No such thing as a 'pintrest' Miracle.

I love all things crafty. I love looking at something that is lackluster or plain and seeing a vision of what it could be and working with my hands to make it transform. Yet, I've had an impulse to do this with my own life. Like my ideas of how God could or should redeem are the right ones. And shame on me for standing indignant when He doesn't use my 'brilliant' plan.

How can healing happen between 2,500 miles? How can communication blossom and mature over controlled fragments of time? How can a marriage start to find its way to health and Home? How can redemption sweep real and holy through a jail cell???

JESUS.

Yeah. I know. It doesn't make sense. Pretty sure that's the business He is in. He leaves no room for doubt that it's not my 'craft-project-plan' that makes whole out of shattered and broken but it's His relentless love. And His crazy, wild, out-of-control, amazing grace.

This messy grace that He bathes me in... I have to fight to receive it. Sometimes I think that the package it's coming in could use a little 'pintrest-creativity-help' because it might help my ego when I talk about it.... when I share the miraculous work that He is doing.

Since when does a miracle need a pretty wrap job???

When it's just Him and when it's all grace.... that's beauty enough. Lord, help me believe it and receive it.

Maybe the journey seems long and the days are hard not because He is slow, because He never is but only patient with me(2 Peter 3:9), but because I am....

Slow to learn, slow to surrender, slow to believe, slow to trust, slow to obey....

Slow to accept.

To accept that which comes from His Hand, knowing that it is only good for me and glory for Him. Accept His pattern of beauty that He is weaving in my life and believe that it is far more beautiful than what I had in mind.

Let a song rise.

Young, aching voices asking questions that have no easy answers....

Moments that have my eyes filling with tears and I fight to give controlled reassurance...

The gut-checks that come out of nowhere and I struggle to gasp for air....

And giggles and firsts and changes that come yet are bittersweet....

And the truth is that we all have hearts that are wounded. But may we come weary to the One who binds us up(Psalm 147:3).

Little bit of hope: the struggle will end and a song will rise....

This ain't easy...

I've thought about how to write this at least a thousand times. In fact, for the past 5 months, I've started, stopped, started again, stopped again.... yet no matter how I've tried... it doesn't come out easy or pretty. So here it comes...

One year and four months ago, I found out my husband had been unfaithful to me. About 3 hours later, it became public knowledge as it was aired on news stations throughout the state in which we were living. The following 48 hours were the hardest hours I have ever lived, as life as I had known it, fell apart before my very eyes in the most horrific way I could have dreamt. My husband disclosed to me his multiple acts of infidelity among which were an addiction to pornography and a criminal charge of a sexual-offense.

I remember saying, "it would hurt less if he were dead."

In one phone-call, my dreams of a fairy-tale life died. And I was engulfed in a tidal wave of shock, anger, and sorrow.

I type these words for 3 reasons:

1. God told me to. (this is really the only one that matters)

2. I have come to be grateful for the lack of "secrecy" that came with this knowledge because I was beyond blessed by the body of Christ who reached out and ministered to me. And I cannot imagine walking through the pain of a broken marriage alone... and I know that far too many women do. And I want those precious ones to know--- you. are. NOT. alone.

3. refer to #1.

As I sit here, writing these words that I sometimes still struggle to believe are my story, I am in my home in which I live with my 3 beautiful daughters and my husband is serving a 2 year sentence in another state for his sin.

And I don't know how.... but I thank my Sovereign Lord that my life didn't turn out the way I thought I wanted it to.... He ransomed me from the american dream. And He showed me who He was and is when He stripped away all that I held more dear than Him.

I don't know what tomorrow holds (as I never did, but now I'm aware of this truth). In fact, all I really know, is that God is good. And He is enough. And on the days that I struggle to believe this, He pours His Grace out on me.

Although most days I feel vastly inadequate to be His instrument, I cling to and choose to believe His truth about me and know that any follower of His that yields themselves to His Hands is valuable to His Work and His Kingdom.

And now that these words have been written, I trust that He will lead me from here....