“We must feel the pain to heal the pain.”

Lysa TerKeurst-Uninvited

Dear Readers,

I was prepared today with lighthearted words and funny stories. It’s our honeymoon week, my Sweet Man’s first days of retirement. Days of discovering new rhythms, later alarms, and more coffee than we need. Watching his amazement at the amount of traffic on our road. His furrowed brows as we divide chores.

If I were honest, I would tell you I didn’t even want to show up today. These first days are sacred days, finding new life in the ordinary and mundane.

And then.

And then I received an email late in the day, one filled with brokenness and pain. Devastation. A soft place to fall suddenly turned hard. Security and familiarity ripped to shreds. I read it more than once, tucked my phone away, whispered prayers, only to wake many times during the night. Upon checking the time, alerts crawled across the screen. More devastation. Fire, deaths, shootings, prison escapes. So. Much. Hard.

In the dark of night hard questions circle my mind, piercing deep.

Where is the beauty in painful places?

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Where is the beauty when ridges trip you up and send you flat on your face, your broken heart splintered a thousand and one ways?

The answer came long before questions haunted my sleep.

“until at last the Spirit is poured out on us from heaven. Then the wilderness will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.” Isaiah 32:15 (NLT) 

“You take care of the earth and water it, making it rich and fertile. The river of God has plenty of water; it provides a bountiful harvest of grain, for you have ordered it so. You drench the plowed ground with rain, melting the clods and leveling the ridges. You soften the earth with showers and bless its abundant crops.” Psalm 65:9&10 (NLT)

I had read this earlier in the evening, writing down these words :

-The wilderness becomes a fertile field, yielding beautiful crops

-The river of God, Living Water, equals a bountiful harvest

-Levels the ridges, softens my edges, softens the blow of painful places

-Painful, broken places bring blessings and abundant crops

-Living Water-Abundance-Abundant life

I know this with my heart, but the actual living it?

The fertile field lies deep in the wilderness

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The fertile field lies deep in the wilderness and I must walk through it to find abundant life with bountiful harvest. To live in faith is to take the steps.

Weeks before I was given a space of beauty, a bountiful harvest, outside of time. A window of abundance before hard things poured over us.

I wore this shirt.

Sang these words.

Hands raised high, believing with all I am, I am not alone.

Today I must live from a place of deep faith. Trust abundance will come. And it will. On the other side of this life we, as Believers, will live in awe of the bountiful harvest.

This side, we will gulp Living Water. Live with eyes wide open to the blessings of abundant places in the wilderness. In the hard, painful places.

Today, I will tell myself, “Even if, I still will,” over and over. Tomorrow, I will say it again.

“I don’t have to figure my present circumstances out. I don’t have to fill the silence in another person’s absence. I don’t have to know all the was and what-ifs. All I have to do is trust.”

Lysa TerKeurst-Uninvited

Gifts of Grace

PS: I’m blessed to serve you in this place, to share with you the Gifts of Grace as I journey through the wilderness. I picture you across the table, hands wrapped tightly around your cup, sharing life, and laughter, and tears. As I share with you my own daily struggles, I long to hear what yours may be. Sharing the realness of life. You can do that by commenting below or reaching out to me here.

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