You provide the Fire and I'll provide the sacrifice... a journey of trust.

I've seen Him do it time and time again. Entrust me, someone so undeserving and so ordinary, with only the things that He can make extraordinary. Time and time again. Even in my waivering, and even in my unfaithfulness, His trust and love abounds. But let's back up for a few moments.
For a few seconds, I thought that maybe I could pinpoint a definitive time and place where the Lord started entrusting me with His heart and desires for my life. But I was really just racking my brain for a moment that really doesn't matter, because while I want to put a time frame to something, He just whispers, "It's eternal. It started when I created you, for I knew you before you were in your mother's womb; started when I gave My only Begotten Son. I trust you, like My Son trusted Me to take up the cross." His trust knows no time.
This trust that knows no time, that is eternal and has no beginning or end, is something that can only be delved deeper into.  It is something that over the past few months, the Lord has been revealing to me as I have begun to really pour my trust unto Him and Him alone. People often say that love is blind, but I've begun to believe that trust is more blind than love could ever be. I prayed for months that God would move mightily and radically, and that only then I would pour my trust into Him. But He would have to move in the most visible way, and I was not ready to acknowledge the fact that trust is a two way highway (and I say highway, because its fast paced and dangerous to the unbeliever, especially when its new or radical.)
My prayers were being answered, but because I was refusing to trust Him, I was blinded to His trust in me. I had asked Him to reveal parts of people's lives to me that they, themselves, would not acknowledge. He did. I asked Him to use me there. He did.  And from that grew a deep friendship that radically changed my heart. It was the beginning of mending my heart that had been so misguided and so hurt by trust put in man. Shortly after, I began praying for Him to show me where His heart lay for me. When all directions pointed to home, I grew angry that He would want me in a place that had only caused chaos. But really I was frustrated with the idea of staying on fire for a God that I was unable to remain loyal to, no matter how many church services I attended. Still, He pointed towards home, and I went (not openly or happy about it). He entrusted me with the life of a beautiful four month old. I asked Him to move my heart. He did. I asked Him to hold on with me. He did. Five months worth of holding on, and a new found commitment left me with a withdrawal slip from a university I had adored and a baby, now nine months old and with more joy than I could ever possess, attached to my hip. I asked Him to send me as He saw fit. He did. And He will.
This may pose the question of 'where does this have to do with Him trusting you?' I knew He trusted me with the secrets of another person's heart. Things that were buried, that I could see through. He trusted me to love and to care for an infant out of the overflow of His love. He trusted me enough that He knew I would follow where He led, even if it meant away from a university and all my friends. He trusted me, because He knew I would become unblinded, and until that happened, He held His trust steady and His hand on my heart.
The fact is that sometimes all it takes is a steady flow of whatever it may be, in this case, trust. That steady flow unleashes the very essence of which it is birthed from. The Lord's steady hand gave way as I was unblinded in a moment of complete brokenness, to His love and His trust in me. When I wanted to give up, His Spirit overcame. When I wanted to quit, He reminded me of His promises. And in my state of complete despair, He revealed His greatest purpose for trusting me in the ways He had.
Here's the simple statement. In a few months, I'm leaving for the Dominican Republic/Haiti. Not alone, but with the Lord by my side, and His Spirit dwelling in the very innermost part of my being that so longs to follow Him wherever He leads.
This decision was not my own, which is something that I have come to grips with since being home for the holidays. Applying for passports and mission opportunities, relying and trusting that the Lord will come through with funds and peace leaving the child I have been coraising for eight months, as well as the understanding that does not exist within my family has left me all but sufficient upon myself. But the Lord has trusted me with His heart and with His people, so how could I not trust Him with my life?

I had this vision that followed those four days in which He revealed Haiti to me. I watched the Lord take stones and place them into hearts laid out upon a table, then placing His hand over each like a seal upon each heart. Each one of those stones were individual charcteristics and traits that He, Himself, hand chose for us each to carry and walk in the fullness of; the traits He entrusted us to be the image of. Because if He entrusts us all with unique and individual characteristics, together as a body, we make us the fullness of His image.
I'll leave you with a few scriptures, and a prayer that the Lord shows you His trust in you as you begin to follow the plans He has set out for; the perfect, thought out, predestined plan that only you were created to fulfill.

