.: but i will sing of your strength

verse of the day :: psalm 59:16, 17
"but i will sing of your strength."

.: a new day {the healing path} reflections

"The healing path takes us into the depths of our despair in order for a new hope to be born through our walk in the desert and the valley."


Yesterday marked the start of a new day. A new beginning, the first big glimmer of hope that this winter will truly eventually lead to spring. A day in which I began to experience a taste of spring for the first time in a long time, a day that filled my heart with that so absent concept, so absent feeling and thing: hope.

Yesterday, at this table pictured above, marked the start of a new beginning.

A new beginning and a new start, a taste of spring amidst this winter, a day in which my heart was allured and called and invited to a new adventure, called and invited to dream again, to dare to hope.

Hope for that which has seemed an impossibility: that this road is not the end, it is only the beginning.

A future lies ahead in store, new adventures and new journeys to be had; new beginnings, new experiences waiting just around the corner.

Hope which was once lost, has been found.

A hope that filled and ignited my heart with that which it has not been able to feel for far too long.

A new day has dawned, a new beginning.

Today I look at and face this healing path with open arms.

For it is the only journey necessary that will free me,
set me in a new place, on a new path, yet one in which requires me to go with Him to the deepest, darkest scariest places and as Dan Allender puts it, one of the most unlikely places we would think He would take us to renew His love, yet it is only here, in the barrenness of the desert, where all is stripped away that He can truly speak to us,

"Because only there can he reveal to her the magnitude of his love."

::

"Relationship with God requires leaving, letting go, in order to pursue his promises.

He calls his followers on a journey that takes them beyond the limits of their sight. Hosea tells us that God will woo us to the desert in order to win us back to himself. God says: 'Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day,' declares the LORD, 'you will call me "my husband"; you will no longer call me "my master" ' (Hosea 2:14-16)

And what is the desert? It is the opposite of Eden, the garden green with luxury and life. The desert is brown, rocky, and desolate. It is not exactly the most romantic spot to renew a broken marriage between God and his bride. So why would God take his beloved to the desert in order to restore her? Because only there can he reveal to her the magnitude of his love."

::

"The woman Gomer, who is a portrait of God's people in the book of Hosea, is a whore. 

She marries Hosea the prophet, and God uses their union as an allegorical tale of the heartache and mercy of God, who grieves the loss of his wife as she pursues other men and yet will not forsake her. God uses the desert to strip from her all other lovers. Her lovers are fair-weather suitors who want a dalliance in a nice climate and comfortable surroundings. 

They will not pursue Gomer to the ends of the earth. No false god will go that far. But God will. 

And in the desert, he strips his bride of her finery and her presumptions of independence in order to offer her a new beauty that leads not to pride and arrogance, but to praise and gratitude. Beauty with pride always leads to haughty eyes and contempt toward others, whereas beauty with humility invites others to join in a greater glory: the splendor of God.

The healing path must pass through the desert or else our healing will be the product of our own will and wisdom. 

It is in the silence of the desert that we hear our dependence on the noise. 

It is in the poverty of the desert that we see clearly our attachments to the trinkets and baubles we cling to for security and pleasure. The desert shatters the soul's arrogance and leaves body and soul crying out in thirst and hunger.

In the desert, we trust God or we die."

::

"God not only leads us through the desert, but he calls us to walk through the valley as the sun sets and shadows spread across the land.  

To get to the table set for us by God we are called to walk through danger." 

Quick pause, these words couldn't resonate more with me right now, it felt like I had to walk through the valley and the valley of the very shadows of death, through the most dangerous terrain where God and everyone, everything felt so distant, to finally be brought to this place:

Yesterday, it was like being brought out into a clearing, a place in the path, where suddenly, there was green again.

It almost didn't even feel real, it felt like we had turned the corner and all of a sudden found ourselves in an entirely new and different terrain.  

There was light, sunlight again, there was green grass and green on the trees. It felt so different and so far away and foreign, yet so welcoming and familiar.

It was as if my soul was brought into this wide open space, to a table set before us, waiting just for me and him (and Him).

