the Answer

Our questions were a tornado. Swirling rapidly towards us.
The funnel was a foresight of the destruction that was to come.
 These homes in the path of the tornado were our faith.
The questions did not subdue in our prayers to silence them.
Instead, the wind and the world caused it to swell with momentum.
Terrified we stared it in the face. Knowing what could come.
Knowing the power and strength this tornado possessed.
 The wind was strong.
We did not know if we had been rooted enough where we had been planted.
Were our foundations strong enough?
 It was too late to run for the bunker.
 We had stood too long staring our questions in the face.
Too much time had been devoted to building these concerns.

You could hear the questions coming, screaming at us in the intense wind. "Is this the way its supposed to be? What if I can't fix everything? How can I watch the ones I love most struggle? What if they let go? What does that say about God? Is God near the brokenhearted when he seems far and distant? Where is God when it hurts? Where is He in the struggle? What if He stays silent?"

Then comes the eery silence of destruction after a storm.

Here we stand, surrounded by the ruins of our homes and lives. Obliterated by the tornado, we found the questions remain. The questions were not the tornado. The questions were instead the prophecy and the hindsight.
And now the questions lay in our ruins.
 Our faith was strong and is now crippled.
Our faith that defined us, we have now shed like skin.
Our faith that had become us was shifting.

Not because we had let go of our God. No, we were clinging to him more fully in this storm. But Sunday school did not equip us for these trials, Children's Church did not prepare us for these questions. And if it takes shedding our faith to know our God then we invite it courageously. Because we know Him. We have come to know him deeply and intimately. And for some reason, the truth they told us as children doesn't quite add up to truth. Here and now we are clumsily dancing with a perfect Dancer. Here as we dance, there is no room for doubt because our Savior is right in front of us. We can touch him, we feel him, we know him. But we had been taught all the wrong moves because our teacher was not our Savior and now that we were on the floor, it was different than what the textbooks had prepared us for. It was completely upside down. But this dance was more real and more lovely than anything I could have imagined.

So we stand. Our feet grounded. Everything we had been sure of, ashes. All that we had believed in, a mess.
And yet, our constant remained. He stood, held out his hand and invited us to a dance of wrestling.
A dance of struggle. It was not always graceful. There is stumbling, there is a stepping on toes. But there is humility and love. There are both hope and grace. Because the one who leads my dance is the one who makes beautiful things out of towns that have become destruction grounds for lives. The one who leads me is the one who creates kindness out of tragedy, life out of death, peace out of storms. Futures with loved ones may have been obliterated, our healthy bodies wasting away, our hearts shattered, bound, broken. But these things are just a shadow. We have been called to walk in the valley of the shadow of death. But it is just a valley, it is only a shadow. There is a full sun which points us to the Son. There is a mountain that must be climbed that takes us out of the valley. There is hope beyond comparison.


A wise and gentle teacher once walked me through this. I've been here before. He told us about the shelf that was in all of our hearts. The questions we fashion often become so overwhelming. Quickly, we are weighed down by the weight of these confusing words and fears. We are brought to our knees and nearly blinded carrying these questions. He told us then, that these questions, these conflicts we have with the God above are small and lifeless when we look into the eyes of our Savior. He is good. He allows us to wrestle with him with our questions in between. Ultimately, though, our questions belong on the shelf. I stood in my most broken place, sobbing because these questions were real. Where had God been when the hurricane wrecked my world? My life obliterated? Where had he been when my life burned to the ground with not a remnant of the past? My heart, dust. My soul, ashes. Where had he been when He took my best friend away? I stood there, and this kind and gentle teacher guided me to my Savior. He slowly spoke of God's truth, and how his characteristics are good and how He is kind. My questions grew dim. What I had been gripping for years, I released. I walked to the shelf and placed them there. It's been 3 years and they haven't stayed. Often I have removed them. But some have grown dusty. The oldest question there hasn't been taken in years. The one where as a small child we pestered our pastor with questions about the Trinity. Questions that could not be answered for our small hearts to grasp. But we accepted that God was good. There are the questions when I tried to grapple with why the sky was blue and the grass was green and everything was just so lovely. There are the questions when I shared the Gospel so clearly with my Jewish friend but she didn't respond and I couldn't understand why. There are the bigger questions of why God allows hurt, and why he healed my friend but didn't heal my mom. Why in 8th grade our friend ended his life? Why my classmate had a car wreck and floated away to you? There are questions that are too big, too hard. But they aren't too much of God. He can take the questions, and my hope is that one day, the bringing of my questions to God, He will destroy my shelf. Because in that moment, the questions will not matter because my faith that God was good was enough, and when I see him in Paradise, that will be true. He will be good and nothing else will matter because all my questions have been met with the Answer, Jesus himself.