Isaiah 26:4 "Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal."
Psalm 28:7 "The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him."
Psalm 125:1 "Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever."
Romans 15:13 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

.Unfailing. Love. Everlasting. : The Father's heart

A painstakingly honest confession would be to say that I am broken. The deeper confession would be that when the Lord revealed to me His plans to break many of our hearts for what breaks His, I thought that there was no way for Him to break my heart. I thought to myself, "Why would He want to break my heart? Haven't I been broken enough by this world?" And until about two weeks ago, I fought against breaking, so sure I was going to stand on my own self sufficiency and strength to carry me through the rest of this summer. But, for my brokenness, He's given me love that was promised to be unfailing, and deeper than we could ever love in this world.

The fact is that when I came home this summer, I thought I was just going to waste some time before skipping back to Nashville, the same, if not better strengthened than I felt when I came home. I was home for a mere two days before I realized that I was about to face a bitter world of destruction that could claim lives in a moment's time. The joy and peace I had brought back with me became replaced with fear and anger, sadness and confusion. I sat in the emergency room as they readmitted my brother into intensive care for the second time in a month. And as I watched him lay down in a hospital bed, it was like that, I watched him lay his life down before Satan. He's given in; to this world and his illness, letting Satan come and kill, steal, and destroy his being, and I'm staring death in the face every time I look at him.

It's been two months since my brother got out of the hospital. And now I'm sitting in my room, staring at a crib, letting the music of the mobile play to mask the breathing of a six month old boy. The Lord didn't prepare me to come home and watch my brother slowly kill himself, nor did He prepare me for the role of mother to his six month old son. I never expected to fall so in love with a little boy, but my heart, as it breaks for his innocence in such a vile situation, is captured in his smile and his laughter. A smile that wreaks the truth behind the word love, and a laugh that assures me that God is behind it all; it is all I cling to in the most difficult moments.

John 15:9- "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love."

Let's be honest. A year ago, I would have been incapable of loving someone the way I've learned to love this summer. Love entails compassion, a tender heart, and a revelation of humility in heart connection. Everything I didn't have.

Snapping back into this dark reality, I sat my nephew on my brother's lap last week, but as I pulled back, he looked at me with tear-filled eyes and let out a cry that reminded me of the past two months of joy and pain, beauty and mourning, love and sadness. It was at that moment that I realized what it meant to abide in His love. There is no way I did what I did this summer by my own strength and will. I could tell DJ that I loved him, kiss him, hug him, give him baths and cereal, but that was as far as my humanity would take me alone. God's love is sweeter and boundless. His kisses are better. His hugs are warmer. And there was no way that those sleepless nights with a fussy and teary eyed baby, those moments that I wanted to lay down and not be bothered with such infantile needs, those moments when my compassion needed to be greater than my own frustration were outlasted by my own flesh. The outcome was way too sweet, love in abundance ten times more than the moment before, compassion for the innocence that was unable to speak his pain and release his frustration. At that second, as he reached for me from my brother's lap, I held back the tears that my eyes wanted to shed, and asked God to overcome with His love and faithfulness. And I walked away.

I've meditated on the Father's love over the past week, since that day in my brother's house. My love for my nephew can in no way compare to that love, or at least that is what my conclusion has been. It is too great to measure. It is the love that promises everlasting life. The love that calls us children, brides, lovers. The love that overcomes all sin and all burdens. The love that calls us, saying "Come to Me. I am all you need. I sustain you when you cannot sustain yourself. And I will make you whole. You are made perfect in me." That love that is the very essence by which my brother is still alive and by which my nephew cannot grasp the love that is for him; when that love shows itself, there is nothing that could ever be against us. That is the love that never fails.

1 John 4:18 says that "perfect love casts out all fear", a concept that sometimes is so beyond our grasps. His perfect love carries me through my fears of incapability, lack of sureness, my weakness. Just like it carried us through the desert times, times on mountains, times of pain and confusion. There were numerous times this summer when I questioned if I was doing the right thing by my brother and by my nephew, and I became fearful of what life would be like when I leave. Fear says that he won't thrive or that my brother will die. But His perfect love removes that fear, not only from my heart, but also in the knowledge that He is also the covering over everything that is lacking in my family.

