Wow, December is here already. It's hard to believe. We've only got ONE month left in 2018. 2018 was quite the year for me and I have so many things God has taught me that I would love to share with you. However it would be impossible to truly discuss them all in one post without the post being novel-size. Because of this, I have decided for the next couple weeks that I will share posts titled "What I Learned in 2018" and each one will include something different that God has shown me this year. Are you ready for the first one? Let's go... My 2018 started off in a way I did not expect. In fact, it was a millions miles away from what I had hoped and dreamed and prayed it would be. And so my 2018 started with a lot of hurt. You might not have noticed it at first and maybe you wouldn't have noticed it at all, because I was so good at pretending that I was "okay." So to be painfully honest with you, I'll let you in on a little secret. My 2018 started with a "no" from God that crushed me. Not only that, but it left me wounded and even angry with God because there was no way I could possibly understand why He would say no after I had prayed and begged and pleaded with all of my heart. On top of that, my health took a dive for the worse and I was sick. I look back on my calendar for the first three or four months of 2018 and almost every single day is marked with a black X declaring that I either had a migraine, extreme nausea from my stomach problems, or fatigue so bad I was sometimes too exhausted just to walk down the hallway. The migraines were worse than they had been in years and they were almost constant. With my broken dreams, wounded heart, and weak body, I met God in a way I never had before. And y'all, that's what I want you to know and believe for yourself. That's why I want you to know about the ways my 2018 didn't exactly start off or turn out how I expected or thought. But how God met me there in the middle of it all in a way that left me speechless. But I'll write more about that in another post. For now, I don't tell you about these struggles and hurts I faced for any other reason but to cause you to understand: I was not okay at the beginning of 2018. But I sure did pretend I was. Because isn't that what we're taught to do? Isn't that what the world tells us we need to do? Pretend that nothing can hurt us and that...we're okay? So something I've learned from 2018? It really is okay to not be okay. It's okay to feel a little broken. It's okay to admit that you don't have it all together. It's okay to not be okay. Because I promise you...in all of the not-okay, He is going to meet you there. In all of the brokenness, He is still going to be faithful. In all of the hurt, His love is never going to stop. And in all of that not-okay, He's going to show up and show His love for you in a way you never would've expected. Oh, yes, it's going to look different from what you expected. And yes, it might hurt and it might be hard and you might not always understand why He did things the way He did. But it's going to be beautiful. I never would've expected God to show up in the middle of my not-okay and show me that even there, He loves me. Even there, He is good. And even there, He's never gonna leave me. So it's okay if right now you don't feel okay. And it's for sure okay if right now you feel a little broken. Because I believe that He's going to show up for you and one day you're going to look back and realize that...you're okay. Not because your circumstances changed and not because your hurt went away. But because He never left. And when He's around... broken things don't stay broken for long. "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18 (NIV)
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I agree that it's "OK" to not be fine all the time, however I would propose that if we are struggling, that we not just paste on the label "I'm not OK." Because truly, we are more than OK and we are extremely blessed in the grand picture, with God by our side. If we keep the focus off of ourselves rather than on our "not ok-ness," that non-ok-ness will seem less significant.
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1/13/2019 01:59:14 am
This was so encouraging, this something I've learned over the past year when so many doors I prayed so hard to open we're closed, but through it all God never left my side and I'm even stronger now because of it.❤️
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