For You Who Are Worn From This Battle

Hey, come here. Let me give you a big hug. 

He's got you, my sweet friend. 

I don't know what you're fighting today, but I know that you are worn out and worn down.  I want to offer you these words and just hug onto you with this blog.  I love you and I'm so sorry that it's incredibly hard right now.  More than hard.

I know that no one understands how truly arduous and grueling it is and that you feel so tired with the trials of life that you could lie down and sleep forever. I want something better for you than escaping beneath a blanket of your own fears. Because you don't really escape do you? Trust me, I've been there many times, an inmate beneath a cozy prison built from my own anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression brought on by both real life ordeals and the structure of my brain and its neurological mechanisms.  I want something different for you than that today.  I want you to have hopeful rest in the arms of your Creator.

I would move heaven and earth to fix this for you, to pull back that blanket of (very valid) fear and pain and bust you out of that prison.  But the only One that can do that is the One who created you. The One who created the heavens and the earth. 

He not only knew about this moment-this struggle-when He was creating you in the secret place, weaving you together in your mother's womb, He orchestrated it.  Yes, this. THIS.  Pain has a purpose and it can only be healed when its time.  Sometimes the pain IS the healing.  That's why I can't take care of it for you.  In my humanity, I would only want to stop you from hurting instead of loving you perfectly and letting you hurt for a bit for your greater good.  I don't know your end from your beginning, but the Author of your faith and life does.  

Sometimes that thought makes me feel better and sometimes it makes me feel bitter.

More than anything though, in the deepest part of me, it makes me feel created. Held. Not accidental. On purpose. 

Purpose

He wrote this into your song (yes THIS). He also wrote in the part where you rise up with the strength He gives you.  Now, let Him lead you in His rhythm. Watch your Father smile, His head thrown back in ecstasy as his baton waves wildly before you--showing you how fast, how slow, how intense, how soft to play. Play to His rhythm, listen for His heartbeat to lead you (you can hear it because you're close to it). Be silent when He calls for silence. Be loud when He calls for intensity. Let him conduct. Don't be intimidated by the silences, don't try to fill them with your own music, they're there for a purpose. 

When you listen to a song, you only hear the harmony 

because of the emptiness between the notes.  

If the song is too full of notes, it becomes nothing but noise.  

To hear the harmony you have to 

let the silences have their place in the song.  

It's like each note is a pearl upon a necklace 

and the silences are what strings them all together.

Maybe God knows that without his silences in our lives, 

we will never hear the melody of faith.

I think in every person's life a day comes when 
faith becomes a choice.  

You can either give up on the silence of God 

or choose to trust him in the dark 

as Jesus did

while he was dying on the cross. 

- Steven James 

Today, rest in the hands that are more than big enough to hold you, your baggage, your problems, your pain and your joy. Rest in the hands capable enough to sift through all of that and see YOU. Not the broken you, the whole you.  The created you. His you.  He doesn't call you to rise and stand to leave you helpless and defenseless.  

This kind of relationship with Him reminds me of when Willow cries for a long period of time and she can't tell me why. All she can do is cry and be held while I say "I know, I know." And I do, even when I don't.  Even when she doesn't have the words to tell me. I have been that little girl with Jesus many times. 

As a human mommy, I may not know, but as a Holy Father, God knows. He knows your past, your present, your future, your struggles, your pain, your motivations, your hows and your whys...He doesn't need your words if you can't give them, if you don't even know how to tell Him what's going on because you don't know yourself.  Be held today, friend!

As we break away from this hug know that I'm actively praying for you today, sweet child of God. Whether you know it or not He loves you and He's fighting for you. Even if you don't believe in Him, He believes in you. 

When all hope is lost, Hope hasn't lost you. 

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms;

he will carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead those that are with young.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand  

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure 

and weighed the mountains in scales 

and the hills in a balance?

To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

by the greatness of his might

and because he is strong in power,

not one is missing.

Isaiah 40:11,12, 25, 26