Wait on the Lord.
Be of good courage,
And He will strengthen your heart.
Wait, I say, on the Lord.
|| Psalm 27:14 ||
God, strengthen our hearts as we wait on You. Help us approach each day with courage and grace. When life stings, when words cut, when our truest efforts seem to fail. In the waiting place, as we let You be You and we simply rest and heal in Your presence, strengthen our hearts.
I am learning:
That in the grand scheme of things, there is very little we can control.
As much as we would like to master the variables, at the end of each day, we are responsible only for our own choices, attitudes, and reactions.
We can let our circumstances dictate our responses; we can let our emotions run the show; or we can ground ourselves in our identity as the beloved of the Creator, Healer, and Comforter and live in light of that identity.
We can allow what happens to us or around us to overwhelm, debilitate, frighten, or destroy us; or we can choose to see each day as an opportunity to learn, stretch and grow with fierce and tenacious faith.
We can strive to master our own fate; or we can rest and submit our hearts in the hands of the One who knows us best, and let Him transform and renew those areas that are stagnant, hurting, selfish or in general need of construction.
In doing the latter, I believe we evolve more into the hearts we were purposed and designed to be.
It’s a journey. It’s a process.
It’s downright painful at times – to acknowledge and sort through the hurt we inflict, the hurt inflicted on us, and the broken world we live in.
And my word, do we ever stumble along the way.
But there is always hope.
When we stumble, we can get back up and we press on.
We lean in to the discomfort rather than shying away.
We go through the pain and learn from it – understanding that healing is on the other side – rather than going around it and avoiding it altogether.
And as we do, we find that our past does not define us.
We find ourselves free from chains that used to bind us.
And we grow into deeper relationship with our sweet, redeeming Father, who makes things new and works all things out for good.
I was visiting with my mom recently about freedom. We were marveling at how God can take seasons of living in captivity to hurt, confusion, and insecurity and move us from that place to a place of solid ground, soul-deep freedom, and relentless joy. We talked about how long, stormy and painful seasons – if well-weathered – eventually give way to bright, flowered pastures where we can dance and be light and liberated. I expressed that by the sweet grace of God, despite ongoing heartache and grief, I find myself in this place lately, this blooming field, and I feel my heart dancing freely through it. I shared how humbled and grateful I am that God has brought me here. And then my mom said:
“You know, He is using those tears you cried to water the field.”
You guys, this blew my mind.
How often do we try to wish away the painful seasons of life when we’re in the middle of them? We get tired of crying and exhausted by caring. The days seem to get longer, the hurt only gets deeper, and we feel like the misery will never end.
Let’s trust God and remember, it will end, and new things will spring from it (see Isaiah 43:19 – what a sweet promise!). The storm may last longer than we think it should, but we can trust that God is good and He knows what He is doing. While we wait on Him, let’s wrestle wisely and well, and let’s give our stories and the pen used to write them over to the ultimate Author. Let’s cry our hearts out if we need to, seek the Lord intently, humble ourselves deeply, and forgive daily. Our tears and prayers, our choice to surrender to truth and refining fire, our pain and questioning and grappling – none of it will go to waste. It will be the substance God uses to water and bring color to a field of wildflowers for us to dance, twirl, and run barefoot through. We will eventually look back and be thankful for those seasons of tears. They are desperately painful, to be sure. But they set the stage for wild beauty and abundant life to bloom.
“After a day of cloud and wind and rain / Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again / And touching all the darksome woods with light / Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When we are deeply hurt, we can choose to tend to that hurt as if it is a fertile soil for forgiveness or we can stake it as a battlefield for bitterness.
Someone may have contributed greatly to your hurting heart. I am so sorry, friend. I want you to know that I am with you & God sees you. There is no excusing the fact that you are suffering. Hurt is real, brutal, and raw. And yet, I want to challenge you with an idea: that you, and you alone, are responsible for your response to that hurt. Your offender is not to blame for your bitterness, if bitterness is the response you choose. Just as they are not responsible for you offering forgiveness, if forgiveness is what you choose.
I have spent time in both camps. I have spent months steeped in my hurt, seeing life through the teeny, limited keyhole of my pain, blinded to the bitterness that was taking root within. Until that root was revealed, I spent many days confused, afraid, angry, and unable to understand why I was feeling so persistently heavy-hearted despite being in a season of life that looked beautiful on-paper. There was active hurt being inflicted on my heart throughout, but my responses to that hurt were out of proportion to the offenses, I inflicted deep hurt through my reactions to new and old pains, and I could not understand why. What an agonizing place to be! If you are in a similar place, friends, that is okay. There is no shame or condemnation. I just want to share with you: there is hope.
