Most mornings I wake up in a panic. Life feels so fragile, like it’s being held together with tape or string. This is one of the aftershocks of being left by my husband.

I AM UNLOVED.

Over and over it plays, like a skipping record player. I mean, to be fair, I do have reason to believe those words. They were spoken over me by the one who vowed to love me forever. It makes sense that I would feel this way because it’s true.

Or at least partly. Maybe I should say, ONLY partly?

These dark thoughts threaten to take over my mind, like weeds in a garden. That thought—that I AM UNLOVED thought—threatens to cast itself near and far, all the way to Jesus. 

The idea of the Lord making wastelands into gardens really stuck out to me. But my life was pretty lovely at the time. I was in a season of ease and abundance. I tucked those words away in my heart but they didn’t impact me very deeply. 

Fast forward a few years and I was in a very different place. My life had completely fallen apart. I lost my marriage, my home, my church, my financial security. All of it was a big pile of ash. I was genuinely sitting in a wasteland, surrounded by all the broken pieces of my easy and beautiful life. 

I’m fine. I have it all under control, really!

(Except, I don’t. Not even a little bit.)

Life seems to get more difficult with each passing year. My needs stack on top of one another and it all feels like way too much. 

The truth of the matter is that I need help. And you know what I’ve found? That’s a very good thing….

There are two versions of my life. There is the life I was living that I very much thought was real. But it turned out there was another life happening under the surface and behind closed doors. And this life ended up being the truer story. For 15 years I lived a life I thought was true, real, secure. Then in an instant, my beautiful life began to crack.

There is a loneliness in betrayal and unwanted divorce that is hard to put into words.

I belonged to someone. In the most intimate and profound sense, I was his, and he was mine.

Until he was her’s and I was, well, no one’s.

This is a table of abundance. My life is not a picture of scarcity and lack. I have been treated lavishly by my Generous Host. He has invited me to a feast. The psalmist uses language of extravagance here. What a beautiful picture of the grace we’ve been shown in God’s welcome!

Because Jesus was willing to bear the weight of his Father’s turned-away face, we are now looked upon, seen, known, pursued, adopted, invited and welcomed in. Through Christ, God sees us. And more than that, He acts–He reaches down and draws us near. 

Jesus loves me this I know (but do I believe it?)

Does His love reach even to me? The UNLOVED one? If one man has chosen to stop loving, could it mean God has chosen the same? Do you see the darkness creeping at the edges? 

Sometimes the ground beneath my feet feels impossibly fragile–like a sheet of glass. One misstep & the whole thing might crack. And life feels all the more vulnerable when the calendar flips to a new year. Can I actually go another round?

I was desperate.

And life was dark. So very, very dark. I looked up from the pit and wondered where God was in this grief, this impossible season, this shattering. Those dark December days stretched on–creeping towards the darkest days of the year. And it just felt so symbolic. It’s like the cosmic candle of my life had been snuffed and the last sparks were beginning to fade and smoke. All was lost.

The juxtaposition of a season full of cheer and twinkling lights and my own utter darkness and despair was almost palpable.

Does it seem like everyone else has it easy while you suffer? What do you do when you wake up with a shattered, heavy heart? When life feels incredibly unfair, how do you battle your heart to believe truth?

I don’t have a husband. But I have Jesus, my Shepherd.

Is He really enough?

Do I have all that I need?

And even if you have the very best Dad in the whole world, he is merely a shadow—an image bearer—of our perfect and everlasting Father. We are fully known and fully loved by the only perfect Father in all the universe.

Endure the no God gives with your eyes set on the eternal joy set before you. This no, like every other God gives, is paving the way for something BETTER.

God feeds those birds. Day in and day out.

And if He is an abundant, watchful Feeder of birds, what must He be for you, His beloved daughter?

Your husband may have walked away, broken your covenant, hurt you, discarded your marriage vows. That might be true. But the bigger and more real truth is that today if you are in Christ, you are loved by a God who pours out covenant-keeping love in eternal and lavish ways. You are not unloved.

Five weeks after my husband’s unfaithfulness was exposed, I lost everything. First came my shattering, then came the great unraveling. Everything started to fall apart before my eyes.

He is not a God far off. He comes in close. He makes the first introduction. He extends the first offer of relationship. He pursues. He takes the first step. He makes Himself known because He wants you to know Him!