Where I was able to see and hear and feel His presence again.
Where I was able to sit across from the table from the man He's called to love and pursue and nurture and care for my heart on this earth, and hear from him of his love and pursuit of me.

I was being led, ushered and called, invited by both to a new beginning.

A new journey and adventure on this seemingly leading to nowhere crooked path, that all of a sudden yesterday, being in that wide, open, beautiful place, a place so different from the elements and terrain I've endured as of late, that my heart was slowly being awakened again to new life.

It was a day and experience I will never forget.

One made most significant by the things I can't even articulate, the things that only my husband and only God knew I needed to see and hear.

::

Continuing on with the excerpts from Dan Allender's The Healing Path:

"God not only leads us through the desert, but he calls us to walk through the valley as the sun sets and shadows spread across the land. To get to the table set for us by God we are called to walk through danger. Any valley is dangerous terrain. Not only can rocks roll down on us unexpectedly, but we are surrounded by higher ground on which any enemy can perch and rain down assault. 

No military tactician would willingly send his troops marching through a valley; it is a place of death. 

And if one must march through a valley, the worst possible time to do so is at sunset when shadows distort and make it impossible to pick out enemies hiding in wait.

Why would God have us walk through danger to get to him? 

Again, because valleys strip us of the presumption of independence; danger draws us to a greater dependence on the only one who can provide and protect. The desert brings us to our knees with craving; the valley calls us to cling to the hem of the one who leads us to safety."

Another pause, this is exactly how I felt yesterday, that my soul had finally been led to a place of safety. A place so different of the environments it has had to endure the last few weeks.

"The psalmist says, 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me' (Psalm 23:4)

God is with us. 

His rod and staff and his sure vision, steady balance and infinite knowledge of the terrain will guide us as we walk through the shadowlands. 

But don't be fooled: His leading does not always guide us out of harm's way. Rather, God often leads us directly into the hottest and most perilous point of the battle ...

... The healing path is not a jaunt in the park. It is a life-rattling, heart-revealing journey that takes us through danger, harm, heartache--and ultimately to new trust, profound hope, and a love that can't be scorched by assault or destroyed by loss.

... The healing path takes us into the depths of our despair in order for a new hope to be born through our walk in the desert and the valley. This hope enables us to envision a future that is full of God, thereby deepening a passion that will empower us to reach beyond the deadness and the mindless repetition of the past."

::

These excerpts from a book that spoke to me while on a different yet related journey of a healing path, words that were extremely comforting and shed light on that which we were experiencing four years ago when I suddenly got sick in the days surrounding a root canal, have been words that have been the only thing that has perfectly explained and put into words all I have been experiencing now.

Yesterday, the path began to take a turn.
I don't have to fear if we are to go back in the valley, for now I have tasted and I have seen.

That I am not alone.

That this road and this journey is not over.

That this winter will eventually lead to spring.

And that He, my God, is for me. With me, calling, pursuing, alluring, and leading me on this path, inviting me to new heights with Him as reflected and mirrored by my husband Ben's invitation and allure and call to a new adventure, an invitation I can accept knowing that he and He are for me, with me, and will never leave my side.

A new day has dawned on this healing path, for the first time in a while, I have encountered a patch of sunlight.

Instead of fearing when the impending darkness will come again,
I am basking in this sunlight, for it is a gift from my Father above.

No matter how scary this journey gets, I now know I will be okay, I will make it on the other side, just as yesterday, within a matter of minutes my soul was transported to this entirely new place as I was taken on a surprise journey to a place resembling that which I was first invited to an adventure and journey that day in Kaldis Coffee in Columbia, MO five years ago when Ben asked me to be his girlfriend, in a similar way and way that felt much like that first date and invitation, I was taken to a place yesterday that reminded me of that day in Kaldis, the newness and excitement of a new beginning.

This path is not in vain.
He, my God, is with me.

And I will let my heart experience the hope and peace that has been flooding it ever since yesterday afternoon, a time where we drew a line in the sand and my heart chose to not abandon hope.

