A beautifully simple life

 

I had a wonderful mentor many years ago explain to me what it meant to be an INFJ. I was so intrigued back then because it finally put somethings in my life in perspective and it helped me make sense of things I had struggled with because I didn't know how to explain it. As a teen I was so insecure and shy and always preferred to be outside with the animals or sitting in a deep conversation with someone rather than the "normal" teen stuff.

But as I have grown I have learned that this is just how God made me. I have grown to love those parts of myself that can make me seem weird to people :) God creates us each so wonderfully and with such precision. It always astounds me. Each of us have been given a mighty and magnificent purpose and some of us may live ours out in a quiet and gentle way....and that's ok.

Today while out riding horses with my daughter, I loved the conversation we had about how kindness really is a super power and that being kind and gentle in a hard and ugly world requires a strength that not everyone has naturally but when we surrender our lives to the Holy Spirit, He is able to do supernatural work and empower us to walk really hard situations out with grace.

My heart is happy that I am no longer embarrassed or afraid of who I am. It only took 41 years....but hey.....I'm a work in progress! I'm grateful that I can walk confidently in Christ and know who I am in Him. It completely changes everything. No longer do we look for acceptance from others or things. We simply live out brave by His power. For me to learn this, there had to be a stripping of myself. A stripping away of all that I had wrapped up my identity in. Personally that was incredibly painful and something I resisted even as I knew I would grow from it. For all of my adult life had been wrapped up in being a mom and a wife and in the stripping of those things I was left with a burning question deep within me....WHO AM I? What is my value?

I clung to the Word of God as a lifeline that would either see me through or take me home because the process was so painful. Long before the shattering happened though, God was equipping me as an INFJ and He had already put inside of me a deep desire to stand firm on His Word.

As I have spent the last few years getting to know me again, I'm glad that I am different. I'm happy that God continues to remind me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that my purpose never wavered or disappeared although my spirit wrestled with it for sure.

Now I am loving my simple and beautiful life. I am confident in who I am in Christ and in His power in me. I'm confident that God put me together just as He wanted me to be. I'm confident that although I still have much to learn, that in and of itself is a beautiful adventure!

Simple. Raw. Real. Authentic.

It really is a beautiful place to be.

The Lines We Draw

We all draw lines in the sand. Those things that we believe deeply in and for and that we will not budge on. These are the things that make up our belief system. We all have them. Even as children we have these lines and we want them to be respected and even more importantly, we want them to be understood. 

 Sometimes I wonder why each of us decide to draw the line in the sand where we do. 

Every line that is drawn should be something that we believe deeply in the core of who we are. Our lines should point back to what we believe and how we live that out.

So that makes me very careful about my lines. It makes me very aware of my lines. Because my lines and your lines matter. They matter a great deal and they direct each of us in many ways. They also reflect our heart and what we believe in. 

I think we need to make sure and take time to evaluate the line we are drawing.

I usually have one question I ask myself when I am about to draw a line. Here it is," Does it stop me from sharing the Gospel?"

If the answer is yes....then I simply MUST draw the line. 

If the answer is no....I need to pause. Evaluate. Then make a decision that best supports the Gospel being spread.

It feels like many of us have forgotten that is the goal. 

Instead we join right in with the loud gonging that is so very loud in our world today, and instead of bringing peace, we bring pain and hurt as we demand that our way is heard. We scream virtually at strangers and friends both because their line is different than ours.

There is a Scripture that is overlooked more often than not with believers. It is Romans 12:18. It says that if we can live at peace with men....to do so. 

Be careful which sword you die by....and where you draw your line.

We are arguing about so many things that we simply do not have to be arguing about. We are making post on our social media pages that are harsh, judgmental and even cruel. We mock people's pain, ignore people's trauma, make fun of a person's struggle, and  refuse to acknowledge an opinion that would defer from ours because we quite honestly walk around arrogantly thinking we are right. 

So let me ask you again....

Does it prevent you from sharing the Gospel?

I teach my girls to make a stand.

I teach them to know what they believe and be able to defend that belief system by knowing WHY they believe that way.

I teach them to be bold and brave.

However.....I also teach them to make a difference by quietly going about each of their days with kindness, love, a listening ear, and a brave heart. 

They do not need the world to agree with them to live out what they believe.

They do not need to be right in every conversation.

They do not need to surround themselves with people who only think like they think.

They DO need to learn how to handle conflict with grace.

They DO need to know how to articulate their beliefs without having to curse, scream, or belittle. 

