Beauty for Ashes

I have this longing.  This longing to find the gate to get through this.  To climb up and over- away from the piercing barbs of heartbreak, to the wide open pastures waiting on the other side.  I knew this journey would be difficult, and that I would have my moments; but I need to continue living. I have to live my life despite who’s in it.  I need to find what is waiting for me over on the other side of this fence.   Do you ever feel stuck?  Ever feel like there is no way you could move forward in life because of heartbreak or rejection, or mistakes you’ve made?  I have.  I do.  It’s life as I know it right now.  But you know what?  You have to keep moving forward.  You have to give yourself grace to feel what your heart needs to feel.  You have to praise in the face of sorrow and forgive in the face of wrongdoing.  You have to learn to live life despite what it throws at you.

I’m sitting at my desk, watching and waiting for the snow.  Little things like that make me giddy like a schoolgirl.  And as the weather changes minute to minute, like it always does here, I can’t help but relate that back to life right now.  Life is changing-it has changed.  And it isn’t what I had in the forecast of my life.  I guess when you are planning out your life and family as a little girl, with only one dream and that’s to be a mother, you don’t see storms in the forecast of your future.  You don’t see divorce and all the bad that hurting people will do for personal gain.  You only see the good.  The love.  The connection.  The perfection.  You see happily ever after.   Looking back over life right now, it’s scary to think that at one time when I looked at it, I only saw perfection.  Life is anything but perfect; it’s a beautiful mess of moments, good and bad.  And when we think it will be, we set ours...

Long winter months.  Grey. Cold. The sun hiding most of the time.  But to me, the light in the winter is breathtaking.  I guess the winter reminds me of walking in the valley.  The storms are dark and seem never-ending, and you think, “will I ever see the light again?”  And just when you think you can’t take another step forward, He shows you that He is there.    Walking by faith is hard; especially because it asks us to do so without seeing.  We have the faith to know that God is there in those times. In the darkness of the valley, He won’t let you down.  His brilliant light will always cast out the grey and cold, and you’ll have no doubt in your mind that He is there.