I am grateful. I am thankful, for the Lord knew how much my heart needed this.

It is a new day,
and tonight, my heart cannot abandon Hope.

For He has not and will never abandon me.

No matter how perilous the battle or this journey through the desert gets,
This now comforts me, this I now know and no longer need to be afraid.

For He, my God, is with me.

- Excerpts in quotations from The Healing Path by Dan Allender

.: the land in between

I feel like I am caught between two worlds. The world of life as I knew it 9 weeks ago before this massive storm blew through our lives, shaking our very existence and that which where I am headed, wherever this painful, crooked, seemingly lifeless path is going.

I feel caught in the land between.

I know that this road is going somewhere, I know that there is something waiting for me on the other side, but right now the sadness is so heavy and bleak, my days feel meaningless and without direction, I feel like I am just here, existing. Nothing that really makes me excited, nothing to really look forward to or gain.

I don't know how long I have to be here.

All I want is out.
I don't want to go through this anymore, I just wish someone could take me out.

Not like life before I got sick (again), was perfect, but it sure seems like it was.

What makes this harder is the reality that I have been here before.

Four years ago, when I first got sick, and had to stop everything I was doing and a part of, and now that is happening again but the difference with then was I had complete and total peace about it.

Now, I just have anger, loss, longing, and regret.

The things that usually motivate me or make me excited don't right now. And I wonder how long it will be this way.

I don't really feel like doing anything, nothing is super exciting to me right now, all I see and all I am surrounded with is loss after loss. And I wonder when it will let up.

When it will not feel like I am viewing life from the outside.
Even when I have things and experiences worthy of sharing, I don't.

I just keep it in inside because it feels to risky, to vulnerable to share.
I feel lost, alone, abandoned.

And disconnected and far away from the only One who could offer me some words about this current estate.

I feel deeply abandoned, lost, betrayed, forgotten, and defeated.
I know He is here.
I know He has not abandoned me.
I know He has a plan.

But it doesn't feel like it right now.
All I feel is pain.
Deep, soul-wretching pain that makes me wonder if it will ever feel different again.

.: a santa monica saturday [11.8.14]

We're in a unique and time-limited season in our lives that we know is not going to last forever. Going to the beach is where we go to heal, find rest in this season of hardship and grief with my health. Every time we've gone to the beach, it's been intentional. Now, it is a regular part of how our family finds refreshment and rest. It's a gift and a blessing living 30 miles away from the ocean. So grateful for this time and season where we're able to pick up and go to the beach like this, definitely taking advantage of it while we have it. Today was another beautiful and healing time at our favorite beach to get away because it is the closest, but now it's become one of our favorites. Thank you Jesus, for this man, for living in California, and for this day.

- photos taken at santa monica beach, 11.8.14

.: battlefield of the mind

I read something today that has almost haunted me.

I can't get these words out of my mind, how spot on they are and how much they make so much make sense.

Words and verses that in another day, another situation may have been like, yeah I've read/heard that before, but today we vastly profound.

They illuminated the reality of an issue the Enemy doesn't want us to talk about or get.

What struck me even more about running into these words today was how much they have fallen in line with various parts of scripture I've run into lately and the narrative of 3-4 different books I've opened and read parts of in the last couple weeks.

All not coincidence or accident, if there is anything I know about our God, He will stop at nothing to make a point and make sure we hear it loud and clear.

Reading these words today was like the icing on the cake.

Yes, the weapons and forces with face and fight are not of this world, they require those which possess the divine power to demolish strongholds.

Strongholds. Let's just pause and talk about that word for a minute.

I've been declaring this the year he will break every chain.
I can't tell you why, I can't tell you how, but mark my word, this year will be profound in the lives of a handful of friends and I, possibly more.

A year He will break EVERY chain, not some.
The Lord has told me EVERY.

And for my life right now, that proposes some good news.

News that is only rooted in my hope in Him, the chains broken may not be something I realize or see come to pass till I am at home with my Father in heaven, a day that before I would be somewhat torn on sadness and excitement, but after what I can only describe as an encounter with Him, my fear of death and dying has been taken away. I long to be at Home with my Father, not that I want to leave my husband and family and friends, but for just a few moments, a few moments that felt like several, I was able to experience Home and let me tell you, it is worth the wait.

