God's Way

"...As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul - not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy..."

Colossians 1:10&11

Okay, so let's just say it's been a crazy week... or maybe a crazy 5 years.

No matter how many times I have come to the very end of something I love, only to have Jesus meet me and restore my heart (if not the thing I've loved and lost), I never seem to expect him to piece me back together.

I always remember that God is in this, sustaining me and holding me.

But I always forget that he is also working towards resolution.

Granted, it doesn't always look like I wanted it to.

Sometimes his Way seems blurry and distorted.

I usually end up telling him how he SHOULD have brought healing and peace to a situation.

And then there comes a moment when the beauty and love of his Way are brought together in an impossible detail.

The curtain between spiritual and natural; between Divine and human, parts for a split second and I crumble to my knees.

I shake in the presence of his movement; of his obvious planning.

I am always, always so humbled.

How could I be anything else?

My way is revealed for what it is - frail and shallow and self serving.

This IS the pattern.

My life repeats this sequence of events over and over again.

I cannot even tell you how painful this week has been.

I have found myself clinging to God like a little girl.

I feel the pressure of people and questions and I shrink back into the cool folds of his wings.

The weight of his heart beats against my body and I collapse into a heap of emotions and numbness.

Last Tuesday I sensed the Spirit asking me if I was in my marriage. What if everything my marriage had been built on was a lie? Was I in?

Let me tell you that this was a difficult question to ask me.

I am not the kind of woman to survive in a bad relationship.

(but really WHAT woman is?)

In fact, I have already felt the life of my spirit fading.

In the past I have dated abusive guys and suffered the loss of my self.

I have built strong walls to protect myself from those relationships.

I have recently found a new freedom from abusers and there is no way that my heart cried out, "YES! I'm in!"

But I love my husband.

Flaws, wounds, battles, mistakes and all. I love him.

Which led me to let that question sink deep and sear my heart.

It didn't take me long to come to a conclusion.

Joe had left to find truth and healing.

He wasn't surrendering to his flesh and his sin.

So... yes. I am in.

I am in so much it hurts.

Who knows what that would look like?

And in that simple (and overflowing) "yes" I felt strength like never before.

Exactly a week after he left, he came home.

But he came home different.

Not a grand, strong difference.

This is a quiet and broken difference.

This is the first time in 13 years that I have heard such an intense spiritual depth come through his words and his heart.

He is still flawed and he has a lot of brokenness ahead of him.

I could write a small book on what happened in his time wrestling with God, but it isn't my story to tell.

But I do want to say that I have never encountered the power of community like I did in the last week.

There is an intense "glory strength" that comes from a community of people who are praying, and encouraging, and hoping for God's Way to supersede our own ways.

So, thank you.

With all of my heart, pure grace and nothing but grace to you....