forever you are faithful

Yeah, God has been so good in these last few weeks. Not only have I realised that He's not going to dump me any time soon, unlike a human relationship, his love doesn't depend on anything. The love that enabled such a gift of grace does not depend on what music I like, or what country I'm in, or how many friends I have, or how much fun I am to be around. I might love Jeremy, but there's always the chance that Jeremy might decide he doesn't love me. God isn't like that. It was this realisation that set me up for the next few weeks. God isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

It's about more than that too. Losing a long-term boyfriend has just been part of this quarter. Slowly everything ebbed away. Moving to a new country, with a new culture, language and pattern really was a shock. Leaving my home university, my family, my church, my friends and my clubs was tough, and I struggled to find friends here, and my attempts at church hunting were, quite frankly, pathetic. I've been out of money this year and my mental health has taken a hit. My parents moved from the house and the city I grew up in away to the rural countryside. The classes I am taking in America are so very different and in some ways, harder. Losing my boyfriend of four years, the guy I thought I was going to marry, just seems like the icing on the cake. But the amazing thing is, even though it's been really tough and I'm hating every moment of it, I'm just so incredibly blessed.

I realised I had been left with nothing at all - nothing left of the life that I had been leading very comfortably, thank you very much. Except one thing.... God. In these moments of wilderness, there has been nothing apart from Him holding me. All that has kept me functioning is Him.

I believe that God has a plan. And for a while, I was so mad at Him. Why was this happening to me? What had I done to deserve this? I felt like Job, questioning God rather than trusting. But then I started to see what was going on in my life. God had removed every single thing that could possibly come between Him and me. All of those things could become a higher priority to me than He was, and He was teaching me about priorities. When you are left with nothing, you just have to trust and depend on him, singing praises throughout.

Time and time again over the last few weeks I have been reminded that God is a jealous God and there just isn't space at the top of my list for two things. My life is so tenatively being reconstructed now (rather like weaning a baby onto solids) but it is happening. And the most important thing is that it is being rebuilt around God.

Thank you Jesus.