I think I finally realized something: I get to be happy.
I’ve lived for so long in this, “This is the way it is. You
just endure and hope it’s over soon” mindset even while people around me were
saying, “It’s not always like this. There are hard times, but there are good
times too.” I’ve been in the hard so long—the emotional grind, the uphill
battle, fighting to see even hope—that imagining that the things I imagine and
dream about could come to be seems like a complete fantasy, one I haven’t even
allowed myself to indulge in—I can’t. If I did, for one moment, I wouldn’t be
able to enter in, to go back into the fray that is my daily life.
So I push and I fight and I’m exhausted but sustained—by a
good God, whose powerful, good, life-giving Presence continues to pour into me
and gets me through the torture that life can seem. He’s my safe place (refuge
as Psalms 91 says) and with Him I am complete—no matter the storm around me.
And He’s taught me to abide, and He’s taught me to cry out
for Him and He’s taught me to love even when there isn’t anything visible to
human eyes worth loving. He’s taught me to believe beyond what I can see, live
heaven-minded and trust Him. And I have lived—conquered—even found freedom in
the middle of mine and my family’s struggle.
He is truth and hope and love and He has been enough for us
in the middle of it all.
And I haven’t done it perfectly—I have way too many things
to regret—but He’s teaching me even there to let the past be the past and move
forward in hope—or as one of my favorite Chris Tomlin songs says: LET THE
FUTURE BEGIN!
I was at his concert two nights ago and just got taught
again how good He is. We worship because He shows up, inhabits the praise that
we send forth and changes our hearts as we interact with Him. I love this
personal, loving, close God…I went to this concert out of obedience (it was a
school night!) and I could just feel God pulling off layers—getting at my heart
and the battering it has received lately and just washing, cleansing,
strengthening in the most powerful way. He has good ahead of me—so close, I can
almost taste it! as they say—and even in the middle of that crowded arena He
was speaking close to my heart again, making that hope rise, changing and
preparing me for the future. I walked out with my heart feeling a little bit
different…
I heard a sermon recently that talked about how life is a
process of giving the Lord little bits of our heart at a time. This is true:
that it is a process on one hand—your whole heart does not automatically become
His (I’m sure there are exceptions) but on the other hand it shows such
faithfulness and patience on His part—to keep pursuing our hearts, even in the
places where we don’t necessarily want to be fully His, it shows off His love.
That He would keep coming after us, being patience with us, letting us have a
part and a say in the relationship and not pressing us beyond what we are able
to give. It’s a beautiful piece of God.
I was a little more His after that night at the concert: a
little (no, actually a whole ton) more able to believe that He has good for me
(exceedingly more than I’m imagining! As the Kristene Mueller song I’m
listening to right now says—God timing!). That what I have been dreaming of
could become a beautiful, hopeful reality that I get to just bless Him
with—honoring Him because He’s the only One capable of pulling it off and
loving Him even more for being able to dream and see come to fruition the joy
of His heart.
Realizing that He desires that I be happy and fulfilled more
than I ever will is an incredible (almost unnerving for me) declaration. But
it’s true. He wants kids after His heart who will dream with Him to see the
world changed and He will be the force behind the movement as we launch forth
in hope: His sailboats.
I’m ready for anything and the next step and the launching…
Always, desperately, hopefully, carefully, wonderfully His.
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