Literally just like that, within I flash, all of this world was taken away, there was a bright light that was like a flash of lightening and then boom, as if no time had passed, I was there, walking into the next moment, seamlessly, as if nothing had every happened. Then I stepped into the greatest party I have ever experienced, with a throng of people from various points of my life all standing around cheering and clapping as we danced and sang and cried tears of joy and rejoiced.

But, alas, I can't believe I'm talking about this right now, I've vowed I wasn't going to write or talk about this yet. It's too much to explain right now.

All of this to say, I have tasted and I have seen and my life will never be the same.

I was talking about chains, and big things happening, and the battlefield of our minds.

It's important stuff, because if Satan can convince us and win the battle in our minds, the myriads of battles you and face daily, moment to moment about our identity, who we are, where we're headed, what our lives are about, what we're here for, he knows he's won more than the battle. 

He's stopped the myriad of ways that your life, your story, who you are and what you were made to do is a force to be reckoned with, a force that he knows he can't reckon with once unleashed and joined with the power of our God, which is why he has to work extra hard in the place it all begins: our minds.

I'm going to have to go back to the intro later. For now, as my physical and emotional strength for the day are winding down, I've gotta process just one chunk of what I read today, the first page of Chapter 1: "The Mind Is the Battlefield."

For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.

- EPHESIANS 6:12

::

"FROM THIS SCRIPTURE WE SEE THAT WE ARE IN A WAR. A careful study of this verse informs us that our warfare is not with other human beings but with the devil and his demons. Our enemy, Satan, attempts to defeat us with strategy and deceit, through well-laid plans and deliberate deception.

The devil is a liar, Jesus called him 'the father of lies and all that is false' (John 8:44). He lies to you and me. He tells us things about ourselves, about other people, about our circumstances that are just not true. He does not, however, tell us the entire lie all at one time.

Let's stop right now. 

So much truth wow. 

1. The devil is a liar. We can just stop right there.

2. He lies to you and me. He tells us things about ourselves, about other people, about our circumstances that are just not true.

3.  He does not, however, tell us the entire lie all at one time. 

How TRUE are these and how applicable.

I'll writing more soon about the millions of ways this applies to my life right now, but for now, I think we can all say we are on common ground with these here.

"He begins by bombarding our mind with a cleverly devised pattern of little nagging thoughts, suspicions, doubts, fears, wonderings, reasonings, and theories. He moves slowly and cautiously (after all, well-laid plans take time). Remember, he has a strategy for his warfare. He has studied us for a long time."

Okay, pause.

Can we just go back to, 

"He begins by BOMBARDING our mind with a cleverly devised pattern of little nagging thoughts, suspicions, doubts, fears, wonderings, reasonings and theories... He moves slowly and cautiously... he has studied us for a long time." 

Wow, yes, okay, that would explain some things.

It goes on to say,

"He knows what we like and what we don't like. He knows our insecurities, our weaknesses, and our fears. He knows what bothers us most. He is willing to invest any amount of time it takes to defeat s. One of the devil's strong points is patience."

Wow, pause. Highlight, underline everything.

That's what I wanted to do with this entire paragraph as I had done with the one above it I already took apart. 

I can't tell you how much of a reality this is, I feel like in coming face-to-face with the very real nature of the glory of heaven, I also came face-to-face with the very gates of hell.

These words could not be more true. 

It goes on to talk about demolishing strongholds, but that's a story for a different day.

Man, if only we all knew and believed all of these truths about who our enemy is and how he works.

It could change everything.

I don't know about you but the battle raging in my mind has been going on for far too long. It's time to fully claim the power that belongs to us a children of God, sons and daughters of the Most High King.

We've been lied to for far too long.