They DO need to learn how to see past an action and into the root of why....oh if we all could do this!

They DO need to learn when and where to draw a line. 

They DO need to learn how to live out Romans 12:18.

So my dear friends....let's go and be brave enough to be kind and to live at peace with all men if possible for us to do so. 

And when we draw our line, I pray it is drawn because of love. 

And then it was final.

I have often thought over the years on how I would write this post if I had to write it. 

It still is a difficult post to write but one that needs to be written. 

We need to be having conversations about hard things and unfortunately, divorce is one of them.

A little peek into the back story: I married what I believed to be my dream man on Nov. 4th, 2000. We began building our marriage on a foundation of Christ and each other....or so I thought. We packed a lot of hard things in a small amount of years and we were both very young, but we had many, many, many fun adventures and beautiful moments. I had the beautiful opportunity to be a stay at home mom and I fully delighted in being a mom and a wife. I have always felt things deeply and being a mom and a wife would leave me in grateful tears so many times. 

Each day was full of choices and slowly....ever so slowly....the choices that my husband made and the choices that I made did not align with each other anymore. Our marriage became a place of great sadness for me. It seemed like there was always another broken promise or another broken dream and I just cried a lot. I reached out to his parents and my parents and the church....desperately seeking help because honestly, I just loved him. Eventually the struggles got even more significant and he went to rehab. My daughters and I believed with all of our hearts that this would be the thing that God would use to bring him back to us. And for awhile, we thought it did....

However, we always have free will and free choices. It is one of the most beautiful things about being a human....the right to choose. But with those rights come a great responsibility and ownership of our choices. We get to make them but sometimes the consequences of them are not just ours but instead are shared by our family. During the time that my husband was in rehab, our entire family was learning about recovery and I was learning a lot about what I had accepted as "normal" and what I had accepted as "ok" even though I knew it didn't sit well with my spirit. Over the years, I had learned to constantly doubt myself. I lived in a forever state of questioning myself....did I really hear that? Is that what I really saw? Was I being stupid and selfish for asking for that? Was I being dumb for expecting faithfulness? I was constantly told that I didn't see or hear what I knew I did and that I never understood what was really going on because I just didn't get it....I didn't realize it then, but I had lived in a state of being gas lighted and manipulated for years. 

I didn't realize it then but looking back I think that the rehab wasn't actually for my husband but it was for my daughters and I. It was for us to have our eyes opened and stop enabling and start speaking up for ourselves and for truth. We needed to be educated on it because I know that if I had not have been educated on what was going on, I would have stayed....even though chronic infidelity and abuse was going on. I would have stayed because that is what I was taught to do. I thought that was what God wanted me to do. I didn't feel like I was worth anything more than how I was being treated. 

This is why this conversation needs to happen. Because even today we are teaching things to our children and we may not be aware that we are inadvertently teaching them to tolerate and accept abuse. My parents never taught me to accept abuse, they taught me to never give up on a marriage. So when I was in a marriage that kept crossing the lines, I didn't have the right tools to help me navigate through it. My church never taught me that abuse is ok, but it did teach me that divorce is wrong. I love Jesus and have always tried to honor Him with my whole life, so this meant in my mind that getting a divorce would mean that I was being disobedient to Christ. I cannot adequately express how much turmoil this put me in!! I wrestled with it day and night and was so torn.

Thankfully God had put some amazing counselors and mentors in our lives and they were able to help me navigate through first separation and then up to this point today...the finalization of the divorce. I did not want a divorce at first because I wanted my husband to see value in me and the girls and want to stay with us and be in love with just me....no other women....but that was what I dreamed of, not what I had. I am so grateful for counselors that taught me how to see my reality for what it was and not what I dreamed it would be. I wanted my husband to be someone he chose not to be and I could not take that choice away from him. 

I tend to see good in most everyone. Because of how I was raised, I was taught to see the story behind the actions and I always believed that God had called my husband to be a great man. I saw true value in his story...even the hard parts that broke my heart. I knew that God could take all that and turn it into a powerful testimony for His glory!! I still believe that about my now ex husband. I believe that God can take all of us, mess and all, when we simply repent and surrender our mess to Him and He can bring beauty from any ash.  But again, we cannot take away a persons right to choose. If someone does not want to be faithful, no one can force them to do so. It comes from their character....the integrity that is either in them or not.  I want my girls to believe in miracles and redemption even as I want them to believe in God's Word as the final authority in their lives. 

