Friday, May 25, 2012

Looking for a Home...

I long for realness.

I crave authenticity.

I feel it in my bones.

This world is harsh.

An aching heart has been my company.

I can not fabricate joy. I can not muster peace. I can not fake hope.

It has to flow from that place. It has to flow from that honest place of devastating sorrow.

It flows from the Cross. It flows from those wounds.

It's gut-wrenching, positively gut-wrenching to ponder this.

That, upon that Cross. That is my sin. That is my depravity.

That is my Savior.

The Man of Sorrows.

The most authentic man who ever lived.

The One for Whom my heart desperately longs.

For in Him, is Home.



Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Flowers of the Valley Are So Sweet

Perhaps this will become a journal. A chronicle of grief. A chronicle of grief, and much more than that:

the LIFE that springs forth from ashes. the beauty amid the thorns. the redemptive power of the CROSS. the wounds that bled and bring forth life.

For amid this tumultuous time of the heart, in which the winds and waved have raged and billowed...

I have come to know my Savior and King in a way I have scarcely dreamed of and always longed for...

As in the deepest longing of my heart, and all that I was created for.

He is there.

He's there when I don't remember anything about a week ago. He's there when the gut-wrenching memories wash over me. When that sorrow is triggered. When tears just flow. When tears just won't flow. When I am angry, when I am weary. When I am bone-tired. He is there. He is there. He is there.

I don't know what I am writing about right now.

How do I properly articulate what seems could never be articulated?

How do I even title this entry?

That's how my mind is as I attempt to process everything. All over the place.

I feel like the word 'grief' is a strange, and familiar word. As if I forget that I am bereft. It's just been so long.   It's seems as if that's the way I just am.

That's what it seems. But yet, I am constantly reminded that my grief and my feelings so deep and torrential do not have the last word. They don't define me. They have no claim over me.

They just affect me a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

But His Grace extends downward, into the depths, and I have fellowship with Him in the midst of the darkest valley. He walks beside me, my hand in His.

There really is no thing sweeter than to walk beside the Lord.

This is what I was made for.

...There is a Sweetness that I have come to know of the Love of our God, that I would never have known unless I had walked through the deepest heartache I've ever known, and discovered there His Love. There is Treasure hidden in the depths, and the most beautiful flowers in the Valley. And yet, I would not know this unless I had walked through the pain. And He has walked beside me all the way.














Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A New Canvas

It has been a long while since I have written for the sheer sake of writing.

I mean, without a clue as to what I am writing about.

Often, prior to a post, I will find myself very stirred by a Word or a song, and it will pour out from that.

I'm not sure what will come of this blog. I'm comforted a bit by the fact that right now, no one really knows about it. There's a comfort in knowing that, I guess.

I find myself more free in that sense, to express what I would like to express, and to allow the context of this blog to be what it needs to be.

My previous blog, I will likely continue, but I just need a new template. I need a new canvas. I need that freedom that comes with it.





A bruised reed he will not break,
    and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
     he will faithfully bring forth justice.

-Isaiah 42:3