Does God Hear You When You Complain?

Of course God hears us when we cry and when we pray and is inclined to our prayers and delights to answer us. But when we complain and sulk, is he just "disappointed"? Or does he still care about our concerns despite the fact that we are not honoring and trusting him with our thoughts and feelings? Do we have to be "holy" in order for God to love us and take care of us? Obviously the answer is no, since we are only holy through Christ, but through ourselves we are far from it.

Last night, we felt lonely. It's not that we don't know people. I actually feel sometimes like I don't have enough time to get together with all the people that I want to in a week. It's not that. It feels kinda silly even writing it out. So long story short, we were just feeling alone last night. Like there were people that we could call anytime, but that we weren't fully a part of any community here, even in the church.  We felt like exactly what we are...foreigners.

So today at church as we were leaving the service, a woman ran up to me and asked if we would come to lunch with her and her family. She said they'd seen us around and wanted to invite us out. She said, "so you will feel like family." They'd even asked the pastor if it was okay, which of course he said yes. I had never seen her before. When I told Steve what she'd said, we just stared at each other and smiled. I asked, "Does God hear you when you complain?". We didn't even pray about this. We don't deserve this. They said we'd meet up at 1, after they went to the following service. While we waited I sat with one of my favorite people and talked about our families, some hard things we'd gone through, and she proceeded to tell me that she really wanted to be friends. Real friends. Who are there for each other and walk through things together. I cried multiple times during our conversation.

Then at 1:00, we met up with the woman I had never seen until an hour before. Her and her husband took us to one of our favorite restaurants and then out for ice cream. We spent the entire afternoon with them and their two boys. The father spoke English well, too, which was a unexpected, but nice, change from normal. I know they will continue to be friends.

Did God provide these interactions to shame me and show me how foolish I was for complaining and crying or just because he delights to show mercy to his children? Does it surprise him that we are weak and continually lacking in faith and trust? No. Does he love to shower grace on his children anyway? Yes.