I Thought That Was My Moment

If anyone else had been there they would have written down our words, a description of the weather, and told Nicholas Sparks to drop it into a novel.

The perfect song was playing on the radio.

I thought that was my moment.

I could not have written the whole scene better myself. I was proud, proud of myself for taking a risk, proud of God for giving my story such a perfect little paragraph.

So, when I ended up with my face in the carpet a few days later, it’s safe to say that I was disappointed with myself and with God.

I laid still, wishing I could force tears to come. But I was numb, I was tired, and I just wanted to forget the whole thing.

That wasn’t my moment. I thought to myself, the toes of my running shoes digging into the floor.  It was always too small. I know that wasn’t it.

Whether I wanted to admit it or not, that perfect moment could have never been enough. I’d been aching for so long for a moment, something that would cause me to see the color of the trees again. I needed something to pull me out of the dull gray fog that had blanketed my life.

I thought I had it, and it rivaled every movie moment I’ve ever applauded. But it was still too small to compete with the fire that once sat in my belly.

People are not God.

That’s the thing I’ve been trying to say, the words I’ve been searching for since I was eight years old and lying on a trampoline, studying the hues of the sky. 

They will not make us whole.

They can’t fix three years of broken friendship. They can’t see the years of dancing, praying and crying we did next to barren white walls. They could never keep you from crumbling when you get the seven phone calls to put on a black dress and say goodbye. They can never be what makes you whole, and the moments they give us won’t paint our colorless worlds.

It took a ten minute conversation in my driveway for me to realize that a few perfect moments would never be the things to convince me to get out of bed in the morning. They would never be worth living for.

Because moments fade and perfect songs end.  We go back to the grind of life and soon realize that we’re still looking for more, craving something that lasts longer than a few hours, weeks, years.

People can’t fix you. 

No matter how many times they tell you how beautiful you are, how far you can go, how special you were born to be.

People are never going to fix your ache. They’re never going to pull you out of the darkness, never going to have the kind of love that will help you put one foot in front of the other. They might give it their best, but it could never be enough.

Don’t put that on them. Don’t put it on someone else’s shoulders to make everything okay for you. They will let you down, even if they make every promise not to.

Sometimes, we get the perfect moments.

The thing we hoped would happen. The job we worked hard for. The keys to the house we dreamt about our entire lives. The wedding we planned for at 10 years old. But it will never be enough and the people next to you in life can never fully fix your broken heart.

When the day settles and you are left with just your own thoughts and an ache that digs at the deepest parts of you, He’s there. Even when you think He’s left you.

Stay there.

Maybe you’ve never been the kind to stay, but if you’ll just dig your feet in, there’s something beneath the ground He’s got you standing on. Stay with Him. He didn’t let you get to this place without a purpose and He didn’t leave you to figure it out on your own.

That thing you’ve been begging Him for, that you don’t have, it’s not because He is cruel. But it’s because He knows it won’t fix it and that what you’re asking for isn’t really the thing you want.

What you really want is to feel whole again, so you don’t actually want Him to give you anything but Himself.