And not in the ways that are easy for us to pick up, in ways that for years have flown beneath the radar, seeped into our very psyche and worked to move us further and further away from the life that God has for us, if he can keep us believing seeds and pieces and pockets of these seemingly little lies, he knows before we do anything, he can thwart that mission and those plans in the place where they are born in the first place. (Sidenote, something I plan to write about more later, but I believe this is where prevalence of mental illness lies in the realm of the church, the enemy is now waging war with one of the most dreadful diseases of the mind of our time: mental illness.)

Yet, he's way smarter than we have given him credit to.

I love the line that says he is patient, he has studied us for a long time, he knows our weaknesses, he knows how to push every button that will keep us shackled, imprisoned, and ineffective.

But take heart,

we don't have to fight or wage this battle on our won. 

We have a God who is far more powerful, capable and cunning than the one He has named the father of lies.

The battle is raging and it starts in our minds.

Which is why we must fight not with the weapons of this world, but the ones that possess the divine power to demolish strongholds and it begins with the daily renewal of our minds.

- Excerpts from Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer

.: a new song {what joy}

"Sing to the Lord, a new song..." He has put a new song upon my heart. Can't get these words below out of my mind spoken by a dear friend and the chorus to this song:

"Be hopeful and thankful- God is on your side."

What joy, what joy
For those whose hope is in the name of the Lord
What peace, what hope
For those whose confidence is in Him alone

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah (forever we will sing)
Hallelujah (praises to the King)

.: sacred dance of grief and joy {entry 1}

What suffering, hardship and grief has taught me about contentment and joy. 

Nearly four years ago to the date, I was asked to share a part of my journey with my chronic illness at church during a series on joy. This was in the first year of my illness and the beginning of discovering a theme throughout the time I have been sick, realizing this was a season marked by something one of my favorite authors calls the "sacred dance of grief and joy."

I find it interesting that although I wrote these words four years ago, there are so many lessons and themes that were happening in my life then, near the beginning of a similar season of grief, that resonate with many of the things I am walking through now. 

::

Written and shared with The Rock, Nov. 13, 2010:

"You know, to be completely honest with you guys... when Hoops and John asked if I could share tonight, a few weeks ago... I couldn't quite put my finger on all of why, but something just wasn't sitting with me well. I realized part of me felt uneasy because like Hoops said last week, this word, "joy," is difficult to definite and can be easily misunderstood.

But, I think most of my resistance came from the fact that for most of my life, through various experiences in the past, I felt that being a Christian meant I had to be happy all the time... and that if I wanted to be accepted, I had to wear a mask. 

In all of that I learned that it wasn't okay for me to not be okay... and I always had to have this "joy" I would always hear about, or be happy.

But, like me, many of you have probably also found that we can't live like that for very long... because life just isn't like that all the time. I mean, none of us here tonight are immune to the reality that sometimes, life is just hard.

::

I find the "illusion of control" I used to operate within simply laughable.

If there is anything that the unpredictability and all that has come with this illness has done in my life, is bring me to a place where daily I am reminded how little I am in control. For that alone, I can truly say, AMEN.

Many times, I've been brought to this place where I have no choice, even though I fight it some days, but to make a choice to trust and rely upon my God. The God who is truly with us in this, who is present and active in these circumstances even when it doesn't always feel like it.

This journey has led me to consider and wrestle with the question, what does it mean for me to be fully alive in this season? What does it really look like for me to have joy, to find hope, peace each day? To live my life when it feels like so much has been taken away? To rejoice in the midst of suffering, to grieve when the time to grieve, laugh when the time to laugh?

God, what does it really, as Matt Rogers says in his book, When Answers Aren't Enough, for me to "experience you as a God who is GOOD... even when life ISN'T?"

::

I remember a turning point when this became most real.

It was about mid-summer (2010), I had started the day, sitting on our porch, drinking my morning tea (pretty typical, if you've been over to our place and joined me on the porch, my new thing), and you know, I as watching people go by, to and fro, to work or whatever they had going on.

Then all of a sudden, a wave of emotion hit me. I felt like I was viewing life from the outside. Like there was this WORLD out there I was once a part of but now felt I couldn't enter...