I have learned so many things, some of them have broken my heart, and some of them have opened my heart, but all of them have been used by God to teach me more about His heart and the way He sees me. I learned how to set boundaries up and not be afraid to protect myself or my girls. I learned to trust my intuition again that is God given! I learned to surround myself with people who speak truth to my heart and who are not afraid to stand up for wrong behavior. 

Sitting here thinking about the last four years I am simply flooded with emotion! Thankfully I feel I have worked through so much of my pain and that now I am just looking forward to the future. My life detoured in such a drastic way and it nearly took the life right out of me. But when we cry out to God, He always hears us. He never once has left me alone and in my darkest moments that were full of so much pain and agony, He was there and His Word ministered to my heart in supernatural ways. 

I recently had a friend ask me if I still believed in love. ABSOLUTELY!! I want my daughters to believe in love and romance and beauty. I want them to know that there ARE men of honor who value their family and their wives and that God longs for them to have that as well. I also want my girls to know what to do if the person they married ever starts to abuse them. I want them to know when to fight for the marriage and when to let God do the fighting for them. I want them to know their value and worth and NEVER stay in a relationship that is abusive or harmful to them physically, emotionally, spiritually or mentally. I want them to learn how to stand firm on what is right and never be afraid to stand on their boundaries. I want them to know that being in alignment with God's Word is vital and that it is NOT wrong to hold people accountable for their actions as long as you also understand that they have the right to choose who they serve....and so do you. 

I am sad that my dream was broken, even as I am full of gratefulness for God giving me new dreams. Divorce was NEVER part of my dream and has taken me a long time to accept that it is now forever a part of my story. The redemption of my marriage that I prayed for was not to be and once I accepted that I started understanding more about God's love for us. He offers redemption to everyone, but not everyone will accept it and they have the right to choose.

So as my next chapter begins, I know to do this one thing. Love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind and soul. Draw so close to Him every single day. Keep my eyes looking up. When I start to get really depressed ( yes, it still does happen at times), put on a worship song and go for a drive with the windows rolled down, or go into my war room and simply get on my knees and have a good cry. BE REAL. I refuse to pretend anymore. I did for so many years and I will never go back to that!!  Sometimes people say I am "to real"....nope. It is when we share our struggles, our victories, and our weaknesses that we see God's strength in us. 

The JOY of the Lord is my STRENGTH. I take this verse very literal and it has proven true for me. His joy becomes my strength, Praise God! Every time I have had to figure out life when I had NO CLUE what to do, I choose His joy and it became my strength and still to this day is the strength that gets me through each day. I still believe in miracles and marriage! I don't ever see myself remarrying because lets face it...my life is CRAZY and it would take an exceptional man to fall in love with all of our craziness! For those of you who thought my standards were high before....they have only gotten stronger!  I have these beautiful daughters watching me and learning from me and I want to teach them well. The good news is that contrary to what I believed for so long, I CAN have dreams and goals and I CAN make a difference in this world even if I am not married. Jeremiah 29:13 is one of my all time favorite verses and it says, " You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart." So that is what I plan to do....with all my heart. 

The result of a dangerous prayer.

There is a sermon series out by Craig Groeschel called," Dangerous Prayers."

I have been listening to it and God has given me a desire to share some things on this subject.

I have prayed these dangerous prayers since I was about 12 years old. I have a journal full of my young handwriting asking God to Create in me a pure heart and to renew a right spirit within me. I have poured out my heart to God and year after year asked Him to break my heart and to help me see sin and his people the way that He does. I have asked him to keep me soft in a hard world and to help me be brave enough to be different from everyone else in this world. 

I was a foolish and young child. 

I did not know what I was praying....because God heard my prayers and He has answered them...and it has been the most uncomfortable and difficult thing that I have ever walked through.

When we pray these prayers, are we willing to walk them out?

When I prayed for God to break my heart....was I willing to follow Him in complete surrender after He did?

Craig said something powerful in one of those sermons," What if God's greatest blessings come from God's greatest breakings."....and my heart knows just what he meant.

When I was a child, I prayed this prayer because I loved my King and I longed to be as close to His heart as I could get and His Word told me that He was close to the broken hearted....so out of that innocence....I prayed for God to break my heart. To take me out of my comfort zone and not allow me to live with blinders on to the pain of this world. But I didn't have a clue as to what that was going to cost me.