We're called to love; love our neighbors as ourselves, love the lost, the sinful, the broken, love beyond our fleshly desires. And it's a struggle when we want so badly to blame someone for a bad decision or when we get caught up in our own pity. Because the truth is that our love fails in the deepest areas. We change, growing in faith and in being, but along the way we trip and misstep. But He remains. Always and everlasting. Never changing. And it is His love that we must let shine through us; because it is Him that is unfailing and perfect. When we fail, He is our strength and vision.

Psalm 139:13- For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.


Jeremiah 1:5- "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.."


This is the love of the Father who created us. I like to think about how much I daydreamed about who my nephew was when he was still in the womb. And how much our parents daydreamed about us before we were born. All the giggling and excitement, your dad talking to you from the outside- in... we think it cannot get any better; that that love is as strong as it gets. But imagine the love that knew you before you were even conceived; it is mind blowing and heart wrenching to know that there is one person who chose you for your parents, chose to make you to be adopted, chose you to be born with challenges, chose your heart's passions and your body's defenses, chose YOU. Before you were even conceived, let alone born. And yet, so often, we run from that kind of love, which is the essence of who God is. 


This summer, I don't know about you, but I have been forced to stand in the center of this love. And to drown in the aspects of it that I wanted to run from for so long...who really wants someone to know the deepest parts of them that have scared off others in the past? But over that fact, I have found a love that is greater than life, one that calls us to lean on Him and let Him love through us. And the finalization is something beautiful and only comprehensible when we cling to the Father's love.


So let us let Him be the known and the unknown, as is the love that we portray.

...Letting Him care for our damaged hearts...

We're all standing knee deep this summer in the things that break us.


God has really been taking me through this season of revelation on the depths of His love, His desire to care for the damaged parts of our hearts. We've all been separated and torn apart, some of us for good and some for just a short time span, but He's breaking us to have complete reliance on Him and His great power and love. Or so He's been telling me.


When I first left Nashville a few weeks ago, I thought it was so awesome to see where everyone was going- some doing mission work in third world countries, ministry work in other states and countries, some just going home to work and pass by time, and others set to stay in Nashville. What was awesome, was also bittersweet. And as I've spoken to different people, I realized, it was also all in God's plan to develop a greater and stronger army. But in order for Him to build us up, there were parts of us that needed to be torn down; damaged parts of our hearts that need mending.


"My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." -Psalm 73:26


Some of us have found ourselves face to face with battles of the flesh, our mind acting against our heart, and winning the battle.  We have acted out of sheer impulse- kissing that boy didn't seem so wrong in the heat of the moment, according to the flesh. But the real issue lies in a lack of self worth and mistrust of men. Telling yourself that God is your strength, because He is, and letting Him fight for you cancels out flesh and its reign you let it have in your life. He wants to go further and care for your heart, prove to you that you are worthy in His eyes:the only ones that matter, teach you to trust in Him when you cannot trust in man.


Others are finding themselves face to face with isolation and loneliness. We all know that we are never alone when we allow God to be with us, but believing it is another situation. Because we thrive in a residential community all year, living side by side with other believers and partners in conquering for the Kingdom, we forget that sometimes God is our only answer. And all of a sudden we find ourselves hundreds upon hundreds of miles away from one another for 3+ months. It breaks us. Because the enemy's favorite time to speak to us is when we are alone. He wants to get us at our weakest, but as it says so many times "Behold for I am with you." God knows it is hard, that the world is a tough place, and when we face it with no community, we are going to fail. But take heart. He is going to pick up the pieces of the trail we leave as we fall apart, and mend them back together, sewing Himself into the seams- more stitching and stronger thread. He wants to be the foundation of our being- nothing of this world sticking itself into the seams. Purely Jesus. Purely made.


And He's saying "I want you as you are. Broken so I can fix you. Imperfect so I can fill you with my perfection. In darkness so I can show you the light. Come to me, and let me see the damaged parts of your heart. Let me hold you and touch those places. Just Me and you." So often we hide when we are struggling. But in a deep relationship, you wouldn't hide, but share and conquer together. He is the ultimate form of relationship, who knows our struggles without us saying a word, waiting for us to say yes, and let Him mend us with His love and compassion. 


