i mislaid my master plan...

and don't really know where I'm going. But that's all good. I've got my hand in His. He knows where we're going.

And because things have been pretty depressing around here lately (sorry about that) I'm playing this song on repeat.

Happy Monday, friends :)

brokenness aside

I cry and You begin to bind up the broken places. I cry and You renew my hope. I cry more and You come and put Your loving arms around me and whisper secrets into the depths of my soul. I weep and You pour a healing balm on my injured heart.

It's not over. But hope returns and grows. Darkness is surely turning to dawn and joy comes in the morning.

You are the Saviour and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful.

the thing about brokenness

I ran away today. Escaped reality. 

I went to a spot by the sea and sat on a park bench overlooking the city. I tried to make out familiar landmarks on the other side of the water. I watched boats pass. I saw two little girls comb the beach for shells and watched their faces with fascination as they lit up with each treasured find. I heard a few words pass between them but mostly the wind caught their voices up and carried them away. I sat and pondered life and questioned God and searched my heart and the sky for answers. I didn't really find any. But I left with a peace that I didn't have when I got there. Sometimes it takes a moment away from life to enable us to continue in it. A pause. 

I spoke about brokenness the other day. I still feel broken. But a purposeful brokenness. Contradiction? Well maybe, but as much as I hate how this season feels, I just know that it has an important purpose. I don't know what that purpose it, just that there is one.  

Brokenness is the deep heart surgery that God performs on us to make us more like Him. It's the sweet aroma of the perfume called sacrifice. Brokenness is beauty. It doesn't feel like beauty or smell like it or taste like it, but it is. Because it costs something. Something of me. The somethings of me that need to die and be filled with more of Him. To live is Christ and to die is gain. How beautiful to pour ourselves out at the feet of Jesus. It is worship. Brokenness acknowledges my deep need for Jesus and only Jesus. Because I am not enough. I can't do it in my strength. I try and fail. But he is enough when I don't have it all together. And right now, I don't. It makes me run deeper into his arms and closer to his voice. Because I need him and because he is big enough and strong enough and just enough.

broken

I'm not going to lie. These are hard days. They're grey and cloudy and rain threatens more often than not.

My heart is trepidation and anticipation. I'm on the brink on something. But what?

I can feel something stir. An unease, a restlessness.

It's the knowing. This is my fight. There are battles ahead.

Will it be worth it? Will I come out unscathed? Or will I be broken?

What if I am wounded? Scarred? Will I be made whole?

I just ran out of bandaids. I can't pretend anymore. I don't even know where to start.

You can bandage the damage but you never really can fix a heart.

Can I trust Him to avoid being hurt? What if I get hurt anyway?

Can He make that beautiful again? Maybe more beautiful?

Will He take me, broken? Just broken, incomplete and unworthy.

Can I risk something when I don't know how much I'm risking?  It might be everything.

It's dark. I journey this on my own.

It's dangerous. I stand to lose.

Can I trust Him?

sometimes real life is ugly

It's quiet, the house has gone to sleep. And so I sit in the stillness of night and think. I'm tired of the unrelenting emotions that pull me back and forth between hope and hopelessness. Between life and despair. I'm overcome with the toll of the inner war raging in my heart. It's misery and torment. God, when will it end? Where will the energy come from to pick myself up and keep moving on? It's too hard. When will the days go back to being whole and joy-filled and beautiful? I'm spent from crying ugly tears that come out of nowhere and without any warning. I laugh and talk and smile happy smiles but underneath I'm dying of a broken heart. It's not ok. I'm not ok.

And somehow I'm ok with saying that. It's freeing.

coming in october

Think of the deepest, darkest, scariest thing you could possibly imagine doing. And then doing it. 

What if...
we did the things that scare us the most?

What if...
we did the things that scare us...
because they scare us?

And not just the things that sound scary...
but the ones that strike fear into our inmost being?

What would happen if we lived like that?

-----

This is so close to my heart. I have so much to say and I there are inadequate words to tell what I'm learning about being fearless. But words do come. Ever so slowly they come. I'm writing about fear, I'm writing about living fearlessly, I can't wait to share with you. Soon...

If you would like to contribute something on this subject, please get in touch with me about guest posting. This is an open offer, with no specific deadline. Seriously, I'd love to hear from you.

i will need a hammer

Today was another long and agonizing day. Dejection has become a rather frequent visitor lately. I sat down at the computer during my afternoon tea break. Only an hour to go before I could go home. And the clock was moving somewhat slower than usual. I opened Facebook. I hardly go on there anymore.
But I found this:

"When God has given you a promise (when you really know it's God) and all the doors start closing and you start doubting if you heard him or not. Don't be discouraged because it probably means you're on the right track and it's just time to either smash some doors or make holes in the walls"

Funny how just when I'd almost forgotten it, God reminded me that I'm not so crazy to trust him.  And that really, when it feels like there is no hope, I'm on the right track. It's darkest just before the dawn, right?
I was in the car on my way home this afternoon and there was just the faintest rainbow visible in the sky ahead of me. So thin and wispy that it hardly seemed real or there at all. I had to take a hard look before deciding that my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. A rainbow is a symbol of His promise to us, right? Is He trying to say something to me? Could it be that He brought me to a city frequented by rainbows for a reason?

So -

Does this call for a few holes in the wall?

i grow here

I saw a photograph of one lone flower - a weed, to be honest - 

growing all alone in a cracked and mossy street, nestled up against the curb.

There were no cars, no foot traffic, and no fellow flowers.

I saw myself in that flower and though: I grow here.

I grow here, sometimes utterly alone, but here I grow.

I feel like I've been plucked up by the roots from my very cozy pot and replanted in a vast and rocky terrain. Away from all the comforts and familiarity of home I've been doing pretty well - all things considered.  I've had to rely on God in ways that have stretched and grown me in my relationship with Him. And He has shown me his unfailing love and faithfulness in ways I've never experienced before.  But in spite of all the good, all the promise and hope in this new season, I feel alone. I am far away from my family. That was hard at first, but manageable. I was coping well with the change. Or so I thought. A few weeks ago I fell headlong into a terrible pit of despair and homesickness. I'd had enough of doing things on my own, living on my own, being cold on my own, cooking on my own, just being on my own. Usually that is not a problem for me. I like my own company - probably more than the average person. But it just sunk in one day - "This is permanent". Ever since then, I feel like my heart has been dying a slow and painful death. As much as I want to tell God to take my burden away, this is a season to surrender and relying on Him completely. I have never realised just how much I have needed to learn from being on my own until now that it is my reality.

So here I am. Growing. Alone but nonetheless, growing. Isn't that the most amazing thing about seasons? Even in the rough ones we are capable of growth. Maybe even more so than in the seasons of ease and comfort. And as long as I am rooted in His love there is nothing else for me to do but to grow evermore closer to Jesus. Because truthfully, if I didn't, I'd shrivel up and die. And amidst the heartache and the loneliness (yes, that is an ugly word but it's the truth) I live in hope. Although hope battles with despair most of the time and life with death but I know, even though I don't feel - God will not abandon me to the grave.

-----

This post is my version of an original work entitled 'I grow here' written by Marian Green.
It can be found at Ungrind.