God began this breaking in me even as a child....my parents were foster parents and I saw child after child come and go from our home and my heart would attach to them as siblings, just to see them leave time after time. BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw some of my family struggle with divorce and addictions and it broke my young heart....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw mental illness in some of my best friends and dearest family members and would cry all night sometimes, asking God to heal them....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I went on mission trips with my youth group and saw families struggling to have food, clothes, and basic necessities of life and still to this day pray for some of these families that touched my heart so deeply....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw people walk away from their faith....some of my friends and some people from church who I loved dearly... and I cried and cried....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

so my heart broke....

and I thanked God for it...

because even though it hurt so bad, He also gave me deep compassion for each of these situations and He drew me closer to His heart and He deepened my faith little bit by little bit.

Then I met my husband and I just knew that together He and I would be walking life together and God would use us to make a difference....never thinking for a minute that God would break my heart through my marriage. But He did.

My husband struggled with his own brokenness and that brokenness ultimately lead to the brokenness of our family. 

We fostered for years and my heart broke with the stories that came through the hearts of the children and again as often times they went right back into the abusive situation. 

When mental illness began to wreck our world and my daughters world...I WRESTLED AND ARGUED WITH GOD RELENTLESSLY! I begged Him for healing and prayed dangerous and bold prayers for her healing....but it didn't come the way I desired for it to come....instead...my heart broke again.

And then our whole family became focused on rehabs and addiction education as my husband struggled with these things...and I BELIEVED THAT GOD WAS GOING TO HEAL MY HUSBAND AND MY MARRIAGE. I believed it with every core of my body. I was still deeply in love with my husband and even though I was struggling to understand the why of what he was doing, I never doubted the power of God's healing in his life....then he left. 

I call it the Shattering.

It was WAY deeper than a broken heart. It was a shattering of my spirit and my faith....and to be honest I didn't know if I would make it....but as I lay there on that floor day after day, crying until I couldn't breathe....and WRESTLING WITH WHY GOD DIDN'T ANSWER MY PRAYER....AND WHAT I DID WRONG TO MAKE MY HUSBAND LEAVE....AND WHY I WAS SUCH A LOSER THAT I WASN'T WORTH FIGHTING FOR OR LOVING ANYMORE....I wrestled with why my prayers didn't matter to God....and it left me shattered.

So what do you do when you are shattered....all I could do was cry out to God and read His Word. I knew deep in me, that if I didn't cling to Him with everything that I had left....I would not make it through this. The grief was to deep and the sadness so thick that I would pray and ask God to take me home each night or give me the strength for each day....because I just couldn't do it. 

And slowly....so so slowly....God began to show me that HE HAD BEEN PREPARING ME FOR THIS ALL ALONG. 

I didn't like that. I struggled with that. I wasn't ok with it....but I have learned through all those years ago, that my God was faithful!  That my God was real. That my God would never lie to me....and so if His Word said it, then it was true. The Word of God had become a rock in my life by this point. 

But you know what else came with the shattering?

Compassion. Empathy. Boundaries. Genuine love.

Praying dangerous prayers is costly.

It will require more out of you than you can give....but that is where the power of the Holy Spirit comes in. His strength fills your heart with joy and love. 

I have become closely acquainted with grief, sadness, and deep sorrow. 

But I have also become closely acquainted with joy, new beginnings, and a song that God sings over my daughters and I. It is a beautiful song and it brings us joy even in the midst of such pain. His joy is a soothing balm to my heart and I am finding more and more joy in the simple beauty of God's faithfulness to us. It blows me away that He is so gracious and loves us so much!

So my friends....BE BRAVE! PRAY THOSE DANGEROUS PRAYERS!....But know that God hears those prayers because He loves listening to us. Those prayers come with a cost....weigh it out. Talk to God about it...and then I encourage you to bow your head, humble your heart, bend your knee....and pray BIG AND BOLD DANGEROUS PRAYERS.

I have a choice every day to live my life comfortable and "safe".....or to throw myself into the arms of Jesus and trust His Word. It is crazy. It doesn't make sense. But it is how I choose to live. You have that choice too....and I cannot challenge you enough to pray dangerous prayers.

Right now our world needs beautiful hearts ready to stand unafraid in the presence of evil and pray big and bold prayers because WE KNOW WHO WE SERVE!
GREAT IS THE LORD AND WORTHY TO BE PRAISED!...even in the broken. Even in the hard. Even in the unfair. And I pray for my own life....that I will NEVER shy away from dangerous prayers!

