the Year

the Year

This has been a year where I have been broken and stripped. I’ve been made weak so He can be made strong. And I think I’m finally getting to that place, where He is becoming greater and I am becoming less. I am truly desiring His voice more than my own. But it took a year of hurt and heartache to begin to get to this point, and through it God has shown me so much. And now because of all that I’m here, able to write about the AMAZING GRACE and LOVE of Christ because I have truly experienced it. I’m not writing as one who knows about it in her head, but one who’s believed it in her heart, one who’s been picked up by it when she’s never thought she’s be able to get up, one who’s clung to His grace when she lost everything else, one who’s heart has ached so much that only a Divine justice could overthrow the conquering hurt.

I’ve realized that its not about ME. Despite what I’ve thought for so long, my life is really just not about me. We go through pain not because we’ve done something horribly wrong or God wants to teach us some huge lesson about our lives – it is just for HIS purposes. Whatever they may be. And He s worthy of that. He’s finally getting me to the place where I am broken enough that my perspective is actually starting to change and I am seeing the word outside myself. And there is a big world outside myself. He is real. And He desires all people to know His love, all people to see His glory. So His hand will work all things for that purpose. And that might even mean pain sometimes. I feel like my eyes are being opened to this whole world that I didn’t even know existed, this world that is not about me and what I can do to affect the world and how the world is going to affect me, but simply about God’s great purpose for this earth and the small way in which He may be able to use my life to show that purpose. And I’m realizing that maybe to show His great purpose, his great LOVE to this world, I might have to go through pain so God can be glorified through it. He redeems all things, even the horrible messy things I do, and instead of God bringing something wonderful for me at the end of every situation in my life, maybe His purpose is to simply redeem me back to Him. Simply to show how His love is greater than any evil, any sin, any pain. To show that He redeems even the worst of sinners.

He redeems me. That is the whole purpose. Not some great life lesson or wonderful treat for me for making it through. There’s no amazing twist that helps me understand why certain things happen and certain things must be lived through. Just the promise that He redeems. That His love brings me back. And through this redemptive story being seen yet again in this fallen world, maybe just one more soul in this despairing world will see this Love that never fails, this love that only brings us closer to Him when we fall, and maybe this soul will surrender its pain as well and give glory to the Father. This is His purpose. This is the way of things. And after everything, it’s all I need to know.

Because when He spins me around to see from His perspective, I finally have PEACE.