The last several days and this weekend have been incredibly healing and refreshing. I cannot get these words or this card out of my mind.
Words that so stirred my heart after being drawn to this card over and over while standing in line at the post office several times in the last year, sometimes I would write down the beginning of the quote, other times the author, and sometimes I would just try to remember it.
But, nevertheless, by the time I got home, I either couldn't remember the quote, the spelling of the author's name, had lost the slip of paper, or got frustrated after googling it and coming up with way too many other variations of the quote, that one day I decided I just needed to buy it.
I love cards. I love buying cards, I love shopping for cards, I love making cards, I love sending and receiving them. But this day I knew I was buying one for an entirely different purpose.
I knew I was buying a card that wasn't going anywhere, but one I knew I desperately wanted and needed. I wanted a daily reminder of the words that captured so much of what I have struggled to, but not had the words to express about how the last couple of years living with and battling this illness has forever changed how I look, think about, feel, or view life.
A time where I have been reminded that every day, and life itself, is truly a gift.
A gift to be cherished and one, (most days), I no longer take for granted.
I don't always feel like that. Which is perfectly normal and okay.
But the last several days and today, I do.
So today, I am celebrating. Celebrating this precious gift of life I have been given.
Grateful for the beautiful people and things in it
seeing and enjoying God in the everyday, mundane, and ordinariness of life.
"We encounter God in the ordinariness of life:
not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary,
mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life."
:: BRENNAN MANNING in Abba's Child
{grateful} day 4 Monday June 6, 2011
Today, I am thankful for...
... life.
I sing for joy at what your hands have done. :: psalm 92:4b
For You have breathed new life in me.
Rescued and restored.
Brought me back to life again.
Heard my weeping in the night,
and turned my wailing into dancing.
For joy comes in the morning.
Given anew this precious gift of life.
A gift I do not have words to even begin to express the depth of my gratitude,
so all I will say, is thank you, Father.
For loving me, protecting me, leading me and guiding me.
Promising to take care of me and not returning your word empty.
My faithful One, my Rock,
my Redeemer.
My Healer.
Whom alone can quiet the storms that quake at night,
move the mountains, part the sea so His people may pass on dry land.
The One who can cause streams and waters to break forth in the desert,
and turn our darkness into light.
You are Jehovah Jireh,
my God who sees me, my God who provides.
Therefore, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,
for He who has promised is faithful.
:: HEBREWS 10:23
- Photo courtesy of Lynsey Tedesco Photography, omg, are these kids NOT the cutest??? This photo stood out as I was looking through my folders for the one that I felt best embodied the joy and the life that I currently feel. Kids are some of my favorite people because they LIVE in joy. There is so much I learn from them and I believe children are truly some of our best teachers.
So, if you knew me pretty well or have read my blog or time or two, you've already picked up on the fact that I have a lot of favorite songs. A lot of songs that are special to me that I have declared numerous times on here that are like an anthem or battle cry for me, but there is one that far transcends them all.
Those four lines above from this song came to me as I was sitting outside on Sunday afternoon amazed at how perfectly those words and this song was completely representative of not only the entire journey of the last year and a half, but the journey of God's faithfulness over all my years.
I sat out there on my porch, the day after I had the idea to begin to reflect more intentionally on all I am thankful for each day, just completely stunned.
There was something that began to happen within me, something that this way of gratefulness was beginning to reveal and the wounds of the last couple of weeks continued and began to heal.
On Sunday I wrote in my journal:
“I HAVE REALIZED THERE HAS NEVER BEEN MORE JOY IN MY LIFE than when I am seeing.
Seeing the very hand, touch, and taste of God in the everyday, ordinary, and mundane.
Reflecting on all I am thankful for and even in digging through all of those photos last night reminds me that,
GOD IS FAITHFUL...
As I am trusting in Him to reveal, transform, heal, and empower me.
I see the life and the joy and the friends and the experiences He has given me. Even looking at my college years, graduation, LT experiences, my life after college... so many places and moments though just years ago, I felt I was re-living and remembering in way though I thought I had not forgotten them.
There is a light I recognize in her eyes, in the girl I see staring back at me.
Something that is happening, a story being told without words, but one I remember.
A light that slowly became more and more brilliant as You allowed me to discover who I really was and how much I was truly, deeply loved. And that I mattered. I see a girl who looks like me, yet was so different. So different from who she once was, so different from who she was now.
It was crazy, I was reminded of an exercise my counselor had me do in one of my first appointments with her several years ago. I was to bring a picture of me in my childhood. And write about what it was about the picture and that little girl that I could see.
I hadn't planned on it, but ended up finding one of me with the person who had abused me in my childhood, yet one picture in this frame was of me before any of the abuse occurred. And the one in the same frame, but a different section, was me a few years older while this was going on.
I will never forget all I saw in those pictures.
There could not be more telling evidence.
I saw a little girl that I longed to be.
Longed to trade places with. Longed to hold her and wish I could warn her, prepare her for all that was to come.
I saw in that picture, a girl who was free...
Delighted in. Happy. Safe. Secure.
A girl who knew she was loved.
The next pictures were so haunting I cannot even look at them to this day. Though I did not know what was happening was wrong, deep within, that girl I had seen in the first photo had disappeared. There was a darkness that she was carrying. One no person or child should ever have to bear.
So when, I looked at some of these photos (this again sounds really narcissistic, but I think we will see the point), on facebook. I, too, began to see a different story.
I was almost surprised at all that I could see.
I saw a girl who was happy again.
I saw a girl who was loved.
