looking for my hopeful heart

I'll apologize now. This post is going to be a little disjointed. I don't really know why I'm apologizing though, I don't think very many people read this in the first place.
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I sat tonight on the phone with my mama. And as I sat there, and I listened, and I talked, and I cried, and my heart began to ache. My heart does that....it aches over things.

I think that's part of God bestowing upon me the gift of mercy. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I really hate that my heart aches so much that it feels like it's just going to come apart at the seams like a tattered flag. That has been through so many storms, and been beaten on by the sun, and the wind and the waves so much that it can no longer continue to be....its just going to disintegrate. Yeah, sometimes it feels like my heart is coming apart at the seams.

Abba, what?! What is it that you want? What do you want for my life? What do you want in the life of those that I know that are broken, hurting, and desperate for understanding?

Tonight I sat on the phone and I felt two very distinct, but very separate and different things - a sense of hope and a sense of despair.

Let me further explain:

I desperately ache of certain people in my life that are facing hardships that I can neither explain or understand why they are going through what they are going through. I. Don't. Get. It. My feeble heart can't wrap itself around what God is doing, what He wants, or even what to say to them. So.I pray. I pray, Even when I'm crying and screaming and aching for them - I am praying. Praying for understanding. Praying for an understanding of what God's will is. Praying that God, in the midst of the very dark storm and this very dark season of life, is protecting them from allowing satan to plant the seed of bitterness and despair in their hearts. I pray that God would be gracious, and will give them a taste of hope, that He will soften their hearts and in turn reveal what His will is for them - because none of us understand.

And then the line from this song
: "Break down our pride and all the walls we’ve built up inside
Our earthly crowns and all our desires, we lay at Your feet". And then this is the chorus that follows:
Let hope rise and darkness tremble
In Your holy light, that every eye will see
Jesus our God, great and mighty to be praised

It's so humbling to me as I listen to this song the idea: to truly lay down what I desire and ask God to give me the strength to pick up His desires and that in the midst of my anguish, of even their anguish, to sing "let hope arise and darkness tremble...that Jesus our God, great and might to be praised".

That is such a tough pill to swallow. It's the pill. It's the blue pill.

I say that because I feel as though God has brought me to a place of wholeness. And in that wholeness He has brought a sense of peace. A peace and contentment that I cannot describe in pretty and perfect words wrapped up in bows, only to merely say that I feel that I can on my worst day look up into heaven and say "Abba, I do not like what You are allowing to happen, in fact, I don't really like You, and in reality I am so angry because I can't fathom what You're doing, but I choose You. I choose You. Even if my life shall be met with disappointment and heartache (which it will, let's be honest), I will choose You.

Let's think about this: Not only has God chosen us, but we must in turn....choose Him. And to choose Him is the blue pill.

To sing his praises with a tear stained face, and a heart full of doubt and misunderstanding

For those that know me really well, they know that this statement is not an easy one for me- the idea of choosing God, even on my hardest day, because 6 months ago....I didn't choose Him. It's not that I couldn't, it's that I wouldn't.

So as sat there on the phone I stared at this picture on my wall:



It's as if the dawn so desperately wants to break through and seep through the cracks of our broken hearts. Embarking on the horizon of a better day still to come. Embarking on a dawn of hope.

So even in the midst of my tears, my despair, I hold fast to the hope that God is bigger. That God not only weeps over me and over them, but with them. I hold fast to the idea that God is weeping with us like He did with Mary when Lazarus died. He wept not because He was unaware that He would raise Lazurus from the dead, but because those he loved were hurting, because His heart ached with theirs. God knows what He's doing and so tonight I pray:

Abba, make it evident to us that you are weeping with us. May the dawn of a new day bring hope. And give us the strength, the mercy, the grace, and the courage to choose You. Give us beauty for ashes, garments of praise for our heaviness. May the tears we've sown in pain, reap our joy again. amen.



(I hold fast to hope of a God who is big enough to create this):




You're beautiful Alice. God knit you together perfectly, all 8 lbs 12 oz of you. Welcome to the world. I love you and I've been waiting a long time to meet you, and it was worth every minute. Love, Your K-Auntie (Kgroup auntie) Rachel