What's More Real to You?

By: (ANONYMOUS)

I was in tears. I recollected all the words I wish I hadn’t spoken, and all the words I wish I had. I hated myself for losing my composure, wishing I could hit a reset button and redo that whole conversation. Actually, I wanted to reset years’ worth of mistakes and hurts. I had just gotten off the phone with my husband, who had left our marriage a few weeks prior. We had argued about money, and I was an emotional wreck. I pulled over my car and sobbed. I cried harder than I had ever cried before, or ever have since. All my anguish was pouring out of me in those tears. I just couldn’t believe the way that everything was falling apart. Words my husband had spoken to me echoed in my mind, and struck my heart like daggers. As my sobs turned to weak whimpers, a gentle voice spoke to my heart, saying, “What’s more real to you? What he says to you, or what I say to you?” I replied, “What You say to me.” As I felt enveloped by love and tenderness, the voice softly responded, “Alright, then that’s enough.”

That day I gained a deeper understanding of the scripture, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (II Corinthians 5:7). It’s been almost seven years since that day, and I have been able to see how some things can seem so certain and permanent and yet fade away. Some things seem so cruel and yet are filled with mercy. Some things seem so hopeless but are building to a greater glory. As the scripture says, “…we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (II Corinthians 4:18). I’ve learned that what the Lord says in His word is what’s most real.

I can personally say that the Lord has never failed to keep His promises to me. He has never let me down. When I entered my stand I felt like a wanderer in the wilderness. Jesus turned every aspect of my life around. He has changed who I am and what I treasure. He has shown me much of the ugliness in my heart, and helped me along the path of transformation. He has been “making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5).

If there’s one thing that I would want to share with someone who might be where I once was, standing with shattered dreams behind you and an uncertain, and perhaps seemingly bleak, future ahead of you, it’s that things are not as they seem. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24). You may be experiencing a death right now..a death of your marriage, your happiness, your security, your heart. Even in the midst of this death, the resurrection power that brought Lazarus back from the grave will do a new work in you too, if you let it. It’s not easy to surrender to the process, and we have an enemy that will throw plenty of trials and circumstances our way to try to hinder us, but “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (I John 4:4). That resurrection life can transform not only you, but also your marriage and your spouse. Don’t be discouraged by the circumstances before your eyes. Take hope in what’s more real. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11).