I was sitting in this chair, already fatigued even though it was just two hours into my day, and I remember thinking, "I'm YOUNG, I'm 26 years old for crying out loud, isn't this what's supposed to be happening at the end of my life, like when I'm 90??"

And in that moment, I told God,  

"You know this just isn't fair. It's not fair, God. 

Lord I know that you love me, I known that I am seen and known by You and that you care for me deeply... but I cannot reconcile, for the life of me, these two images... 

My heartfelt view of You, of a God whom I have experienced intimately all these years as a Father who I KNOW loves me... with all that is going on in my head... trying to wrap my mind around how that same God would allow me to experience so much pain...

I need to know in my heart, how can I truly experience You as good in the midst of this, because right now, to be honest, it doesn't feel like I can. Lord, help me, to understand. 

Because there is obviously so much more to who you are that I do NOT understand...

::

And I sat there in that place for a while. And I waited. I realized in those moments that for quite a while now I had been feeling abandoned.

You know, some days it is easy for me to accept all that has come with this new season, but other days, it is a hard pill to swallow.

On this particular day, everything within me was fighting it. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted parts of my old life back and I just wanted a day without pain. I realized I was grieving and that I missed being able to do many things I loved doing.

But man, is that hard to admit. I struggle sometimes to feel like it is immature or a sign of a lack of trust in God, if I admit that there are things I miss or that I have to grieve how different things are now.

But the reality is, God has not been pushing me away from that place, but inviting me to grieve.

Showing me it's okay for me to feel sad sometimes. Angry. Frustrated. Confused with God. To find that all He wants me to be is real, and find that I am received.

In those moments out there on the porch, before I could continue processing suddenly something stopped me dead in my tracks. I felt like I heard these words so loud and clear, it nearly made me jump, they seemed nearly audible, when I heard:

"To not confuse God with life."

I just sat there dumbfound. "Okaaaay," I'm thinking to myself, "What does THAT mean?"

And then I heard those words again, slower this time, "do not confuse God... with life..."

Slowly it all started coming back to me. I remembered reading those words a few weeks earlier in Philip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God, where he shares what a man he calls a "modern-day Job," found while going through a series of trials:

 I learned first not to confuse God with life," He said.

 "We tend to think that life should be fair because God is fair. But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical realities of life--by expecting constant good health, for example--then I set myself up for a crushing disappointment."

- Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey

::

These words brought freedom. As I've been pondering them the last few months, it is as if these words slowly began to free my heart and release me to view this differently.

 I began learning that God's goodness reaches far deeper than pleasure or pain, but that it embraces them both.

And slowly, instead of anger, I began to take joy in this God who was with me and just as broken to see one of His children hurting. 

A God that I have found, as Matt Rogers says, "laughs when we laugh and cries when we weep." A God who I heard in those moments actually agreeing with me and saying, "You're right... no, it is not fair." It was in that moment that I remember asking, "Okay, so God, show me how to live my life with this."

Suddenly, all that mattered in that moment was hearing Him tell me, 

 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you. There is not a single step of this you will have to walk alone."

And so He began to show me ways along with the help of one of our doctors, ways to manage the pain and the symptoms so I could be out of the house even if just for a couple hours a day.

I started to be grateful for those times out on the porch where I could just sit and be still with God and know that that was enough. It still amazes me that in nearly nine months of being mostly at home, I've never been bored a single day in this, which if you had told me that nine months ago, I would've told you were CRAZY, because I would've told you that that was no possible, that surely I would've gone crazy by now, as I was normally out and about all the time and hardly ever home.

But you know, I think even that is totally God's grace. I've found I've been given this gift of time in this season. More time to love and be loved. More time and more ways to share life and share His love with others, and receive His love from others as well.

 I feel like the Lord has also opened my eyes to the reality that life is fragile and unpredictable, yet that each day we're given, and life itself, is truly a gift.

My husband, Ben, has been nothing but a gift to me as well in all of this, I am so grateful to have him in my life. It blows me away that there has never been a time where he has made me feel like a burden.

