When I started coming back to faith, there was a lot of things about God that I did not realize and that I began to love about Him.

1. He knows exactly how I felt

He knows and he knew and he's felt everything that I have felt. He was human too. The book I just finished reading talks about this perfectly. Sex God by Rob Bell says, "The cross is God's way of saying, 'I know what it's like.' 'I know how you feel.' 'Me too.' The God that Jesus points us to is not a god who stands at a distance, wringing his hands and saying, 'if only you'd listened to me.' This is the God who holds out his hands and asks, 'Would you like to see the holes where the nails went? Would that help?'"

2. He's more about the bigger picture

Everything I've gone through, I cannot even imagine where God is going to take me but He has a plan. God uses everything that I've gone through according to some bigger picture that I don't know and I may never know but I take heart that I am being used somehow and someway. God uses everything; the loss, the hurt, the good, the bad to force a change in us. He isn't trying to make us miserable though He did tell us there would be tribulations in life...He's pushing us toward our purpose. He wouldn't allow you to go through something unless there was purpose within it so don't just go through it...grow through it.

3. "God never uses anyone greatly until He tests them deeply." -A.W. Tozer

I didn't realize that when I was struggling so hard, that God was testing me. I was pushing against Him instead of asking for help and guidance. But maybe the test wasn't my tribulation, per say, but maybe the test was if I could learn from my tribulations. Maybe it was to see if I could not just go through my tribulations but grow through them.

4. "The pain that you have been feeling cannot amount to the joy that is coming." -Romans 8:18

Pinterest seems to always display my thoughts better than I can on my own, "She's not broken anymore, she's stronger, wiser, and more beautiful than before. Because God took her broken pieces and made her new again." I went through years of depression and it was not until I truly accepted who God was that I felt the joy that comes from connecting with the Creator. I trust that even if I do fall back into a depression that I have a great God to turn to. He's there in the good, the bad, and the ugly.

5. "I loved you at your darkest." -Romans 5:8

God knows every fall, every relapse, every sin and yet still loves me. He has seen where I have been but still says, "I have more for you." I am constantly being reminded of this and I am so grateful in knowing that no matter how hard I fall, God can help me get back onto my feet and back on track.

6. He teaches us to see if we allow ourselves to

Here's another Pinterest quote that displays my thought process on this one, "God says: 'because of where I am taking you, there are people from your past coming back to you. Be careful. I've already shown you who they are.'" For me, I have been seeing these people coming back into my life and I had to be careful about who I let in. God truly showed me the change, the good change, in people that could help me with my journey as not only a person but specifically as a Christian. On the other hand, there are others who have popped up on social media and I can see the change they have undergone and God told me to just leave it be. This person does not need to be addressed and so I listened, I saw, and I accepted the results.

7. Only God can make me content

This was probably the hardest to wrap my mind around. I always had this distorted idea that friendships had to fill the gap inside me and I can only get true love when I find the right man but neither of those things are true and in believing them, I was always getting hurt. I have found that by giving myself more fully to God, I don't need people to fill my empty places because God's already filling that hole. However, I won't say that I don't ever struggle with this anymore because this is truly a weekly battle for me but I can always come back to this idea that John 3:30 says, "He must increase, I must decrease." I may always struggle with this because it's human error but I cannot let myself get caught up in it. I need to remember to keep giving myself to God daily or I will find myself in the same rut I was in a year ago.

8. Ephesians 3:17-18

"I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love." Love in loss, for me, has been a struggle. I lost my grandpa five years ago last month and I came back to this verse again and again. I think being rooted in love is the only way to get beyond the hurt of loss. The hurt of loss may always be there but rooting your love in Him and in family can soften it.