Monday, January 11, 2016

Beauty in the breaking...

Hello, world...

This post was supposed to have been uploaded last week after I finished it but life happened...as usual!

I don't know if anyone was happier to say farewell to 2015 than I was. Strangely enough, ending it was difficult.

Let's back up to the week of Christmas. I was very thankful and happy to have my nephews for a few days at the beginning of the week for many reasons. That Wednesday when we were driving to our hometown, it was TORRENTIAL rain the entire way. Last year for Christmas, my dad gave my sister and I angels for our cars that say "Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly." I have actually kept mine in purse every single day since so that it is always with me. So, we had just crossed the Missouri/Illinois line and I told my oldest nephew that we needed to pray and ask God to get us home safely. About a minute later a semi merged into the lane next to me and all it said on the truck was BJT Express...my dad's initials. It took everything in me to not cry and lose it in front of the boys. I hadn't seen any real sign from my dad in more than six months and I needed it.

I somehow got through Christmas but it was New Years Eve that broke me. That morning something unexpectedly crappy happened and the first thought I had was "Dad would fix this." Soon after the first breakdown, the perfect song for that day came on. "Staring at a stop sign watching people drive by, T Mac on the radio. Got so much on your mind, nothing's really going right, looking for a ray of hope. Whatever it is you may be going through, I know He's not gonna let it get the best of you. You're an overcomer. Stay in the fight ‘til the final round. You're not going under, 'cause God is holding you right now. You might be down for a moment, feeling like it's hopeless, that's when He reminds You that you're an overcomer." 


I spent that entire week listening to nothing but Praise and Worship music because I was just feeling like even though I know that I always come out on the other side, I had nothing left in my fight tank. The culmination of the entire last year and a half has been enough to nearly break me. The one song I kept hearing over and over is a song called The Unmaking by Nichole Nordeman. I've loved it since she released it but it's finally struck a chord with me. "The longer and the tighter that we hold, only makes it harder to let go. But love will not stay locked inside a steeple or a tower high. Only when we're broken are we whole. What happens now, when all I've made is torn down? This is the unmaking. The beauty in the breaking. Had to lose myself to find out who You are. Before each beginning there must be an ending. Sitting in the rubble, I can see the stars. This is the unmaking."

Someone recently told me that I'm not an optimistic person. They were right, I'm not. What about my life would ever make or allow me to be an optimistic person? I've had more pain inflicted on my body in seventeen years than most will ever experience in a lifetime. I've had more loss and heartache than most people who I know. It's generally been one thing after another for as long as I can remember. I am still standing though in spite of every trial I have ever faced. I am a fighter. I am a survivor. That is what I know. I fight because I have always known that there is a plan for all of it. I survive because I hold onto my faith and know that this life would have killed me a long time ago had it not been for grace that I don't deserve. I believe that there is purpose in pain, whether it is physical or emotional and I've had ample supply of both.






xoxo