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.