I stood before a sight I never imagined. A mess. A gaping hole wounding my plans, my self image, my safe place. As if it were a mirror I never bought, never hung. Only dared one day to look into. Then I looked again the next day and the 900 after that.

These words are not accusations, or if they be – they are the sweetest blame a soul could have.

God, You have burned down my walls and destroyed my naive pedestal. I look and see all the fallible worldly comforts are not beautiful anymore. The vision is an inside out emotion and where I once kept a pretty band aid, You have separated me from it. Removing it as if it were the cause for the cut itself.

Everything had a place. Everything had an answer. Yet tossing and turning in darkness nothing ever really did answer or stay.

Loneliness always mine though I named it Good Enough.

This was the war waged on my heart the day I met You.

The battlegrounds once my comfort zone. I dared look to the Heavens, You waited while I pretended. But when I looked, when somewhere inside I begged the authenticity of love, You appeared.

Making a place for Yourself, You removed the unholy, the lying salve of self-help and let me see the honesty of need next to the beautiful holiness You offered.

You took everything that was mine and gave me everything that was Yours. A scandalous trade – filth for unspeakable light.

And oh she was a disaster, the old woman in me. Then You took down the altars and called these dead bones to rise.

If this was a war, it was a war of mercy. Mercy. Mercy.

Jesus, I stand in the counsel and comfort of Your scriptures. I rest in the shade of Your creation. I sing a song the whole earth will know, that You are good and Your love endures forever. I taste Your forgiveness in every good morsel, in every crumb. When I bear a burden it is endeared with Your closeness.

You are not on my side, I am on Yours. It is not my corner You stand in but I in the shadow of Your wings. I do not live by bread but by every word that comes from Your mouth.

You are astounding, surrounding and grounding. My plight is ever going. And when I refuse to yield, a little tugging, removing and reminding must be. Though not without compassion Your hand is.

There are no molds for us, no limits where Your grace has touched. And I am so happy that I am broken as You are in my life giving it reason.

I give You the deepest thanks.

I love you. And if there be any better language, any sweeter words that I do not know, I’m saying them in my spirit somehow, praying I live them out.

Stumblings of a mother. Character-shapings of a wife. Patience for the earthly and longings for the heavenly. Victories in the darkness. 20 year old prayers still rising. Comforts and image caught up in the winds of humble fire. Even all these cause me joy because they are Your workings.

If there is pain while I walk with You, it is in the knowing who I am apart from you – and then as You sense that well of awareness, You flood me with gratitude.

May the Cross of Christ and the power of Your love be the emblem and signature of my life. May all the gifts and glory be Yours. In honesty I understand that is a possible invitation to be tried and proven, but the furnace refines. 

Amen.