YOU MAKE ME BRAVE

>> The days have flown by without any loud shouts or exclamations, and the whole time the leaves are slowly changing color and whispering their final farewells. It has been weeks since I last posted, and believe me, I have thought about it, but no matter how hard I try to write something that even partially explains my state of mind, the words end up in my draft folder because they do not even come close. Every thought, every emotion; sometimes I feel like there are no words to describe it all. It feels like I have been falling for so long, and I never even realized it, but I am finally getting back on my feet and now I can see the distance to the ground. Somehow it is like I had to see how dark it all can get when the light gets taken and I am groping in the blackness with my hands outstretched. And I remember waking up and feeling the weight of it so heavy on my heart, like a mountain of dreams and everything you thought to be right, suddenly collapses into nothing more than falsehoods and meaningless goodbyes. Heavy, heavy, heavy. It scared me, the way everything changed, the way I changed. The way I suddenly saw the world differently, and how it was not enough anymore to have you sitting in front of me, talking to me, but with your thoughts being somewhere else, in a small town, somewhere I was not. It was not enough anymore. It wound itself around my heart until I could not even breathe without my heart aching and I know I crawled within myself, away, far away, and that was wrong. I was scared, I am scared. The thought of losing what we built up frightens me more than words can say, and the memories that burn as they fall down my cheeks are just reminders that these things are fragile, easily broken, but should they be? I feel like I am still standing, looking back, wandering, holding on. Why is it that we hold on to something that can destroy us, but when it comes to something good, and true, we back away, releasing the love that shows us the way? I feel so confused, and I do not have anything figured out, but my hands are still running along that wall, groping, reaching. Maybe this is not about pretending to be okay, or concealing the fact that for the longest time I felt nothing at all, but about not hiding anymore. It is okay. Maybe we are supposed to fight for the ones we love, and fight for the ones that do not love themselves. Love those who turned their backs on us, stay when others have left, and hold on when they pushed away. Maybe love is supposed to be stronger than just the feeble emotions of humans, but a reflection of the One that makes us brave.<<

Slowly, day by day, God has been wrecking my heart, crashing in through all the walls of resistance. I am feeling the fear slip away, still clinging to the dark corners, yes, but I am yet an unfinished work. I wrote most of the above ^^ several weeks ago when I had nothing to say, and yet words were filling my mind because my heart was so full. I opened up the draft today and realized how relevant it still is. Because I still am afraid, I still feel the hurt when people push me aside for their way of thinking, I still miss the ones I love in a heaviness that makes me want to sink through the floor, but there is something different now. I can feel it bursting to life in between my lungs and around my heart, healing, teaching, holding, making me brave. If His love is so strong that it never gives up, never holds our forgiven sin in front of us, never forgets us, and always knows what every tear is about, then should not our love reflect that? I've been trying to figure out at what point do you walk away in a friendship and say, "I've been hurt too many times, I'm leaving" and I am starting to feel a heavy/freeing conviction that there is never really any time for that. Yes, there are bad relationships that tear us away from God and bring us harm, and I am by no means saying that we should stay in those, but just because we have been hurt, just because something happened to make us second guess everything, does not mean we can just leave. We may want to. I wanted to, but what if when we stay, when people have given us every reason not to, we are allowing the grace of God to heal our scars as well as theirs? What if our fear of vulnerability begins to fade when we pour our lives out for the people around us? Maybe loving, despite a broken heart, makes us softer, gentler, and cracks open that shell of defensiveness that closes our eyes to everyone's pain but our own. It is easy to let the difficulties of life make us hard, defensive, and callous. It is so much easier to never trust again, but what if when we close off the light of God's love, we are also closing the door to any other light? What if loving in relentless abandon, a spilling out, a constant, daily reflection of God's love is the answer for every heart cry? Maybe the beauty is when your eyes are opened to the raw difficulties of life and you can look around without any pretenses on how you think the world should look, and still, despite it all, hold out love.

*you have to check out the song "You make me brave" by Bethel. It has been my theme song for the last couple of days, and wooahh, is it good.