He has joyfully served me in this... as Christ does... and has reflected the heart of God to me so many times and constantly reminds me that how he (Ben) feels about me or that his love for me has not changed in all of this, nor has my identity or worth. God has used this trial to strengthen and deepen our bond as a team as well as our love for one another and for God.

We have both never been more broken or needed God more. We've been reminded that this race is a marathon, not a sprint. As we continue to ask God for just enough grace and just enough strength each day to endure and fight these battles one day at a time.

::

But this fight for joy is a constant, raging battle. Our situations may not be the same, but as many of you know from the things you are also facing, this fight is not easy, or something I feel I will ever really "master" or figure out.

But maybe that isn't the goal anyway.

Maybe living within the reality of the tensions between doubt and faith, turmoil and peace, hope and despair, joy and sorrow, and finding that those things can sometimes, and often do, co-exist.

And maybe then, embracing God in the MIDST of those tensions is more of what is being asked of me.

Yet I have found this fight is worth it... one that has reminded me that it's okay to be weak. That I don't have to be the strong one anymore. That I am weak. It is He who is strong.

Even in that weakness, there is a joy, a freedom.

I've found in those moments of pouring out my heart to God like I shared from my porch, and even wrestling with Him again in the last couple days, that through it all, after working through all the emotions and then allowing Him to speak truth to my soul, God has allowed me to experience a peace that truly does guard our hearts and minds... a peace that turns into hope. And a hope that produces joy.

A joy emerging from the sheer delight of simply being His child. Where that alone, our identity and belonging in Him, is enough.

::

I think this is what joy looks like. At least what it has come to look like for me right now. That before all my questions are ever answered, I can rest in knowing that God is going to take care of me... no matter what. 

That I can rest, knowing He is holding me close and He will never abandon me. That He alone is my rock and my salvation. That who He is and who I am has not changed. That I can rest, in the security and love of a God, of a Father, who has been so good to me in this... and met me in ways I cannot begin to explain.

Joy that was once lost, can be found. A sense of joy that is based upon God rather than something we can muster up on our own. A joy that is deeper than our feelings and not dependent upon our circumstances; one that is rooted in Him and His promises, and in His love that never fails.

As Dan Allender says in The Healing Path, "Joy is not an absence of struggle or sorrow, but the taste of the presence of God as he surprises us with his gracious love, whatever our circumstances."

- Testimony shared with The Rock, Nov. 13, 2010
:: Photo by Pam Nakamura

.: when the heart is sick { a lament }

My heart is sick. I realized as I was out driving with Ben a bit ago, forcing myself to leave the house again and go run some errands and go for a family walk.

I feel like a part of me has died.

I have been writing about and reading/re-posting and writing about the first time I began to put to words the joy I'd experienced in the midst of my grief early on with dealing with my chronic illness, yet just reading words I had written, literally four years ago today, the weekend of November 3, 2010, a bit I wrote and shared about joy during a sermon series at The Rock during the first year of my illness, it is crazy I have gone back to that testimony and shared parts of it here and there in writing or in person when sharing parts of my story, but it's never hit me how it hit me today.

Maybe it's because today I've been facing a lot of reality. I finally sent a couple emails out to some back home and others that live elsewhere within my support system and that was good. But after, this feeling still lingered.

This feeling of my heart still being sick.

I don't feel like doing things I usually feel like doing.

I looked at all I was hoping to do today, and was reminded just now after taking a shower, something I heard in a support group recently, how anything I as able to do in a day, or how much I used to be able to do, I have to throw that out the window, I can't expect myself to be able to do that which I was able to before I got sick.

The first couple months especially are the hardest I heard that night, adjusting to a new capacity.

But, I didn't feel the release I was hoping to feel after sending these emails.

I still have the feeling of feeling not like myself, like I'm living life on the outside looking in.

I feel like the world is this place again I get to see but not enter.

I am tired of feeling this way.
I long for where I was even the first couple weeks when I got out of the hospital. I was on an up.

It felt like nothing could touch me.

Now, I have never felt more vulnerable.