I've learned over the past few weeks just how great the power of His love and His mere presence is on day to day life. Sitting in the place that kept me captive from joy and abundant life for so many years, I want to be angry and bitter. I want to be worldly, because it marks itself as being so desirable and so fulfilling.  I stray from His presence and linger in the damaged parts of my heart that I've began to rebuild walls around. I live lukewarm because it's easier than letting Him have all my problems and all my pent up emotions, and it's easier than having to confront the hardness that I'm coming up against in people who think walking in faith is crazy or absurd. But no matter how much I stray, He remains constant. He waits for me, desires me, believes in me.


They played "Hosanna" last weekend at church. And as I sat, baby in my lap, something inside me turned. "Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause..." Memories flooded before my eyes, things that had been said repeated in the back of my mind. I wanted to be angry, be of this world and repay for the damages done to my heart. But the Kingdom is at hand. I want to break for what breaks His heart. I see the brokenness in angry people, feel compassion for the heartless, desire to love the unlovable. Only when I cling to Him. If only we let Him have our hearts, and our hearts completely- damaged and all.... would you?


Take heart in knowing that He is your strength, even when the season seems dim and the enemy's lies are floating in front of your face. And that as we break, we are not alone, but clothed in the promises and everlasting presence of God. It's a season of breaking and mending, sharpening and trusting- He's building an army strong as iron.

Human Imperfection...I'll take it.

Perfection: The condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.


I'm pretty sure the appropriate definition is God. And if we looked up its antonym, we should be able to find the word human.


I've been laying in my bed late at night in the dark lately, listening to the noise upstairs, having my brother walk in my room and tell me I'm weird for laying here like this, sitting in silence. But more than that, I've been thinking about our imperfections as humans, more so my own imperfection and my own attempt to look perfect to the outside world.


And today as I got dressed to go out, I said to myself, "Okay Lindsay, put your blazer on, some eyeliner, the right shoes. Put on that smile you have attached yourself to through thick and thin, and pretend for another couple of hours." That's what I did. It seemed real for the few hours I was out. I felt perfect. The world could see my smile, the new dress I bought, the pin straight hair I perfected before I got out of the car. But tonight, sitting in a youth group, something broke in me. That new dress sat in my closet, my hair was pinned back, my smile traded in for tears and a closed mouth. 


The Lord said, "You're imperfect. But that is perfect for me, because I want you to be that vision of imperfection that draws in girls behind you- the imperfection that says I want to be closer to the one perfection that is greater than all the issues my imperfection brings. Don't hide behind masked perfection- shine light on it."


Perfection masks all of our insecurities and all of our missteps. It covers our sin, and if we can look like we haven't struggled and haven't hurt before, we are golden. Wrong. The fact is that we were created for sin- we mess up, we repent, we go a little further, we mess up again...keep the cycle going. And by His wounds we have been saved- all of our imperfections are covered, so why do we continue to try and  cover them with human material and quite honestly, crap? 


What if we looked at the picture through clean eyes? His grace and mercy is what sustains us in all of our imperfection. We were not created to live in shaded imperfection. Come out of the forest of shade and masked perfection to see the light and what true perfection looks like- His creation, His beauty, His mercy for the lost who come out to seek His face.


I'm creeping along the outside of that forest. I'm seeing parts of His beauty and parts of His mercy that bring more awe into my life everyday. But I'm still hiding- I'm not going to lie. I still want to put that perfect dress on and wear that eyeliner that will keep me from crying and exposing any flaw I may have.


However, tomorrow is a new day. A minute from now is a new moment. And in that time, I'm going to admit to myself. "I'm not perfect. But I will be that vision of imperfection if it means I get one step closer to feeling the grace and mercy of Perfection itself."

He promises Deliverance.

A girl born of sin

A spirit made for temptation in its finest form

Satan’s beauty- a work of everywhere she’s been

She clings to, like a blanket’s warm

She bore witness time and time again

To her, God promised faithfulness

But Satan maintained his grip

At His feet she sat, worthless

She sits in the darkest corner

The voices tell her He lies, His promises untrue

Abba lies- the idea pours down upon her

She succumbs to hurt and more self- talk that’s been long overdue

But as she sits alone amongst the group, she becomes immersed in His grace

Every time He holds out His hand, she touches and then withdraws

Fear of the unknown staring her in the face

If she lets herself strip down her identity, she has to worry what everyone saw

The last person who saw the truth, the fire in her eyes

She pushed away, making another victim to the Enemy’s wrath

And when she was alone again, Satan’s power couldn’t die

Chasing after His heart was the last of her chosen paths

But He wraps His arms around her being

Rocks her in her dreams

Because in her dreams, the human world is more than what she is seeing

Satan’s dirty tricks reverse, and there is no picking teams

Awakening to a world of pure deliverance

Freedom from oppression and the pain that plagues her past

In His kingdom, she’s free to dance

Chains of bondage are Satan’s stronghold, ending fast

She takes claim over her heart, as she accepts forgiveness and joy

Temptation takes the backburner, as she closes out sin

She runs into his arms, as his child rather than the Enemy’s toy

When she foresees the darkness, she may just win.