Right now, I'm holding a few questions close-fisted. Soon, I will make my way to the shelf. Right now, I'm grappling with a few hard questions. Not as hard as they once were. Not as weighty as the ones that smacked me unexpected in my adolescence. But still, they are difficult. I feel my grip releasing because my eyes have drifted away. Slowly, everything is growing dim, all my fears are shrinking, all my pain, lessening. Because Jesus is so marvelous. He is the answer. I ask, he responds with a gentle love, "My steadfast love endures forever." I lament, "Why?" He does not tell me He is good, He shows me He is good. I long, he reminds me of Home. When I feel displaced, unloved and rejected, He says, "This is not your home, my love."

And so, the ashes, I invited him to rebuild.
My demolished heart, I invite him to start anew.

Dear heart, I know the questions you grapple with have pushed you under a heavy weight. I know these questions seem infused with your heart. Wrestle not the questions, wrestle your Savior. In all your pain, look instead to the One who has the Answers. In this trial of faith, peel your eyes off this broken world. Set your gaze ever on the goodness of our perfect God. I cannot promise there will be answers. I cannot promise that life with somehow become safe and happy. I offer the promise that has carried me through some of my hardest days and will continue to carry me for the rest of my life until I look face-to-face with Jesus and he brushes off the ache of this world and makes me brand new.

"When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you.

When you pass through the rivers, 

they will not overwhelm you.

When you pass through the fire,

you will not be burned.

The flames will not set you ablaze."

Isaiah 43:2

"I believe in the sun, even when I can't see it.
I believe in love, even when I can't feel it.

I believe in God, even when He is silent."

~ etched onto a wall in a concentration camp during WWII

Undone.

This is it.
To stand in the midst of your life and be unraveled by the beauty of grace contrasted with the ruins of despair.
To fall on your knees because you are totally undone by the truth of the Gospel that the Lord so graciously fills life with.
To see how in the midst of so much hopelessness and despair, the truth remained unwavering and the love stood fast.

I am undone.

2016 taught me something. The year began with all my plans chalked up to perfection, knit so tightly, just like when we were kids and my sister was learning to knit and she knit her yarn so tightly it became impossible to work with.
I had plans, they were shiny and new. But just like old cars, they began to rust and they began to break down.
The weavings of my tapestry began to fray. The binding of my book desperately needed rebound. It was a year that taught me that no matter how well you bind your life together, we were not made for that. We were not made for self-imposed binding and self-wound bandages.

It's a cycle. A cycle of falling apart and quickly trying to piece myself back together. Because maybe, if I am whole despite this broken world, things will be okay. Maybe if I am whole, the presentation of myself will be stellar. How painfully circular this pattern where I break and I bleed and sew up the seams for the tears so no one can see the hurt. Where has that gotten me?

2016 was a lesson in vulnerability. There was this gracious invitation at the beginning of the year. An invitation to be with someone else when they fell apart. And for the first time I threw my Christian bandaids in the trash and saw the beauty that comes in broken vulnerability and I observed as Christ did his work in messy hearts. Watching my friend fall apart shook me to my core. But as she invited me into that journey it was rewarding.

It was a year of learning in the stumbling. Because my heart hurt as I watched others hurt. My heart ached as I listened to the command to just be rather than clumsily try to mend a broken heart.
And in the process, I learned what it means to allow my heart to be broken and messy. I experienced the healing ointment of friendship and the cooling balm of Christ in me.

2016 undid me. Maybe it was a continual process of what God had already begun in me and continues to do in me. But if one year, through brokenness and hurt and messiness I can be one step closer to knowing my God-

Then God? I want to continue to be undone, because as long as You undo me, I can stand in awe. Being undone is evidence of what You have done in my life. Evidence of the truth that saturates every pore of my being and the hope, that when let in, will overcome my hurt.

This might be what it looks like to come undone.

