Have y'all seen this video? This couple really is showing what it means to have agape love for Christ and each other. They are performing love in action every day! What an encouragement!
And as a side note, thank you all for your messages and phone calls about my last post. I've had three close friends call to say, "Ummmm, are you okay?" :) Yes, I am!!
We really are okay, but that's not to say this isn't a hard season. I have a lot of prayers being sent to God for many different things in life right now, but that's okay! I just wanted to write that post to say that it's OKAY to have a hard season, to not have it all together, to share with one another that life is hard some times. Maybe it's being a mama, your marriage, being lonely, family relationship struggles, your work, your church, fertility, etc....we ALL will go through hard times, but that's probably when we need to be the most transparent and encourage one another!!
When I miscarried, I had SO MANY people tell me in private that they had one too, and I KNOW everyone grieves differently, but I just couldn't help but think that I would never have known if I hadn't blabbed about mine on this here little blog or in conversation. Not that I have a right to know everyone's business, but I just kept thinking, "Have you been suffering through that ALONE? With no other mama to talk to about what it feels like to lose your child?" Goodness, that just made me so sad. We are MEANT to support, encourage, and pray for one another in times of sadness AND times of joy. We are so quick to shout of the good things that God is doing FOR us, but what about telling about the good things he's doing IN us in times of real sadness and heart ache?!
I've never felt closer to God while I going through the lonely days of being a mama to a little one in a different city than family and best friends, or while grieving the loss of a child that was to be, or while wondering if MY dream of a house full of babies is really HIS dream, or while struggling with drastically changing my diet and running lots of tests to find an answer to some health problems, or while grappling with decisions my parents made that truly affected my brothers and I in our grown-up lives, or asking Him why there are almost 2 MILLION orphans in this world who don't have mamas to tuck them in, cuddle them close and feed them popsicles when they're sick like my Eli is right now, and asking God why I can't stop thinking about these sweet motherless babies. Do you have a vision of my heart and head lately?? :)
This is the GLORY in the hard stuff- God shows up! I've read that we don't see those radical miracles of the Bible anymore, like parting of the Red Sea, or the being raised from the dead, or manna from heaven, because WE have taken the need out of God. We don't really RELY on him for our basic resources; we have technology, food, houses, an ABUNDANCE of whatever we need! But y'all, we do need Him! And through all this STUFF that's in my heart above, the ONLY thing I have control over his my need for HIM! And I'm truly learning that more and more each day. Will I still desire and need God if He never gives me the babies I yearn for, or the relationships I think I need? YES, though that's an awfully hard pill for me to swallow, so I just keep praying for God to change MY heart. To break my heart for what breaks his, and to trade my dreams in for HIS. I can already tell it's working some, and it's hard to give myself up, but it's ALL worth it.
When life feels out of control, let Him drive the ship.
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