Freedom from the Past.

I’ve been free for two years today. Two years free from abuse, from pain, from a lost childhood.  It’s been the most rewarding two years of my life.

Last night as I sat on the floor and listened to Alexis give the message at Fire Night, I was hit with this overwhelming sense of God speaking to me. Satan’s number one trick is to try and lock us in our past. But there can be no more.

We all face a past that has skeletons in the closet. Things that we do not speak of, whether it be addiction, criminal activity, self- hatred, or so on. For a while, we linger in those memories, dwell a little in their entity- we become what we have done. We are characterized by our actions and who we once were. Or so Satan has us believing.

I was a defenseless eleven year old girl who knew nothing more. What nobody chose to notice I took as being okay- with nobody to teach me the difference between good and bad touch, the two became one, and anything became fair game. And I became the passive participant in what claimed my childhood, or what were then becoming my teenage years.

What I did to myself was much worse than any one of those nights. Satan became my main comfort as he took over my being. I started to fill myself with hatred and disgust. The dirtiness I felt left me unaccepting of understanding and love. Satan beat me down so hard that what should have been merely mental became physical. I’d beat myself in the head until I hurt so badly that I would sleep it off, just to stop the thoughts. I’d cut to release the pain, which only led to more self- loathing.  I had no hope. I was just merely being because I thought that was what I was meant to do.

I was sixteen when my friend’s ended my battle for me. I became wound like a rubber band, near snapping. Numbness became my best friend and Satan sat on my shoulder and told me that everything I received over that year I deserved. He told me every week that I was meant to be alone and that I deserved to spend every holiday alone. He told me that I had to work for love and for acceptance. So I did. I did the dishes and cleaned the house and bowed down to everyone in hopes that they would love me for a second. I hoped that my mom would say that she loved me and that for more than two days a week she would chose me over my stepfather. It never did.

 My story is just a story. It is the past. And it does not dominate who I am now or who I am becoming in God. Because God thrives in making us new and restoring us. He holds victory over Satan every day of the week.

Today marks one of those monumental moments that each year I get to reflect on. I had the opportunity to share the woman I have become with one of my best friends who carried me through those six years today. And to know and be acknowledged for the transformation I have undergone is the greatest gift God has given me yet. I know I am walking in the right path.

We all have the capability to escape our pasts when we accept freedom. The scariest thing is stripping ourselves of our identities, because that is who we know ourselves as. The fear of being raw and being exposed and vulnerable outweighs the beauty of the outcome for so long. But the truth is that God covers us. He loves and never fails. When we are most vulnerable, He shelters us with His promises and faithfulness. He holds out His hands and offers us abundant life and love- freedom is at our fingertips. It is so real to the touch, and the best part is that He never withdraws that offer. It sits there waiting for us to jump in and take it as our possession.

Satan loves to know that we dwell in a past. It is his hold on us. He is the premise behind the chains of bondage, which only God has the power to free us of. It took me just short of two years to realize this. My mother saw God as her scapegoat and weapon against me. But what she did not see was that she was using His will for her own selfish wishes. If I forgave from the start, she did not have to face her own demons and she would have been reassured that God really does save and free. But I would have never known the truth as strongly as I do now.

And the truth is that God cuts all bondage. He wraps us in His arms and secures us with His everlasting love, even when we let ourselves succumb to Satan’s lies. Because those of us who believe- we find our way back to God’s arms where life is abundant and the past becomes Satan’s only friend.

Fire Night.

I am beginning to realize that only God knows who you truly are, and only those who truly believe in Him can know you without you having to say a word.

