like a flower waiting to bloom
Thank you Norah Jones for this delightful song which came onto my Pandora station: Turn Me On.
Life is never the way you expect or plan for it to be.
I picked up a book the other day called The Beautiful Ache, and I have been forcing myself not to read it all in one sitting. It is transforming the way I view the achy-ness of my heart. The author challenges the reader that instead of pushing the ache out of one's heart or minimizing what one feels, that the reader would welcome the work God wants to do in her heart through that ache.
I don't know about you, but this is kind of a revolutionary concept for me to wrap my head around. I never really just let the ache sit there (and I certainly don't offer it a cup of tea!). I usually deal with it, and move on with life. I think there is a little piece of me that is afraid that if I actually did invite the ache in, it would take up permanent residence. I would never get rid of it, and then I would slowly become overwhelmed by it until my heart was entirely consumed by it. Even as I type that I realize how ridiculous that sounds.
God will never give me more than I can bear, and if He does, He will only use it to build me, shape me, form me, refine me, make me into the woman He wants me to be. Endurance isn't built by keeping the status quo. It is built by experiencing more than you think you can bear. Then when God has taken you through the experience, you realize that you can bear it, and you have progressed.
How do we experience happiness if there is no sadness? How do we realize richness and fullness if there is no emptiness, no ache?
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C.S. Lewis
Unfulfilled desires can either cause bitterness and hardness in my heart...
or
they can point me to something, Someone, who is bigger than myself...they can guide me to the place I was made for.
Life is messy and complicated and adventurous and dangerous and painful and joy-filled and unexpected. Life is life. Heaven is Heaven.
Peace and Mercy.
Life is never the way you expect or plan for it to be.
I picked up a book the other day called The Beautiful Ache, and I have been forcing myself not to read it all in one sitting. It is transforming the way I view the achy-ness of my heart. The author challenges the reader that instead of pushing the ache out of one's heart or minimizing what one feels, that the reader would welcome the work God wants to do in her heart through that ache.
I don't know about you, but this is kind of a revolutionary concept for me to wrap my head around. I never really just let the ache sit there (and I certainly don't offer it a cup of tea!). I usually deal with it, and move on with life. I think there is a little piece of me that is afraid that if I actually did invite the ache in, it would take up permanent residence. I would never get rid of it, and then I would slowly become overwhelmed by it until my heart was entirely consumed by it. Even as I type that I realize how ridiculous that sounds.
God will never give me more than I can bear, and if He does, He will only use it to build me, shape me, form me, refine me, make me into the woman He wants me to be. Endurance isn't built by keeping the status quo. It is built by experiencing more than you think you can bear. Then when God has taken you through the experience, you realize that you can bear it, and you have progressed.
How do we experience happiness if there is no sadness? How do we realize richness and fullness if there is no emptiness, no ache?
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C.S. Lewis
Unfulfilled desires can either cause bitterness and hardness in my heart...
or
they can point me to something, Someone, who is bigger than myself...they can guide me to the place I was made for.
Life is messy and complicated and adventurous and dangerous and painful and joy-filled and unexpected. Life is life. Heaven is Heaven.
Peace and Mercy.
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