5 Practical steps for single moms :)

           
Being a single mom was never on my radar.
I had some friends that were single moms....but not once actually understood what they were going through....until I became one of them.
Life is funny like that....so many times we may "sympathize" with something but unless we walk it ourselves, we cannot "empathize" with their story.
I have been a single mom for a few years now....and at first, I was certain I wouldn't make it. I felt SO stressed every single second of every single day! Absolute truth. I thought I would die. It may sound dramatic....but I am being completely honest. Some night I wasn't sure I wanted to make it to the next day. I was dealing with incredibly deep grief and didn't even know how to express my pain. I had felt betrayed, abandoned, and so embarrassed and ashamed. I had fought so hard for my marriage and truly believed that God was going to redeem it....and He didn't.
I think I felt more betrayed by God than anyone.
And I found myself a single mom.
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to handle the stress that I was now under.
I felt like I had lost everything.
My marriage was destroyed.
My relationship with my in-laws who I thought loved me as family was crumbling.
I was a homeschooling mom who needed to put her children in public school now which to me felt like I was losing even more.
I was no longer a stay at home mom and wife....I was needing to figure out how to navigate the work force and become a career woman now....something that terrified me in every way.
I needed to learn how to budget on a minuscule budget and I needed to learn how to do things alone. I felt the weight of the world on me.
What did I fear?
I feared making the wrong choice for my family.
I feared not being "enough" in any area...financially, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
I feared being alone at night.
I feared raising my girls without a dad...I had read all the statistics and knew that it would make them have a greater risk for being abused among other things.
I feared something happening to me and no one to take care of my girls the way I would.
I feared....alot.
During this whole time I believed that God was with me. I believed that He was going to help me....but I still feared alot.

And now here we are a few years down the road....and a corona virus on our hands. Which could mean more fear for some of us single moms.....so I want to give a word of encouragement to those of you who are walking this road as a single parent right now.

Here are 5 practical things that helped me push through my fear and into my faith.

1. Stay in the Word of God. Even when you are mad at God. Even when you don't know where to start or what to read. Even when you aren't sure if you believe it....keep reading it.

2. Stay connected. You will want to isolate. You will want to stop going to church. Stay connected. Find a church that you feel safe in and go even when you cry all the time. Keep going.

3. Get in counseling. You need to be able to talk about what happened to you. You need to have someone help you walk through the grief you will experience. The first year is especially cruel because you experience all the "first" events alone....birthdays, holidays, anniversary....and they can cripple you. Talking about it helps but it needs to be in a safe environment.

4. Get some fresh air and drink water. I'm not even kidding....it may sound weird but I promise that fresh air and water are going to help you. Take a walk each day if you can...even if only for 10 minutes. Set small goals of being healthy such as taking a small walk every day, drinking water every day, eating fruit instead of sugar. These may already be a part of your every day life or they may not be, but if you will make them a priority, it will help your soul breathe and take away a tiny bit of stress each day.

5. DO NOT GET INTO ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP FOR AT LEAST A YEAR. This may not be popular, but my friends let me tell you that I think it is vital. You need to heal and temptation will come because you are lonely and it may seem like a really good idea to quickly get into another relationship....I promise it can wait. I promise if that is the person that God has for you...they will happily wait at least a year for you to heal. When you walk through trauma, you are vulnerable to many dangers and could easily slip into a relationship that "looks good" but isn't going to be good and you don't need more trauma....you will feel so lonely at times but God wants to meet you in that loneliness. When you are so lonely, put on that worship music, grab your Bible and journal and cry out to God. Don't be afraid to be alone. I can attest that God WILL MEET YOUR LONELY HEART. He will be so gentle with it and pour His healing Word into that broken heart and you will begin to heal...but to do that we have to let Him have our hurt instead of us try to cover it up quickly with another relationship. I have seen far to many women jump quickly into another relationship and they haven't allowed their hearts to heal so they bring alot of brokenness with them into that relationship or they accept behavior that they shouldn't because they are just afraid of being alone. It takes courage to be alone and know that God will take care of you....but you can do it! I promise you can.

I can tell you that I have learned SO MUCH in these last few years about myself, my faith, and my God. I have seen the darkest parts of myself and I have seen many weaknesses in my life....but I have also grown in ways that would never have happened unless I had been stripped bare.

The last thing I want to share with you is this: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You are a part of a single mom community who are here to hep you...step by step navigate through this new world. We are cheering for you and consider it a joy to be a part of your tribe. Single mom's are some of the toughest women I know....and definitely some of the bravest. You may not feel that way right now....but you are.

Wrestling out loud

Believing that God is good...FOR OUR GOOD....can be really hard for me at times. 

Often time I want to see God's Word come to pass BEFORE I believe and rejoice. If only I would believe what He speaks to me and IMMEDIATELY rejoice and obey!

