet and we have little to say and seasons where we are bursting with things to share and ideas. Seasons of creativity. Seasons of bareness. Seasons of life where there is barely enough time for all the wonderful friendships and seasons of loneliness, smallness, and stillness. Seasons of health and those of illness.  Seasons of growth and seasons of waiting. 

Seasons.  

A funny thing happened to me when I became a Mom. My season of life changed. This might not seem surprising to you but it was to me. There was no way to anticipate the grandeur of what was happening when that tiny life began to form in my womb. 

This season ushered in so many new challenges.  The biggest challenge, the one that really got me, was sleep deprivation.  My children did not sleep for years. Someone was up in the night, multiple times, for years. No matter how many times I prayed, no matter how many tricks I tried - it continued and I was exhausted. There's a reason that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.

I remember being awake in the middle of the night and feeling so abandoned by God. I was so tired and there was no answer to my prayer. Couldn't God see me? Had he forgotten about me? Where was he?  Did he care about me? 

Sally Lloyd Jones, in her retelling of the Garden of Eden, writes of "The Terrible Lie".  This is the lie the serpent whispered in the ear of Adam and Eve and he whispers it still in the ears of all mankind,  "Does God really love you?"

I remember the day I read that story out loud to my children. I stopped midstory out of shock.  

This was me.

I had succumbed to this lie. 

I had believed this lie for a long time. It took on different forms and played out in different ways but I believed it. Deep down, when everything was stripped away - my answer to the question was no. In the deepest part of my person I did not believe God loved me.  

In this season of sleeplessness and difficulty I had to unlearn The Terrible Lie and relearn that God loved me, that he REALLY loved me. That he loved me no matter what was going on.  If my prayers were not being answered the way I asked, God had not abandoned me.  If I was so tired I could not see straight - God was near and sustaining me.  If I was in a challenging season God still loved me.  God's closeness and care has nothing to do with my circumstances. I might experience many different seasons in life but God does not change.

God, in his kindness, sustains us through every season of our life.  Some seasons will feel like winters and others like summer.  But if you find yourself, like I did, contemplating the words of the serpent know that the answer to the Terrible Lie is easy. The answer might feel unbelieveable based on what you are experiencing and you might not even believe it yet yourself but the answer is easy. "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness." Lam 3:22-23 

Does God really love you? The answer is Yes.