Blessedly, once the deeper root of unforgiveness was revealed in my life, God so sweetly and quickly helped me take care of it. It was not an easy journey. It meant confronting my hurt on a deeper level than I was aware existed, and it meant understanding that things would get more painful before they got better. But through wise counsel from dear friends from church; a paradigm-shifting book recommended to me about releasing offense (“Total Forgiveness” by R. T. Kendall); and many hours of tears and prayers and bringing my hurt and brokenness to the Lord, I am learning more about grace, healing, and love than I could ever see before when my vision was limited by pain. The journey is ongoing, and I am finding that this is a road that is ripe with lessons, richness, and loveliness. We can cultivate a lifestyle of forgiveness, friends; and in doing so, we can experience renewal in deep and indescribable ways.
Friend, wherever you are in your journey, I want to encourage you, choose forgiveness. It’s the harder of the two choices, to be sure. It requires a humbling knowledge of how much God has forgiven us for, to the point that we can’t help but to extend that forgiveness to others. It means that the person who hurt us may never understand the depth of the pain they caused; they might not even care that they have our forgiveness. It means letting go of the false sense of control that bitterness offers and letting our heart be soft. But friend, that soft place, that’s where God’s healing and lasting work truly begins. What forgiveness does is it FREES YOU. It lightens your load, refreshes your heart, and places the situation in God’s capable hands. It breaks chains that hold you captive to the past and torture you in the form of hurtful memories played on repeat in your mind. Forgiveness allows you to move forward with peace in your heart, hope in your eyes, pep in your step, and grace in your words and actions. And the more you choose it, the more it is woven into your lifestyle, the more peace & hope & pep & grace you can scatter around like confetti to the people around you.
Your offender may never understand the implications of your forgiveness for them. But nonetheless, it will be a liberating gift to you. God has already offered us the gift of forgiveness in far greater a measure than we could ever deserve. What right have we to withhold that gift from others?
Choose freedom, friends. Forgive.
Ephesians 4:31-32 💛
There is something so sweet and refreshing about Easter. A day when we can remember what our mighty Savior did for us, taking on our sin and shame, freeing us from condemnation, delivering us from forever darkness, and offering everlasting hope.
The power of His resurrection took on a whole new meaning in my life today, as I find myself restored, strengthened, and breathing deeply again after a six-year season of setting up camp with relentless hurt and heartache. A season of believing inaccuracies conveyed by others rather than believing truths that God speaks over me; a long season of feeling “less than”, belittled, demeaned, accessory, unimportant. To spend the past year processing that hurt, grieving deep losses, and learning to express my heartache in a healthy way (after ignoring it for years and then coping with it very bitterly for a time last year) has been the hardest battle I have ever faced. Praise God, He has never left me to face it alone; He is endlessly faithful and keeps His promises. Friends and family have stepped in with words of sharpening but gentle grace, truth, hope, and love. God has shown up through the presence of loved ones and strangers who have approached to assure me that I am loved and provided for and not forsaken. And now, just these past five months, I’ve been led on a chain-breaking journey marked by gaining freedom from the lies I believed for so long; learning to forgive others and myself in a total, real, sustainable and super humbling way; and feeling my heart being resuscitated – blooming after years of wilting. I find myself able to appreciate Jesus’ sacrifice with an awe I have never had before.
His death and resurrection mean brokenness and bitterness do not control or define me, nor do the words or actions of others. Because He is risen indeed, I am FREE indeed. Not bound by the past, not held captive by hurt, not stifled by oppression. Free, confident, safe, joyful, and filled with hope. Not because of anything I have done, but completely, entirely, 100% because of what HE did on the cross.
A blessed and happy Easter to you, friends. Be encouraged, and know you are loved.
He is risen. 💛
Real talk. I was walking down a set of stairs at work last night looking at my phone, missed a step, toppled down, and landed terribly wrong on this poor foot. Funny in retrospect! But painful enough that I passed out at the time. Blessedly, no surgery is required. But even bearing weight on this thing right now brings tears.
