~When God Showed Up - Part of My Story~

Several months ago, God found me again.

Or, rather, I let myself be found - all I had to do was let Him know He was welcome through my wall. I have to be honest though that my wall was pretty darn solid to begin with, and my life existed with keeping people at arms lengths because of a little four letter word called "fear". The words: open, vulnerable, and "needing anyone" were not part of my internal vocabulary! I recall speaking to a friend one night and letting that person "in" - and I believe I wrote that I felt like bricks of that wall were literally turning to sand and I was watching them crumble at my feet. (Isn't God funny like that? He showed up in the form of a brick destroyer.)

I was scared at first. But then I realized that I could still breathe and let people be close to me and care about me. And then I looked up to the Heavens and within my own heart and heard another heartbeat. Jesus

I began to understand that one central thing that was missing from the core of my heart: The belief that "I deserved to be loved". I literally put that phrase on a post it note and stuck it on my coffee maker. And last Summer, while I didn't believe it at the time, I kept reading it each time I saw it. And I saw it a lot because I do love my coffee! I think I literally spoke it into existence - because shortly thereafter I felt parts of my heart turning on again that I had shut down a long time ago to survive.

God turned them back on so I could live.

There came a point in my life when I had to reach beyond the current pain I was in and see a future beyond it. Some things in my life needed facing...desperately. With each week, each month and eventually each year that passed, I had found myself slipping more and more away, into a shell of who I once was. And it is by grace that the Lord put me in contact with some flat out anointed men and women of God who saw the cloud I was under and they did everything in their power to help the Lord deliver me. I have never been more prayed for or cared for in my life and within days, the clouds were being lifted and my soul was experiencing a freedom that is truly not of this world. I definitely came out of a fire - but the light in my eyes and soul is one I didn't expect.

I'm alive now. ALIVE.

I had to work through a lot of grief for losing something very, very dear to me. I let go of a dream I always held onto - for the reality how things actually were. I realized I could no longer love and cling to a past, but I had a responsibility to not only find love and peace in the present, but a scarcely known word...JOY. It's okay for me to dream of a beautifully human love in my future - but wow, do I ever get to experience a supernaturally beautiful love right now. *twirling*

He is enough. I am in love, my friends. I'm in love with my Savior.

And I think God is going to show me His amazing love now and in His time, give me a love in the future that was written on my heart before I was born. And when it happens, my heart will stay beating in tune to the heartbeat of my first love, my sweet Jesus, and I will be bold now and already speak life into a cord of three strands for the blessing down the road.

And I feel God laying on me what is in the verse: Eph 3:20 "Now to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us" I receive it, Lord.

Is life perfect? No.

Is life what I was expecting to have at age 33? No.

Is life absolutely knock your socks off beautiful? Oh heck yes.

I'm going to be okay. I already am.

I am going through a period now of transition and refining that is taking me deeper into who I am and more importantly, who I am in Christ. I am building relationships of love and true care that I never let truly form before. I am letting myself DREAM, and LAUGH, and (gasp!) not have it all together, all the time! I'm letting others hug me and lift me up. I'm finding my place in this world that is like I've stepped into a new world that was always here - but now I have eyes to see and ears to hear it. And Im loving others - truly embracing, LOVING others. I've had a ministry start forming beneath my feet that I never expected but humbly stand in the blessing of being a part of it. Because of my journey, I can help lead people within theirs - to a HOPE the world so desperately needs. If that isn't God making a mosaic out of a previously shattered life, I don't know what is.

Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is love.

~twirl~