Who had been given and was enjoying living a full life.
A girl who had come out of the shadows and into the light.
I saw a girl who was... free...
These pictures were like snapshots, glimpses of precious moments. Snapshots in time each carrying a life and a story all their own.
And it was crazy just to look back. Some of the times and the things I will never forget. And when I look at all of those photos, I see my God who was with me through it ALL.
And looking back at all those pictures on facebook was like thumbing through an old photo album you hadn't dug out in years, that was collecting dust in the attic.
As I continued to go back, it was like seeing all the places He has carried me...
Glimpses of markers and points in my journey with God.
Glimpses of His goodness, His love, light and life.
Glimpses of His faithfulness.”
::
As that faithfulness was the word that kept churning around in my heart and encompassed all I could see, as I began to list out some of the memories and things I plan to ponder more and possibly write about that I was reminded of in looking back on that trip down memory lane.
I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Filled with hope. Filled with promise.
I could see in each photo all the places and the things He has brought me through.
Each one like a marker, a snapshot in time.
And these words from “Let the Waters Rise” came to me in those moments:
“God, You know where I've been, You were there with me then...
You were faithful before, You'll be faithful again...”
And I realized how perfect those few lines were for this journey through “the way of gratefulness,” as Brennan Manning calls it.
That what reflecting on what I am thankful for is doing to my heart is reminding me of God's faithfulness. Of how He was there with me then, how He would be here with me now.
The exercise of going through the photos for the first post and then realizing how much it had already encouraged my heart just in the first couple days, this song has been on my heart all week.
Let the Waters Rise has been so representative of the journey I've been on with God. A journey that began years ago and is continuing today and a journey that began 16 months ago.
When everything in my life changed and this illness came like a thief in the night, where I realized, even in the few weeks prior to getting sick. In the time Ben was in Haiti and the weeks after, it was as if there was this low rumbling beneath the surface of our lives threatening to break before our ground began to quake.
I remember in some of my most difficult moments, how this song would minister to me, coming on the radio at such the perfect time. It happened on so many occasions in the three weeks leading up to March 2010 when I got sick, and then in the weeks to follow that I had to simply go out and buy the CD just for that one song.
It quickly became that of an anthem to me, a soundtrack for my life if you will, a battle cry and a cry of surrender.
Yet everything changed the day I realized more than anything, this song is a prayer,as the lead singer of Mike's Chair cries out,
“There's a raging sea... right in front of me... wants to pull me in, bring me to my knees, so let the waters rise, if you want them to, I will follow You... I will follow... You...”
Wants to pull me in, bring me to my knees.
Man, I think we can all relate to the storms and the seasons all that is around us brings us nowhere but to our knees in broken dependence upon our Father, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The storms and the seas raging all around us and within us. The places we want least to go. Yet the place where we find,
“You're in the eye of the storm And the calm of the sea You're never out of reach...”
IT HAS SPOKEN TO ME IN MOMENTS WHEN I'VE FELT OVERWHELMED OR AFRAID:
"Don't know where to begin- It'slike myworld's caving in- And I try but I can't control my fear- Where do I go from here?"
OR WHEN I HAVE FELT ALONE:
"Sometimes its so hard to pray - When You feel so far away- But I am willing to go- Where you want me to- God, I trust You..."
FULL OF FAITH:
"I will swim in the deep- Cause You'll be next to me- You're in the eye of the storm- And the calm of the sea- You're never out of reach..."
And those moments where more than anything this song has spoken to me, no matter where I am at or what I am feeling, these words have bolstered my faith and ushered in hope, joy, peace. THE MOMENTS WHERE I FEEL HIS LOVE SURROUNDING ME AND WHERE SUDDENLY NOTHING ELSE MATTERS AND EVERYTHING WITHIN ME CRIES OUT:
"God Your love is enough - You will pull me through- I'm holding onto You- God Your love is enough... I will follow You- I will follow You..."
TO TIMES WHEN, THEN MY HEART CAN SING THIS PRAYER, THIS SONG OF SURRENDER:
"There's a raging sea - Right in front of me - Wants to pull me in - Bring me to my knees... So let the waters rise - If You want them to... I will follow You - I will follow You..."
I have felt a number of times and joked with friends if I ever write a book, I think I have been given its title. These four words have encompassed more than I can express here for I struggle to even know where to begin or what words to even say.
Let the Waters Rise, are four words that have become the true cry of my heart in the last year and a half.
Encompassed a cry of surrender, a cry of trust in the One who alone is able. Strong and mighty to save.
The One I can trust, no matter what is happening around me, who will and is taking care of me. The One who I know has a plan. And His plans for me are good.
The One whose goodness and power and mercy and grace I will never ever be able to fully comprehend. The One who has shown me,
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you
when you walk through the fire, you willnotbe burned,
when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you,
fear not, for I amwithyou...
The One who gives power to the weak,
and strength to the powerless.
Is nearto the brokenhearted,
and saves those who arecrushedin spirit.
The One who is ourHope against hope,
that in Him we may believe.
He who is our way.
He who is our truth.
He who is our life.
He who is mighty. Mighty to save.
So with all I am, I say again, yes, Father, let the waters rise, if You want them to.
I will follow... You...
You who is my strength.
You who is my life.
I can trust You with all that I cannot know or see.
For You are my God over the windand the waves,
the Onewho alone can calma raging sea...
Make a path for your people to cross over on dry land, in the midst of a wall of sea.
::
You are my Jehovah Jireh, my God who provides.
You are my God who sees me.
My God of great faithfulness;
My God of great, great love.