I had the chance to Skype my younger stepsister last night, which brought out the true revelation of the change that has occurred in me since leaving New York in August. As I rambled on, she interrupted, saying, “You aren’t the same Lindsay who I used to stay up late at night with talking about therapy and watching SVU.” She laughed at me when I talked about Jesus and different perspectives on the situations that I had once tried to control myself. I told her blatantly, “I don’t care if you think I am a freak. If you think that, then I know I must be doing something right.” She is just one of a few who have criticized me for changing. But somehow, I find it okay.

I find it okay because I have found myself in this place where people want to love me and know me deeper and more intimately than anyone ever has before. People who want to go beyond the mask, and do not feel the need to ask before they start chipping away at the layers of pain. People who hold you when you cry and love you when you can’t love yourself. People who are from the King.

Which brings me back to the dominant message of this blog. God places these people in our lives who know us, even when we think we are sneaking past, unseen. This past week at Fire Night my eyes were opened to this concept. I went, just like any other week, but could not face going inside the Bell Tower. I really wanted to join in worship, but found myself being unworthy and being afraid of someone seeing my pain. So I sat outside and listened, hoping to just be seen as an on looking student, and nothing else. But my friend Nicole came outside when she saw me sitting on the brick wall and asked me what was going on. I thought that I could tell her that I was simply looking for alone time with God and that she would say okay and go back inside to meet her own spiritual needs, but instead, she wrapped her arms around me and just hugged me until I let go. The night was only beginning.

I got up and went back to my room, with no intentions on going back that night. I was sick and tired, and to be quite honest, I was severely doubting God’s wanting of me. But as I put on warmer clothes I felt this need to just go back, even if for another minute. I now know it was God telling me that I would find what I needed that night inside the Bell Tower. So I put on shoes and walked back to the Bell Tower, entering in the middle of a prayer and sitting on the bottom of the staircase in the corner. I had two different people ask me if I was okay, and I lied to both of them and said yes, despite the fact that I knew I was sinking in doubt and hatred. But Nicole came over again and asked me if I would be willing to receive prayer. I was completely taken aback; I was always able to disappear into the background when I was at my lowest points.

Letting people put their hands on me is a huge feat of breaking down the boundaries of trust for me, especially when I cannot see who it is. Cole asked what I wanted prayer for and I just looked at Nicole as I lay my head on her shoulder and she told him what to prayer for. I closed my eyes as she wrapped her arm around me and Cole began to pray. As the prayer went on, I felt other people holding onto me, but with my eyes closed, I could not tell who they were. At any other point in my life, I would have broken down in fear of people touching me, but I had to learn to succumb to the trust of God. I felt Elsie put her hands on my back and stomach as Cole continued on and then take my hand. I was clinging to trust, giving up on hiding, and just looking for someone to understand.

I wanted so badly to just be overcome with the spirit and to feel whole, even if just for a minute in the presence of God, that I let Burke pray over me.  I fell back to the floor and just let myself be one with God. Lying on the floor in the Bell Tower, for the first time, I felt so at peace with myself and God, and I felt Him surrounding me. I knew trying to hide then was just a dumb idea, because the people that were surrounding me that night saw right through every layer of pain and every mask I put up.

I found myself holding onto Elsie, afraid of what she saw in me, and afraid of talking myself. She looked me in the eyes and asked me what was going on. My own shame had kept me from God for so long and it kept me from talking out my past and my feelings with anyone.  And it did the same thing with Elsie; it kept me from talking to her and just telling her I was hurting and that I just wanted love. However, I had already accepted God into my heart and He gave her that part of my heart without me asking Him to. His love for me conquered all fear that was in me. She knew what happened and she saw through the layers of pain that have kept me bound, as she wrapped me in her arms again and just held onto me. And around her, other people gathered, surrounding me with warm embraces and everlasting love. 

It leaves me questioning how someone could ever think that there is anything more powerful than God himself. He knows when we hurt and He hurts with us. He gives us strength, even when it isn’t within ourselves. He tells those around you what you need when you cannot find the words to speak for yourself. He is the most powerful of all beings and creators. How could we ever lose faith in this?

And when we do lose faith, because I cannot sit here and pretend that I never do, because I do often, He shows us His love for us in the wildest of ways and picks us back up into His arms. He never loses faith in us. And even when we fear ourselves and shame ourselves, He becomes our comfort and surrounds us with His never ending presence. He provides with no end in sight.

“... but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. “ –Isaiah 40:31