The other day I stood in the Christian bookstore surrounded by a sea of self-help books with a Christian mask. They had cheesy titles like "Wild and Free," "It's going to be Okay," and "Too Blessed to Be Stressed." It was then when it hit me. These authors, though meaning well, were trying to take away the pain rather than see the beauty within the pain. Because I am wild, but I am not always free. I am blessed but surely, I am stressed. And maybe, just maybe it won't be okay. And maybe that is the perfect place to be.
And as I left the store, processing my life and all that plans I thought I had in order and the hurts. And as I sit with my friends on a couch and we express our helplessness and for the first time, we let it be. I wonder how much more beautiful it will be if I continue on this journey.

Because I am messy. I am broken. And I am undone.

In the midst of this messy, broken, unexpected year. I have come undone.

My prayer for 2017 is that God would continue to undo me because I want to be known by him in all my messy, broken pieces. I want deep, intimate and real relationships.
Lord, here is my dangerous prayer.

Undo me, Lord. Show me beauty in the unmaking. Teach me how to love in the broken. Let me see fraying hearts and unbound seams. Guide me to step behind those masks. And in that place, undo me.

Immanuel, God with us

The Virgin shall conceive and you shall call his name Immanuel. 

Immanuel, Immanuel.
God with us.

Tender are our hearts, fragile are our souls.
How far off has our God seemed?
Our sacrifices have fallen short, our wayward flesh has turned away.
Oh Lord, How long?

The cry was growing greater.
O Come, O Come Immanuel.
The captivity of our hearts is great, The longing of our souls is immense.
How long, Oh Lord?
We need a ransom, We need a savior.

But there will be no gloom for her who is in anguish.

Immanuel, his name like a blanket over our frozen bodies.
Immanuel, this hope like a healing balm to our wounds that have not stopped bleeding.
Immanuel, our cry has never been more sure,
our longings have never been more real.

The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.

The Hebrews were not even looking,
how dim their light had been.
The Gentiles had not even known,
how dark their decaying worlds existed.

The angel said to them, Fear not! For I bring you glad tidings of great joy that will be for all the people.

Instantaneously, their hearts were touched with light.
It did not blind them, it caused them to see for the first time.
Every heart in all of humanity in the proclamation of the Savior's birth rejoiced.
The fulfillment of prophecies, the hope of the whole world, the one who was to come was here.

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

As they gazed down at this child of love, whose tender smile was a gift, whose cry was a sure sign that God had become man, whose eyes pierced hearts. As they beheld the eyes of the Savior, hope set in. They knew. In that moment it was clear to them that this God-child had come to shake the earth. He had come to teach a new law of love, to give them a new covenant. He was Immanuel. He was God with us. Never before had anything been so profound, so marvelous, so lovely. He was here. He was for you, He was for me. He was here to bring resurrection. He was gentle and kind. He was fire and love. He was water in the desert, keys to the imprisoned, healing for the broken, hope for the hopeless. He was Immanuel. Now with us was God.

And this baby that held the whole world in his hands, came to us.
This baby came in the likeness of man to save him, guide him and love him.
This baby was God with us, This man was God for us, This resurrected Savior is God in us.
Immanuel, God is with us.

Rejoice, Rejoice, Immanuel has come to us, O Israel.

An Ode To Us

This is to you. To you who have been walking a tightrope for a long time, fairly confident you were doing well but found yourself in the middle, heart beating wildly and terrifyingly high in the sky.

This is to us. To us who are exhausted. To those of us who feel as if one more step will cause us to fall, we're in the middle of a desert and there is no comfort in sight. No beds, no inviting shelter to at least protect us from the long night.

This is to us. To us who have entered the valley of the shadow of death. The corpses are all around us, and the memories of grief haunt us.

This is for you. To you who feels this heavy sadness sinking like a millstone around your neck. The kind of sadness where the lights turn off and all you see is darkness.

This is for me. Who carries all this weight and juggles all these stories and all this emotion. This is for me, finally admitting that things are not okay.


And there it was, the beauty in the crumbling. The shining light in the midnight of this soul. The breath in this panic.
The vulnerability was shining lights into our kaleidoscope hearts.
The truth was burning light into our deepest pains and into the reality of our hurt.
The loveliness that came with the sadness in our voices when we finally said, "I'm not okay."
We crawled out of our cocoons and how marvelous it was to be free.
We dropped our baggage and our self-inflicted weight and how splendidly free we were.

Everything was falling apart. And that is when his voice was the mightiest.

"O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted,

behold, I will set your stones in antimony,

and lay your foundations with sapphires." ~ Isaiah 54:11

His voice, it came gently, boldly, speaking to the disintegrating foundations of my heart.

