When It All Falls Apart, I Know Who I Serve

When the world does not fall according to my plans. When my heart gets tied in knots around a person who loosens, unravels, and leaves. When pain comes knocking on my doors and windows, slipping through the cracks like winter cold. When my eyes can barely open in the morning because they’re heavy with the weight of everything gone wrong. When I’ve lost someone I love, or lost my way, or lost my sense of purpose:

Even in all these things, God is good.

I know that I serve a God who loves, a God who gives, a God who cares, even when He feels so far away from me. I know that I serve a God who is patient, a God who is doting, a God who will go to battle for me, fight with me, never let me fall.

I know that I serve a God who is all-powerful, who will stand beside me through every trial I face in this sinful life—not allowing the ache, not watching passively as terrible things happen—but reminding me that the pain, the evil, the wreckage of the world is not of Him.

And if I seek Him when my heart is heavy, He will restore me with strength, love, and hope.

When I dance with the devil. When I forget who I am or where I’m headed. When someone close to me spirals downward and I feel powerless as they struggle. When I am cheated on, abused, mistreated, and forgotten. When I feel like I just want to quit:

Even through all of these burdens, I will follow my God.

I know that despite every downfall, in His name I will rise again. I know that through every season, He is blessing me and I need not lose hope. I know that He gave His son’s life for me, for all the sins of the world, so that I wouldn’t ever have to feel alone and broken.

So I will trust in who He is, who He will always be.

When it all falls apart, I know who I serve.

When the days feel endless and slow. When I cannot sleep at night, making shapes of the cracks in my bedroom ceiling. When the words of someone else sting my heart. When I watch friendships fade or lovers look elsewhere for happiness. When I cannot find the resolve, the nerve, the love, the joy I once had:

Even through these broken days on earth, I am God’s child.

And I will not lose faith. I will not give up. I will not let the darkness overshadow the promises He’s made, that He is near, that He is within me, that He is not going anywhere—not today, not ever.

I will trust in the promise of a next life, of a perfection in the arms of my Father. I will push forward, I will step, I will crawl, scoot if I have to, just to be where He is.

I will not let the worldly trials weaken me to the point that I forget the one who created me.

No matter what happens, no matter where I go, no matter what this sinful life throws in my direction, I know who I serve. And I will not be shaken.

Marisa Donnelly is a poet and author of the book, Somewhere on a Highway, available here.