He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. ~ Aeschylus
This picture was taken on the day of Moriah's wedding. This day should
have been joyful but instead marks the beginning of a season of wrestling with personal rejection, character assassination, false accusation, spiritual abuse, the loss of dear friends and most significantly - the loss of relationship with one of my dearest friends - my firstborn daughter.
It feels like an insanely long stretch of learning through hard days which are far from over. As I write this, it has been over two and a half years since my daughter has been home to visit. The truth of Aeschylus' quote above has been my heart cry and a glimmer of hope that the hardest hard would yield some wisdom and growth.
Because of my brokenness, I felt I had nothing to offer others. I was terrified that if I in any way indicated knowledge of how to navigate this hard thing called life it would be fraudulent. Through lots of tears and now years of looking at life through a shattered lens, it has become evident that the most common craving in every one of us is to feel a sense of connection. We all want to look across the room and be able to say "you too, I thought it was just me." The broken places are where the light shines through and where we can find that common connection.
In this quiet pain of learning through suffering the Lord has been impressing on me the importance of resonance and reflection. If pictures and words are a means of reflecting Christ in the messy middle than withholding them would be wrong. The vulnerability of raw life is a concept I have come to love these past few years. What better way to contribute to a connection than by chronicling the raw and real of our imperfections. God's grace has been evident every single raw day. I am quite content to stay in my comfort zone of high emotional walls and surface conversations but out of obedience, it is time to step back into the arena of vulnerability through pen and lens.
When you don’t give up, there is a blessing for you on the other side, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a limp. ~ Kyle Idleman
Here's to limping along with you my friends, and praying that the evidence of God's grace would resonate through words and pictures as I vulnerably post again.
This God—His way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? The God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. Psalm 18:30-32