What is amazing is how God sent angels in disguise to get me to the help I needed after the injury. Two lovely women who found a wheelchair nearby. Two orthopedic residents at the bottom of the staircase who were at the ready if it turned out there was an overt fracture. An ER team who could not have been any more kind. A radiology tech with the sweetest presence. My mom (who had randomly put a pair of crutches in her car that morning) and dear friend Mimi who were only minutes away in Minneapolis when I let them know about the injury and who got me settled in at home at the end of the night. Blessings, each one.
How often do we get distracted in the midst of life’s craziness, only to misstep and find ourselves in a position that we didn’t anticipate? How often do abrupt hurts come into our life, causing a pain that makes us want a period of amnesia to forget the inciting event(s)? I’d argue, these things happen more frequently than we’d like to admit. But we are so good at pushing through and covering our messes and hurts with work, busy-ness, and frivolous things.
How often does God show up in those moments? I’d argue, always. He sets the right people and parts in motion to take care of us. He sends the support we need by moving the hearts of those who love us into action. He makes the equipment we need available. He helps us recover from the amnesia and numbness that we use to cope, and challenges us to confront the pain so we can begin healing. He uses injuries to slow our pace and refocus our hearts on simple truth.
Everything is taking three times longer than usual today. Home has become an obstacle course that I need to crutch and crawl through, even going down the stairs like a toddler who bumps down one by one on her behind. It feels so silly, so dependent, and still painful. But I also feel stronger by going through it, by finding healthy and safe ways to cope with the pain.
It is hard and unhealthy to ignore our hurt; we must confront it. It may take more devoted time spent with the Lord; it can be exhausting; and it can be very uncomfortable. But it will all be for our benefit in the end.
Let’s give our hurts, big and small, over to God. And let’s watch in awe as He sets everything in motion, heals deep hurts, and works things out for our good.
Also, life lesson, stay off your phone when walking down stairs!
I was doing laundry a couple of weeks ago, after heaps of it had piled up in my closet with the chaos of a busy schedule. While sorting everything into colors and ranges of delicacy, I found my mind wandering and reflecting on 2018. Between the intensity of the holidays and preparing for a busy entry into 2019, I had not yet taken the time to think back on the 365 days of 2018 that had passed so quickly. Now was that time. And in the process of thinking back, praising God for His work and help, and seeking Him for understanding or peace about some moments, I was struck deeply by how frequently my reflections and memories – even the good and joyous ones – were lined with traces of sadness and brutality. We all go through seasons in our journey, amen? And 2018, despite God moving in mighty, many, and gracious ways as He always does, happened to be particularly full of hurt and heartache.
What a whirlwind year it was. It started with a season of interviewing for my dream job as a physician, a dream that God placed on my heart at a young age and had so faithfully directed my steps and opened doors toward over the past two decades. Simultaneous with this was a season of preparing for new depths of love and relationship, which was a true and deep struggle at times. Within the first three months of the year, I had completed residency interviews, met inspiring Nicaraguan women and children alongside an inspiring medical missions team, applied to my favorite residency programs, and matched into the program I had dreamed of entering since my college years. The two months that followed involved many life transitions, surrounded by such precious and supportive friends, and then graduation from medical school. Weeks later, there was the official move to my home state, where I had not lived consistently since graduating college in 2011. Within weeks of that relocation, it was the start of a new and joyful job, which by the nature of the current season requires a time-intensive schedule, changing gears every month to new environments, and constant adaptation to new situations. Former chapters ended and new chapters were begun. And in the midst of this itinerary of change and transition, there were heaps and bundles of unresolved grief and hurt that were being issued, suffered, processed, and worked on in the background.
If I may, let me then touch on the emotional and spiritual undertones of our hearts, that so often are eclipsed and overshadowed by the changes, rapid pacing, and responsibilities we are tasked with on the surfaces of our lives. It is easy to busy ourselves through life, only momentarily savoring the joys, and only momentarily grieving the hurts, disappointments, and losses. I find that over the past year, the latter experiences – hurt and a sense of loss – have prevailed, and I am only now, over the past several months, making a point to slow down and address them.
