100 Months With AJ
100 months with AJ. For twenty years I was angry at God about my body and my life. Then He sent the man who stayed and fought with me. This is the story of how that one staying changed everything.
The first twenty years of my life was a dark empty room.
It is late tonight. I am writing this with tears in my eyes and joy in my heart. Tonight is one hundred months with AJ.
For the first twenty years of my life, the voice in my head asked the same questions on repeat. It kept saying things like:
“Why did God give me this sickness?”
“Did God make a mistake when He created me?”
“Am I just a mistake?”
“Am I supposed to live a difficult life and just die?”
I grew up in a poor family. That was already hard. But living with yellow skin and a weak body on top of it made me really bitter. I was angry at God for two decades. I did not have the language to tell anyone. Not even Him.
If you have been angry at God for a long time, I have been there. I will not pretend I had a tidy testimony. I did not. I had questions I could not even speak out loud, and a body that kept reminding me of them.
But God worked in my life in surprising ways. I was faithless. He still reached me in the darkest places.
He sent AJ.
AJ has seen and loved me in every season and every color of my life. The seasons that were dark. The colors that were bitter. The seasons no one else could see. He stayed and fought with me. He has held my hand since day one. He has taken care of me when my body could not take care of itself.
He has been one of God’s instruments to completely heal the bitterness in my heart. I want to be careful with that sentence. AJ is not my savior. He is not the reason my faith stands. But God used a real human being, with real patience, to soften a heart that had been clenched shut for twenty years. That is what an instrument does. It carries something that is not its own.
We have made many mistakes. We are not perfect. We are both sinners. But God is powerful and merciful. Our journey has been full of uncertainties. He has been with us in every one.
Tonight is one hundred months. Achievement unlocked.
“Love is patient.” That is what Paul wrote. I did not understand it until AJ stayed with me through twenty years of unanswered questions and a body that kept failing. Patience is not a feeling. It is a person who does not leave the room when you are at your worst.
And I think that is exactly how Christ loves us. He does not wait for our skin to clear or our questions to resolve. He stays. He fights for us. He keeps holding the hand that keeps pulling away. AJ taught me to believe that this kind of love is possible, because he lived it in front of me. But Christ is the one who finally healed the bitterness underneath. A husband can stay. Only Jesus can rewrite the room.
If you are in a hard season tonight, do not let it take the joy in your heart. Cry, yes. But channel the tears toward the only One who can hold them.
Before you sleep, name one person God sent to stay with you. Just one. That is enough for tonight. If you cannot think of one, name Him. He counts.
It is not about perfection. It is about direction.
For the glory of God.
- Lala