I haven't been able to post much on social media.
I feel there are things and parts of my life I can't share and so even sharing the "little things" is hard because taken out of context, I feel misunderstood.

I feel overwhelmed when I think of some of the plans I've already made for this week, wondering if I will even be able to do them.

I feel tired, sick and tired of feeling this way, a feeling I have felt too many times before.

My heart is sick, my heart is hurting.
I dream and I wish this could all be over.

I would wake up and for once, everything is okay.

This is going to be a long road.

I remember hearing that weeks ago, but just now as we were walking through the garage to come up to our apartment, those were words that made me realize I couldn't agree with more.

I don't feel like this is a road I even want to go down.
I just want to live a normal life, like everybody else.

Is that too much to ask?

I don't understand sometimes like tonight, when I look at all the losses.

It hit me in the shower and though this statement is one I believe to be true, it is not comforting right now as this would have been a few weeks ago:

This only makes sense in light of eternity.
This only makes sense in light of that which He has allowed my heart and now my eyes to fully see.

I know how the story ends.
I know this is not the end of our journey or the end of this road.

Yet things that were once comforting, are now like worn out blankets that no longer offer any heat.

Tonight, my heart and my soul laments.

Cries out for change.

I am human. It is not fair. And I just long and wish for it all to be made right.
I long for my heart and my soul to be restored.
To feel alive again and not just for a day or two like I was beginning to several times this week, or would feel for a few hours, or even a day before it all came crashing down again.

I long to be made whole. Again.
For freedom from these losses.

I feel lost, empty inside.
Life as I knew it six weeks ago seems like a distant memory.

And I wonder if things will ever be the same.

How long, O Lord, will you allow your child to suffer?
How long, O Lord, will you allow all of these things to happen?
How long, O Lord, till complete peace and freedom re-enter our borders,
a time of freedom from medical appointments, and medications, and clinics, and hospitals, and tests, and therapists, and support groups, and doctors, and labs.

How long, O Lord, will you allow your children to suffer?
How long will you strip them free of the lives others are living all around them?

How long will you allow them to be barren.
How long will you allow them to continue to allow their losses to pile up.

How long will you continue to let them experience hardship others may never have to walk through.

How long, O Lord, will you keep your children in the wildnerness and wicked terrain of the desert?
How long, O Lord, will you keep them from entering the promiseland, keep them circling and circling through years of hardship and grief.

How long, O Lord, will you deprive them of their youth.
How long, will you keep them from experiencing the life they always dreamed as a couple, as a husband, as a wife, as a mother, as a father.

How long, will you continue to allow them to endure this bitter pill, this cross, that has already taken enough of a beating out of them.

How long, O Lord, how long.

Father, Son, Spirit, please come.
For your beloved's heart is sick.

Restore me to the joy of your salvation.
Restore to them all that the locusts have eaten.

Bring about miracles and things unseen and unknown that they could have never asked for or imagined that surpass their wildest dreams, that make all the years in the desert make sense.

Bring about that which only You can do.

You are our only hope,
we trust in your holy name.

Bring relief to your children who are suffering yet fighting to live for you.
Come, Lord Jesus.

And restore them beyond their wildrest dreams.

We thank you in advance for the things you have yet to do.
For the miracles borne of darkness yet to come to light.

For the ways you already have planned to restore to them all these years and illnesses and seasons of hardhip and grief have taken away.

For we know who you are.
And we know this is not how you have written their story.

We come to you now, for you are our only hope.
We thank you for who you are.
We thank you for taking care of your children, even in the times and the seasons in which they didn't fully understand.

We know that within a moment, within a flash, just like that, all our pain and suffering, when we are finally taken over into eternity, it will all seem like nothing compared to all that is there now waiting for us.

My heart and my eyes have seen of your glory.

I know I do not need to be afraid, this too will come to pass.

Be with us, Lord Jesus

Protect us from the Evil One and his wicked schemes.

We trust in You, for You alone are our Hope.
Let us not be put to shame.

For our salvation and honor depend on You.
And You alone are our Hope/

We trust in You and we love You.
Only You can make all this right.