I find myself in such a different spot than I ever imagined I would be in. I always thought I would grow old with my husband and at this point in our lives....nearly 20 years of marriage...we would be sitting on the couch in the evenings together talking about our day....and truly just enjoying each other.
But instead....I find myself sitting on the couch alone.
And still at times it takes my breath away....and I wonder how I got to this spot.

I guess we all have those moments, don't we? When we just sit and think about life...and the choices that led us to where we are.
I have learned to embrace these moments....to truly sit in them and let my heart and mind search. I don't try and stop my feelings but instead just let myself feel them...and in the feeling, I take each emotion and lay it down at the feet of Jesus.
Sometimes it is the emotion of frustration....WHY IS THIS HAPPENING kind of emotion.
Sometimes it is raw pain...I did not want this road and it hurts my heart to walk it.
Other times it is deep grief....I have LOST. That is truth and in that truth there is grief.
And sometimes it is anger...Why is this allowed? Why didn't God change this? Change him? Change me? Why didn't it work out the way I thought it should?

All of these emotions can lead to depression, bitterness, and rooted anger if I don't identify them and face them. Facing our emotions can be so scary! But it can also be such a beautiful exchange between God and me. I lay each emotion at His feet...and in exchange He takes my emotion and gives me peace instead. He takes my anger and exchanges it for joy. He takes my frustration and exchanges it for long suffering and patience. He reaches into the very depth of my heart and takes my deep grief and exchanges it for hope. Each broken emotion that I bring to Him, He takes it so gently and slowly begins the process of untangling it from my heart. He takes the hurt and if I am brave enough to name it....to face it...He traces that emotion back to the root....and He removes the very root of that pain. The most beautiful part of all of it is that He never just takes from me, leaving empty spaces void of anything. He FILLS them with HIS PRESENCE.

I think I will always be learning of His ways, but this is one of my favorite things He has shown me. Because it is such a beautiful exchange between a Father and his daughter. And it is raw and personal. It is me being brave enough to admit that at times I DON"T FEEL good about the story He has written in my life. It is about being honest enough to look into His eyes, knowing He bears the scars of the Cross, and still tell Him this part of the story hurts. It is about trusting Him enough with all of my heart.

Trusting that God has not only allowed this part of the story but also that it is FOR MY GOOD....I wrestle with that. I wrestle that my younger daughters being raised without a dad is for their good. I wrestle that my tears cried and my heart sobs are good for me....I wrestle with all of that. And let's be honest....I wrestle with the unanswered prayers for my husband. I wrestle with why God has not stepped in and spoken truth to my husband instead of letting him slowly destroy himself. I watch in despair and sadness as I see from afar the choices that he continues to make and I see how those choices affect him, my daughters, and myself. Yes, I wrestle with much. Even now....three years into it.

But I also believe.
And so I just choose to be brave this day.
I choose to face the emotion and to know that my God is big enough to handle all of my emotional self!
I choose to believe in the beauty that is still there....and I choose to be grateful. Out loud.
I choose to praise and sing even when my heart is so heavy....I raise my halleluiah in the middle of my "even if" moments.

And sometimes, I just let myself get quiet and I let myself wrestle with all the "I don't understands" that I have inside of me....and I write. I write out my heart and what God is showing me and teaching me in hopes that someone else will read it and realize they are not the only ones wrestling...and that it is ok to wrestle. To question. To wonder....

So maybe this is part of the sanctification process. Maybe this is the part where we are able to peel back the exterior of a world that is hurting and broken and yet acts like they have it all together....and maybe we can just be honest with them. Show them that when we commit our lives to Jesus, it doesn't always go the beautiful way of our dreams. Maybe we can show them how to hurt, how to be angry, how to walk through betrayal and pain....how to be blind sided by grief....and STILL BELIEVE. Maybe that is part of the story as well....because after all....that is what Jesus did for us didn't He? He showed us how to walk out each of our different emotions, and simply cry out to God through them. He showed us how to surrender them....and have an exchange with the Father in them.

This is my prayer. That through all of this....Jesus will be seen in my every moment.
Because then all of it makes a little more sense.
Maybe there is something holy in the wrestling that I do....
Maybe all of this is allowed so that JESUS can be seen in all of it. And maybe....someone out there is watching us, and because we aren't afraid to be honest about our story, they commit their lives to Jesus.
Maybe that is part of this whole story.....
Maybe redemption does come....but for someone that I don't even know about yet.
Maybe redemption will be the very best part of this story after all.