This time around the blog is raw and honest and really a place for you to see God be glorified and good. I will admit that this will happen simply because God is good and He is worthy to be glorified. I don't quite understand the process the last few months have seemed to have me in, but I know this that God is with me. I can recall all those verses I memorized as a kid and all those quiet moments that God and I have seemed to have over the years. He is called Immanuel--God With Us. Simple and true. I can look at my circumstances and I can freak out about the pain in my life, but at the end of the day it is still true. There are many details left unsaid, and I am well aware of that as I process about life here. The reality is that pain and hurt is something we all face and while what I am currently trying to process is my own, I am convinced that if you stick with these writings on the journey you will see God along the way. I won't always be poetic or "godly," but I will be honest. And in His children lies His heart and His spirit.
As I cried and thought about how to move forward as I let go of certain things here in NZ, I was reminded of my Mother in Law's beautiful beach chairs that sit outside our little house.
Most mornings it is the place Sam and I eat breakfast and connect before our day begins. They are a bit weathered, but not on purpose. They are peeling a bit, but again not on purpose. She received these fun chairs for her birthday and shortly thereafter they began to bubble and peel. Within a few weeks a call came from the company that produced them, saying that the chairs were being recalled because the undercoat was not put on which will cause peeling and cracking. They also informed her that she needn't send the chairs back, they would just give her a full refund and she can keep the chairs. Pretty cool.
When I first saw the chairs I thought they were gorgeous. I assumed they were supposed to be "weathered/beachy" type chairs. They still work fine and we love sitting in them each day, but they don't look like they were "supposed to" look like. While processing life last night I was listening to a Rita Springer song in which she sang, "all the pain is going to be worth it." I just believe that. It isn't really even a choice, I just know that God has always used pain in people's life to minister to others and at the same time to minister His love and grace and mercy to your own heart. While I wanted the perfect looking uncracked beach chair sort of life and heart, I think that God saw beauty and purpose in the weathered cool looking beach chair heart and life for me. While the manufacture made a mistake with those chairs, weather and ware and tare has turned them into a unique summer accessory. If life can happen like that and something bad can turn into something wonderful, why would I believe a God, who is for me and loves me, would be any different? He actually is in the "business" of taking impossible things and situations and turning them to miracles and hope. I never get tired of watching Him do that very thing.
Some of this process is just normal transition, with a little added hurt and heart ache. In actuality, I just can't see His plan in this current moment. I don't know why I feel the way I do. I am not sure why certain questions and thoughts can turn my dry eyes wet. And while I am working on not allowing my emotions to control me and remembering truths of God I am still in process. I don't have it all figured it out and I am not as "far down the road" as I would hope to be. But there is that four letter little word....hope. It's a word full of so much promise, danger, fear, risk, and excitement. In just 4 little letters is this incredible invitation to hope for something more, to hope that the pain will not just cease but that I will see God in a new way, that purpose will be not only offered but found. It's risky, that's for sure. Disappointment looms and lurks around, but hope never fails. It can quite often feel like it is failing while you wait for a time in life to end or begin, or you wait for pain to end, or while you wait for fear to subside, but in the end the journey of hope is what leads me straight to the heart of God. Even when I try to not hope, it's sneaky little self creeps into my heart. I think God wired His humanity to hope, and at the same time life can batter and beat our space to hope that exists in our hearts and minds. I don't quite get it, but I know that I won't waste this time and I won't stop hoping. I might (and have already) take a time out and just cry and rest along the way, but even in that I think, for myself, it is still an attribute of hoping....hoping that God is listening, hoping that He cares and hoping that He will continue to lead me into the life He has for me.
As hard as some moments have been, they have coexisted with INCREDIBLE joy. I hope that you can see that in these writings. I think that the coexistence of emotion and life circumstances is something that God is gently ingraining into my character and heart. This season is orchestrated for me by a loving God. I might not always like it or always get it, but I do want what He has for me....because...He is always good.
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