His love, it swept in ravishing my soul, destroying every lie and inviting me into a beautiful rest, where it was his work, not my own; his strength, my weakness; his beauty, my dilapidated heart

and he began to rebuild. 

When I was 16, my aunt bought me a ring that quoted Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God." And she, knowing me so well, continually reminds me of that ring. "Leah, be still," she tells me. Parts of me feel I cannot be still. I have many things to carry, many tasks to accomplish, many messes to clean, many hearts to mend. I'm on a mission, I am a whirlwind. andhowcanIbestillwhenIjustcantstop? howcanIbestillwhenIrunsofast? I'm unstoppable,unbreakable,invincible. And yet, as I type that, I know it isn't true. And that verse comes back to me in its context.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, 

though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy habitation of the Most High,

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

he utters his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,

how he has brought desolations on the earth. 

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth,

he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

he burns the chariots with fire.

"Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!"

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

There is a very real struggle here. The Psalmist is witnessing his entire world crumble. The very ground he stands on is unstable. He is unsteady as he watches mountains be thrust into the sea and he watches on the shoreline as the waves become angrier and angrier. And yet, as he witnesses the world fall apart, he sees something even more beautiful; God. God is his refuge and his strength and he sees how ever-present He is. As the kingdoms totter and fall, he hears God speak and the earth melts, goes soft, becomes putty in His hands. Come, He tells us, come and see the works of the Lord, and be still. This Greek word means to sink down, relax, and be quiet. God is telling us, Stop your striving and know (yada) that I am God. Yada is the Greek word for intimacy. Stop striving and know me. The invitation is to enter into His character and His love. To become face to face with His Kindness and His Goodness. 

It's been a rough week. For a moment, I thought my world was crumbling, my life had rewound and I was reliving my own history. There was an overwhelming anxiety, but even greater was God's call to stop striving, stop trying, to stop. And to know that He was God. Despite my unsteady heart, despite the shaky ground and the brokenness around me, He was still God and He was my refuge and strength. 

But I know that my world was not the only one that fell apart this week. A few very dear friends struggled this week also. But it was so lovely how we all rallied around each other. We gave each other what we had out of our brokenness and together there was comfort and encouragement in these rough days. 

And so, this is for us. This is an ode to us in our brokenness and our sadness and our helplessness. This is a gift of hope in our frightening circumstances and our overwhelmed hearts.

To the one on the tightrope? What you don't know is that God watched you walk out there, in all your confidence and pride. But you looked down, like Peter on the water, fear paralyzed you. And what you don't know is that there is a net below even if you fall. But if keep your eyes steady and fixed on him I promise you'll make it to the other side.

To the one is exhausted? You may not see a shelter and you may not see a reprieve from the demands that won't stop knocking on your door, but there is a promise when you turn to him in that desert place. Your way is not hidden from the Lord. "Have you not known? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; the shall walk and not faint."

To the one in the valley? Oh love, don't you remember the verse? Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fear no evil for God is with you, his rod and his staff, they comfort you." My friend, this is just the shadow. Death cannot harm you, death has no sting on you. Because the Lord is your shepherd. In these pangs of grief, remember his gentle comfort and his good heart.

And to the one carrying such a heavy weight? His yoke is easy and his burden is light. You were never called to fix everyone, or carry everyone's burdens, that is only a job our strong God can do. You, my friend, were called to encourage and pray. You my friend, who try and hold the entire world together, can you not remember that was never your job? Come and rest tonight in his everlasting love and his kind heart. 

This is to us. But this is not about us. This is an invitation to let God be God. This is an invitation to rest in his everlasting love and to just be still and know that He is God. So wherever you are tonight, whether you are on a mountaintop, in the valley, carrying a burden too heavy for your small arms, exhausted or walking out on an unknown tightrope, God is with you and God is for you. 

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. ~ Psalm 46:5

The Truth in the Wilderness

The terrain was my heart. This breathtaking scene before me was the landscape of my soul. My heart, full of mountains and valleys, rivers and deserts, was full. At 5400', I could not avert my eyes from the majestic beauty laid out before me.

Mount Rogers wasn't my first mountain conquered, nor was it my hardest, but it was a mountain, and victoriously I was standing on the top. As my eyes took in the miles of mountains before me, dread seeped into my heart.
There were more mountains to climb.
Don't get me wrong, I love climbing mountains, I love embarking on new adventures, but this mountain was hard. We had endured extreme cold, long nights, heavy packs and getting lost. A familiar feeling tried to wedge its way into my heart: it wasn't hopelessness I was feeling, we were beyond that, it was homesickness. O, how I longed for my heavenly home. How I am longing to be clothed in the full garments of righteousness, in the beautiful rest of Heaven because this terrain is getting rough, my feet are tired, and I am frighteningly unsteady. 