Healing is hard, especially when we don’t take time to quiet our hearts and give them space to grieve and heal well. To our detriment, we so often cast hurt aside in order to tackle the challenges of the day, not realizing that the hurts are piling sky-high like a stack of laundry and beginning to tower over us. Some days, we may indeed need to just power through in survival mode. But if this becomes our only pattern of coping, our unresolved griefs and heartaches get louder and more numerous, begging to be sorted through like dozens of unpaired socks in the dresser drawer. In a culture where strength and bravery is advertised as the ability to “push through” and to keep those socks shoved in the closed drawer, the truly brave thing to do may be to pause. To intentionally quiet the noise, to step away from our busy circumstances, to open that dresser drawer, to purposefully allow our hearts and hurts the space they need to spill over and be seen, to permit the held-back tears to fall, and to courageously tackle the challenge of sorting out the colors and socks of our hearts so that we can move forward.
Gratefully, blessedly, we have a Helper in this (Hebrews 13:6). One who loves us unconditionally (Romans 5:8), cares for our hearts to the point of giving His Son over to death so that we could be saved and reconciled to Him (John 3:16), and sent His Spirit to guide the direction of our hearts and our steps (John 16:13). One who strengthens us with strength not our own (Isaiah 40:28-31), fights on the front-lines for us so we can rest and be still (Exodus 14:14), and heals the deepest heartaches we can imagine (Psalm 147:3). One who restores brokenness to beauty (Isaiah 61:3) and will never leave nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6).
As I sat there sorting clothes and socks, and as the machine progressed through its cycles toward the end, the last of the water drained into the sink beside the washing machine. The machine then began pounding through its rapid spin cycle. I couldn’t help but feel as if my 2018 was analogous to that spin cycle. I progressed through and ended the year dizzy with confusion from feeling swept in circles in my personal life, heavy with discouragement like clothes soaked with water, tangled in a mess of hurt and lies, stretched out emotionally, and feeling like so much of my color had bled into the water around me and drained down the sink, leaving me far dimmer compared to before the cycle had started. The heaviness outweighed the sweetness for a time; some days it still does. But what a precious God we have who walks with us through these seasons, through any season, and as we learn to rely on Him, our hearts dry and regain their true, renewed form. We become more light and free, just as we were made to be.
Praying this would be a year of freedom, growth, restoration, and joy for all whose hearts are aching for these things.
Have a seat, beautiful friend. Listen. You know those doubts you have about your worth; those moments when you question whether you’re loved; those people who make you feel unwanted or ‘less than’? I pray that those lies would be eradicated from your heart and that the hurt they cause would be divinely healed. That the fullness and height and depth and width of Jesus’ love for you would eclipse them all. That you would draw near to Him, the embodiment of unconditional love – the kind of love and grace that have no expiration date. And that the more you draw near to Him, the more you will come to rest and know: You are precious, wanted, and beloved. — Psalm 139:14
Rise up anew.
Open your heart to Me again.
Let Me make you brave.
Let Me give you My strength, My joy, My freedom.
You were made to roar with gentle grace.
Not to shrink down; not to feel small.
Remember, you are My beloved.
I treasure you.
You can trust Me.
I am with you every step.
Shine anew.
There is light in you.
I placed it there.
It has been eclipsed by despair, by heartache and exhaustion.
You have built a wall of stone to enclose it.
I see your fear, your fear of letting it radiate forth.
You were never made to bear the burden of fear.
I sent the Remedy for it.
Fear is defeated, washed away.
Embrace the victory, My beloved.
Believe anew.
Let Me resurrect your sense of wonder.
Your purpose is wild and beautiful and unfolding.
Sparkle and radiate.
You were made for this.
To dream with imagination, beam with creativity.
Let your faith awaken.
I will never leave nor forsake you.
I am right here, beloved.
Be made new.
A season of darkness, unending.
The valley is deep. The night is black.
Tree leaves rustle with tickling wind, and the march of two footsteps.
No trace of light to be found.
She rambles forth wounded in the void.
Her footing uneasy. Her heart low and laden.
Eyes accustomed to the shadows, forgetting what vivid color looks like.
She longs to see the sun.
She cannot retrace the path behind her.
Unknown how she got here. Unknown why she stayed so long.
Night fell before she could return safely, and proceeds infinitely.
Loneliness pervades.
It has been years of this.
The purpose unclear. The darkness ever looming.
But alas, this moment, she lifts her tear-stained chin and weary eyes toward the sky.
A sliver of sunlight over the mountain ahead.
Her heartbeat quickens.
Hope is rising. Healing is coming.
The valley soon to brim with glorious Light as she grabs hold of joy again.
She leaves the shadowland behind.
Captivated Me 