Tag: hope

In the Midst of Holy Week

~ The Little Reb ~ Leave a comment

It’s the day before Easter and I’m all kinds of ugly…

There’s a part of me that embraces this holy week in it’s fullness, my heart aching with the remembrance of our Lord, his sacrifice, his completion, the fullness of His love, and yet a part of me is hanging on with the last ounces of strength in my fingertips, fighting with all my might not to fall in the dark pit that is looming right below me, threatening to suck me in at the smallest flash of weakness. 

“A lot can happen in just 3 days” the bold letters on the t-shirt resonated with me – it echoed deep within. From the most brutal death: not just physically but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, to the most glorious display of life ever shown to mankind – overriding humanity and a complete conquering of death – just three short days. It spins in my head – Truth! It cries but my spirit reaches and grabs at it but can’t quite reach it. It tries, tries again, and again, but it can’t quite reach it. Head to heart – head to spirit – how do you make it happen? 

We all sit in church and nod our heads, knowing, believing and uniting on truth: we hear it, believe it, resolve to walk in it but as Satan wipes our feet out from underneath us and we’re falling so fast, desperately reaching for something to grab onto, someone to catch us, something to save us from getting so bruised that we never get up again…where now is that resolution, that belief, that knowing, that we were so strongly united in just days ago? Where is it now?

“Believe!” They said. “Have faith!” They say. My soul in anguish cries “How?” When everything is wiped away, literally everything, “How?” Where is the well? Where is that eternal source of what I can’t muster up or find on my own? 

Broken woman anointing Jesus' feet

Quietly I hear it whispered “It’s in the release” It’s when my heart is shattered in a million tiny pieces, my brain can’t comprehend the pain, the agony, the ache, and my body is in a measure of denial, it’s then that instead of walls I extend an invitation, instead of doubting I go out on a limb – again, in the baroness of belief I choose again…to believe. I may not have faith…but He is the source of my faith. My faith comes from Him. 

I seek, I ask, and I knock. Because the only surety I have in this life anyway, is that there is One greater than he that is in the world, and I draw the life of breath from Him. In my darkest moments when I contemplate the ease and release of death and it’s appeal, I am quickly reminded of the source of life and that my life is not my own. I was bought with a price – it is not mine to live or to choose the when and how. Because of this, I have hope, believe, and strength to live on, move forward, and seek with every part of my being every facet of His glory, because it is in this that life abundantly flows. 

It is in the seeking, the asking the knocking. So often I find myself floating – believing – hoping. But it’s when I’m on my knees in the dark searching with strained eyes, when I’m torn apart, hopeless but begging with the little courage I can muster, and when I’m pounding on the door, crying for access to the awe of His glory. 

It is in these darkest most painful moments when those around me are pointing the finger judging what they can see, that the Light shines thru and glory fills my soul.

A Million Tiny Pieces…

~ The Little Reb ~ Leave a comment

Although I knew it was physically impossible, I started to second guess whether you could implode and die. I felt like my inner being was building pressure – had been building pressure for quite some time – and there was only a thin covering, bulging at the seams, that was holding it in. It was threatening to give way at any moment.

I didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t know what to do. And yet somehow you still have to keep on going. You’re a mother – you don’t have any other option. Get up, put one foot in front of the other, and keep on moving. You don’t dare slow down because you know you may never get back up.

Just that morning it took you 20 minutes to pull yourself together enough and build up mental energy adequate to start your day. You just wanted to die. Was it possible to just disappear? Maybe? Hopefully?!  But no, you’d be living this out again hour by hour, day after day. You knew this time was coming but couldn’t expect what you didn’t know. You had no idea what “dark” actually meant. You had no idea what “difficult” really entailed.

But there was no use crying about it. Tears don’t come. You think you’ll melt – melt into nothingness – but nothing gives way. And you’re still there – the lump in your throat grown so big that you can barely breathe, but the tears just sit, dormant, not daring to flow. Not yet. You know when they come, they’ll come in torrents. But even then, what that looks like, you have no idea.

 I stood still and closed my eyes – something had to happen or I would break. Break into a million tiny pieces that could never be put back together. I listened – listened for the voice of hope and truth, because I knew it was there. I didn’t have to feel it, because I knew it. It was up to me to enter the quiet and listen.

I heard Him whisper “It’s going to be ok”. Are you kidding? “I know it’s going to be ok!” I scream inside my head. “What defines, Ok? Bleeding out slowly but surely, yet you still contain viable life so you’re still Ok? How about a terminal illness that is taking over your body, but your body hasn’t shut down yet so you’re still Ok?” Can you define that for me?” My silent screams are louder and longer…what did He mean? 

“I’ve got you” He whispers as I see a vision of Him wrapping His arms around me “and I won’t let go”. Tears start to flow as the words to my life song from several years back, came flooding in…

“I will stand by you

I will help you through

When you’ve done all you can do

And you can’t cope

I will dry your eyes

I will fight your fight

I will hold you tight

And I won’t let go”

I knew of a surety, no matter how much I hurt or how long the pain lasts, He had me and He wouldn’t let go. 

‘Twas Christmas Morning…

~ The Little Reb ~ Leave a comment

You know that feeling of “I literally cannot get out of bed. I cannot face another human this hour. And if I could disappear I would do so, and never come back.”? That was me, on Christmas Day. A brief night of interrupted sleep left me exhausted midway through the day, and I knew that I needed an hours rest if I was going to make it to bedtime without any emotional fractures. I woke tho, and couldn’t sleep and couldn’t get up. I wanted to be absent from my spirit and present with the Lord. I had a broken heart and no words.

What else was new? This was the story of my life. My deepest pain was hardly ever known by anyone. Tho at one point when I was young, I tried to convince myself it was virtue, much of my naivety had fallen away by this point, leaving me very aware that I had critical areas that growth needed to take place and yet at a complete loss of anything needed to facilitate that growth. If and when I lost my mental energy it was only the power of God that could raise me from that place.

Tho it is dark today, tomorrow the sun will shine.

My husband tried to tell me that according to statistics, the life situations and circumstances that we had walked thru in the first ten years of our marriage, this being the eleventh year, were more than most people experienced in a life time. These situations and circumstances referenced were anything but divine and glorious. They had cut our hearts opened, left us bleeding, and inflicted wounds that at times we doubted would ever heal. They had stretched us, molded us, broken us and shaped us, slowly tearing away anything that the world had to offer. Money, relationships, belongings, family…all of it. There was God, and God alone. Did we want Him or not?

He was free for our taking – reciprocating that hand of relationship He had extended to us – or we could continue “doing the best we know how” which is one of the most damning lies of the enemy that’ll fast track you to hell without a blink or a thought.