And the truth was, each of those hard things painted me a heart-wrenching picture of my own life. 

The extreme cold resembled the storm that tried to ravage me to my core. But there was gratitude, people saw my distress, mostly because I had the courage to be vulnerable and tell them how cold I was, they donated their warm things to me. Will I have the courage to be vulnerable in this trial? To take off my strength that I wear like armor, and reveal that I'm shaking to my core? To show that I am unsteady and I have questions and there is still a real struggle?

 The weight I carry has become a burden."Come to me." I heard the familiar words, "all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." Weary? That's about right. It's the very definition of my name. Burdened? I'd say so, my pack was heavy. I was carrying less of what my true needs were and more of what I thought I might need. But there is a way to carry a backpack, that it rests just properly on your hips and becomes one with you, it's possible I did it properly. But there was this invitation. This gentle, kind, loving invitation to remove the burden and enter into rest. "Come to me." Why was it so hard to accept the invitation? Do I believe that He would give me rest? "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Maybe it's hard because I don't know what His yoke is, maybe it's hard because I can't imagine carrying anything different than what I have been carrying for so long. I have what works for me. Does it make me thrive? And what would happen if I actually let go(d)?

We were lost in the wilderness. After a serious of unfortunate events and quick decisions, we found ourselves on what we thought was the right path, but truly it was wrong. We came to a place where we were unsure of how we would weather the windy night, with little shelter, a lack of food and no communication with the rest of our group. But we prayed that God would guide our footsteps in the potentially dangerous predicament we found ourselves in. And he gave us wisdom, guided our reading of the map and we made it back to camp before sundown. Trust was the lesson he taught me out of this, trusting our circumstances to him and trusting others into his hands.

The mountain was hard, but it was beautiful. The storm was strong, but it created something lovely. My pack was heavy, but I learned perseverance. We saw water provided out of nothing, we shared warmth inside of cold tents, we processed what it meant for us to be lost in the wilderness and the coping mechanisms we had. We laughed and we cried, we fell and we stood strong. The mountain painted a picture, and I longed to stay on top. I was thriving on top. But there was a valley down below, where the things I learned on the mountain would be utilized and called upon. How vividly I encountered God on top of the mountain would be the light in the darkness of the valley below. But I could hear his invitation to enter into the valley, which would be a different kind of hard and unsure.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says,

         "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed       day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory            beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

On our life mountains, we do not lose heart. But doesn't God see that our outer selves are wasting away? Doesn't He see how tired this heart is, and how weary this body has become? Doesn't He hear my groaning? How can I not lose heart?

2 Corinthians 5:4-5 says,

            "For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed          but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He         who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee."

These verses are filled with deep hurt and immense truth. My vision can be clouded with hopelessness, but as it fades away, I hear, "I see you. I know you. I feel this with you."

We groan, anxiously waiting for the time when what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. And this next statement is stunning. He who has prepared us for this very thing is GOD. 

He who has prepared us for this mountain is God. He who is walking with us on this mountain is God. He who asks for our faith, even though everything is cloudy and we can't see feet in front of us, is God. He who knows the struggle is God. He who has felt our afflictions and knows them intimately is the God who is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

This weight of glory is beyond all comparison.  It does not compare to the glory I encountered on top of the mountain. It does not compare to the majesty of the wild ponies. And it surely does not compare to the struggle it took in reaching the top. This weight of glory is beyond all comparison.

With that truth, how can I not accept the perfect invitation into rest? How can I not follow GOD into the valley? How can I not trust him with everything in me? Oh yes, I'll groan, I'll hurt, I'll mourn. Surely, I'll be fragile and unsteady. But the thing about courage is that there is still fear, but there is action despite the fear.
Yes, I will still feel deeply, yes, I might break, "But I have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. I am afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies."

That is how I will not lose heart. By letting the LIGHT OF LIFE shine into my broken jar of clay so it burns like a kaleidoscope. And if climbing a mountain, extreme cold, getting lost and heavy packs can all be a part of the painful lessons of glory, then I am ready to face them head on. If all these things that make me feel hurt and shatter my clay, creates me into a better vessel for God's Light, then I will accept the invitation into rest, then I will enter into the night of wrestling so that I can know him more. 

how jumping off a cliff taught me to trust Jesus more

I found myself on top of the cliff for a few reasons.

