"True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a man who hasn’t suffered .. guys are unanimously embarrassed by their emptiness and woundedness; it is for most of us a tremendous source of shame. But it need not be. From the very beginning, back before the fall and the assault, ours was meant to be a desperately dependent existence. It’s like a tree and its branches, explains Christ. You are the branches, I am the trunk. From me you draw your life; that’s how it was meant to be. In fact, he goes on to say “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He’s not berating us or mocking us or even saying it with a sigh, all the while thinking, I’d wish they’d pull it together and stop needing me so much. Not at all. We are made to depend on God; we are made for union with him and nothing about us works right without it."

- John Elderedge

There's been an awful lot of remembering going on lately.
An awful lot of missing.

the Light

There is a Light that I know, a Light that permeates my life and fills each second with warmth. In the Light, there is purpose and hope, for in the Light, my eyes are on glorious things.
I walk in the Light, and my heart comes alive to see the things my eyes cannot. These things are far more glorious, for they are truly the things of Heaven. In the Light, my ears are tickled with promises and my heart clings to them, for these promises are good.

There is a darkness that despises this Light. The darkness stalks about, ready to claim any ground it can get. It only possesses the power you give it. But tiny shadows grow fast, for what darkness lacks in power, it makes up for in cunning.

And so I knew the Light. I loved the Light. It is the place that I longed to dwell, with a heart always eager to see more revealed that my heart did not yet know. But one day, a tiny little shadow entered my world of Light. This tiny little shadow bred a tiny little doubt in me, and the more I spent time entertaining this tiny little shadow, the more I came to see the Light and warmth leaving my life, and the shadow growing. Soon, my heart loosed its grip on the promises I knew when I was in the Light, and my company became despair. I cried out for the Light to return, but my tiny little shadow had swallowed me into its stomach.

Could Light ever find me in this place? The coldness of barren dreams and unfulfilled promises stamped out any flare of hope in me. Dreams of Light became foreign, and I feared I was lost forever.

But HOPE is not overwhelmed by darkness, and in the Light, there is a LOVE that is far stronger than the bonds of fear and despair that I had come to know in darkness. Love reached down the throat of darkness and rescued me from the pit. I was destroyed, but Love had delivered me. Love took me to a place of more brilliant Light than I could ever know.

God, Your love is Furious. It is Relentless. It is Jealous. It does not leave me to suffer in defeat, but it goes to any length to claim back what belongs to You, that You may share Your inheritance. It is the passionate, unyielding fury of Your love that draws me back into Your light. Every time. 

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:21-24

A song from when I was growing up. And tonight, these words are just so fitting from the place in my heart that doesn't have words to say much, except to fall into Jesus.

I am not defined by what I've done,
but what the blood of Jesus has overcome.

a promise

Today, as I dragged the vacuum cleaner up the stairs for some much needed cleaning, I heard a sprinkler just outside the door. I didn't think much of it, but I glimpsed up just as the sun hit the water in such a way that created this stunning rainbow, right outside my front door, just like it was put there for me. If I hadn't looked up as I made the trek up the stairs, I would have missed it.

It got me thinking... how often, in the midst of circumstances we don't understand as we trudge upwards carrying a load, or in the midst of us trying to clean up our messes, do we forget to look up and see the promises that God has for us, right on our doorstep? Too often we get tunnel visioned into a task that we think requires our strength, when God's promises are waiting just outside. We just need to step out into them :)

Thank You Jesus, for Your promises. For Your faithfulness. For Your vow of love to us. You are good.