A Year Gone By..

I have been longing to write again.  To share my heart.  To speak of the Lord's great mercies and grace in my life this year.  Today I feel like God has shoved me in front of the computer!  So setting aside laundry, sweeping floors, and errands for now, here I sit.  Waiting.  Waiting for the words to come.  Waiting for my heart to spill over on paper.  Waiting for God's story to be told.  I am not writing to have a great following.  I will not write for fame.  I simply desire to write because it brings me joy.  It is therapy for my wounded but healing soul.  Because if there is something God has done in my life that will encourage you or strengthen you then I am willing to be real and honest to testify what He has done in my own life.  I have prayed over starting this again for months and the consistent message I have received is to SHARE.  BE REAL.  HONEST.. Let people in.  I have been in hiding most of my life.  Hiding from what I thought I should be.  What others expected me to be.  God is revealing to me this year that "me" is who I should be.  "Me" is what He has equipped me for.  "Me" is the only me.  "You" are the only you.  Are we willing to show others who that is?  To be accepted for the beauty and the ashes that it entails?  Are we willing to let others in to the hard, the deep, the hurting, the joy, the sadness, the wounded soul, the shame, the fearful and anxious heart?  I am inviting you into mine.

courtesy of my ten year old :)

As I opened up my blog, I first smiled at the picture of my precious kids on the beach holding hands walking along the sands of our favorite sandy beach!   Then tears.  You see this picture is my most cherished photo.  This picture is the one I have waited for almost three years for my dear friend to paint for me.  We have waited because she was going to add our little brown baby at the end of the line completing our family.  This photo is a reminder of something missing in my family.  It brings me joy but also deep sadness and grief.  The precious baby boy we named Henry and held in our arms and fed and bathed and loved as our son for 12 days is not there.  He is not here.  But he will always be our son in our hearts.  I will always pray for him, wonder about him, love him, and grieve his loss.  It has been fifteen months since we lost him.  I have tried to tell myself that I should be okay and I should not be so sad anymore.  A few weeks ago I cried for two hours on the couch alone because the pain was so real and so fresh.  Our brains do not know time.  Pain is pain.  Loss is sad.  And that is okay.  I am learning to feel my feelings.  If I need to be sad then be sad.  God meets me there.  I would shame myself asking the Lord why I still feel this way and think I need to just "be stronger".  But striving to be strong only places me in the seat of control.  Not surrender.  God is my God and I am not.  I am learning to give way to control in all areas:  plans, feelings, worry, parenting.  Ps. 31:14-15 says, "But I trust in you, O Lord, you are my God!!  My times are in Your hand!!"  What a beautiful verse of surrender.  Lord, you are my God and all is filtered through your sovereign hands and rests in your mighty plans.  Your story.  Not mine.



These are the pages of His story.  These are the pages of how I fail and find small victories in the struggles and joys of life.  The theme of my year thus far from the Lord has been "come to me".  "Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters" (Is. 55:1).  "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon him while he is near" (v. 6).   "You have said, 'Seek my face'.  My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." (Ps. 27:8)  "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." ( Matt.
11:28-30)  So I am learning to be where God has me, to learn what He wants me to hear, to find peace as I simply come to Him and seek His face.  What better place to be than under His yoke?  There is rest for our souls at the feet of Jesus!!  There is rest amidst trial and struggle, against pain and suffering.  Why?  Because we are under the yoke of Emmanuel, "God with us".  Because there is "none like God who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty.  The eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms." (Deut. 33:6-27)

Lord, thank you that you are the Author and Finisher of our faith.  You are our dwelling place, our refuge, our rock, our Peace.  Father, continue to draw me ever nearer to you.  Draw me out of the yokes of control and lead me to the dwelling place of surrender in your everlasting arms of safety and peace.  As you draw each of us into communion with you lead us into sincere community with one another.  Thank you Lord that you are setting my feet upon the Rock, drawing me out of the miry bog, and making my steps secure.  Continue to put a new song in my mouth and a firm trust and faith in the Lord my God!!