1. I trusted my friend who coaxed me up there with my life.
2. My adventurous spirit got the best of me as I was watching the other crazy people jump.
3. I was probably crazy.

But there I was, on top of the cliff, remembering everything my parents told me when I was younger, "If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?" Of course, my answer was no.
But here I was, on top of a cliff, beside a beautiful waterfall, preparing to jump, because my friend told me to.

What an odd sense of dread and exhileration overcame me as I stood approximately 40 feet above the water. There was one rock in which I was supposed to leap from. And it was small. The water seemed so much further away then when I had been on the bottom looking up.

After a good 8 minutes of battling back and forth between hating myself for climbing up here and eager all at the same time, I was overcome with a barely an ounce of courage

and

             I
                               J
                                 U
                                     M
                                          P
                                              E
                                                  D.

How marvelous and dreadful it was to be falling weightlessly through the air.
How intense the impact when the water smacked my body.
How fearful I became when I was sure I would never find the surface.
How deeply happy I was when I breathed in for what felt like the first time in years.

Oddly enough, A few days later, someone encouraged me:
"God is putting a cliff before you and he wants you to trust him unconditionally and jump."
This person did not know that I had jumped off a cliff a few days previously.
But God knew, and certainly he was going to take advantage of this analogy.

I"m on the edge of the cliff and I'm part way between an overwhelming dread and a small ounce of courage. At the same time, I'm falling weightlessly through the sky and at the bottom barely breathing. It's a cicular pattern in my head, this cliff.

And yet, The LORD is here. He is the water encapsulating me at the bottom. He is my hope that I will not die and he is my encouragement at the top promising me how worth it this will be.

I don't know what your cliff is. Maybe it's like mine and you've already jumped and you hated it the first time and loved it all at the same time, but God is asking you to jump again. Maybe it's encountering grief and anger. Maybe it's forgiving the one who victimized you to the point of terror. Maybe, it is learning independence. Maybe it is loving deeply.
Your cliff could be many things, but the one thing I've learned about jumping off cliffs (with water at the bottom) is that thy are always worth it. You will always have a story and there is always reason to trust the ONE who calls you there.

Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

When a Heart Breaks

Her heart broke right in front of me.

I watched it fumble in her hands

and suddenly 

it fell

Silently to the floor.

It transpired in slow motion

there were pieces 

and fragments. 

I slowly looked back up to her face

it crumpled. 

a tear morphed into sobs

until her entire body gave way to 

the painful process of mourning. 

My heart wrenched inside me,

twisting until I felt a piece of her pain.

Her grief transported me 

to a place, I knew all too well.

A sadness I longed to forget,

a brokenness I didn't want to keep. 

I wanted to sweep up her heart

return it to her ribcage, whole

unscathed.

My prayers became fervent.

What do I do?

What can I do?

How can I watch her break?

How can I give her comfort?

The answers came, 

sure and steady.

If I have the Holy Spirt  

living within me

and if he is powerful

and if he speaks to the depths of my soul,

Then I have truth that shines through lies,

the comfort that breaks through pain,

hope that lights up the darkness

a peace that sits beside still waters.

I have yet to understand

all the little memories

that stay with me

and all the words 

that shaped my thinking.

I don't always know why heartache enters our souls,

and our sin-stained world has allowed

brokenness to mar our skin

and weaken our spirits.

But I do know my God 

and HE is good.

I know HIM 

and HE is kind. 

I know that the moment I saw her heart shatter,

I saw his shatter too.

When I wanted nothing more but to 

heal her heart

I know HE did more.
And I cannot understand why her heart had to break in such a way

or why I had to witness her sadness

and return to my own.

But I do know that no matter how unsteady my ground

and how shaky my feet

he is steady

he is sure

he will hold me fast.

he will heal her heart.

I now know that he doesn't tell me this life will be easy, but he does say he will be with me. He doesn't promise to take away the hurt, but he does covenant to hold me up. I trust him with my heart and I pray that every day, new opportunities will arise for me to share my hope, impart truth, prophecy love, give comfort and pray fervently. That moment, the one where I saw a heartbreak, will forever sit with me. Because the Lord has used it to confirm in me his truths, my gifts, and his heart.

when a heart breaks,

so does Jesus'.

When a heart shatters,

we see Jesus.