Take heart, Daughter

For those of you who know me it won't need an explanation when I say that the past year has been undoubtedly the toughest year of my life. You will also know (if you know me) that this is a bold statement all things considered. For those of you who don't know me, first off... Hello! Welcome to my crazy messy life, where this broken Mama does her best (sometimes with feeble attempts even) to follow Jesus and love on my people. You are welcome to be one of them, if you would like. Who couldn't use a new friend?

This is as good a place to start as any. I am writing this, well, because I finally am. What I mean to say as I mentioned above, it's been one heck of a year. Full of trials of the crushing your spirit till you literally cannot breathe kind. Yet, despite my best efforts to attempt to check out or conversely to run the show myself, I'm still standing. Living, breathing, thinking, doing and now writing. My hope by stepping out like this is to shine a light towards the one who is really in control, because I can assure you, it's not me! It is not me whom has stood by myself through physical, emotional and mental pain this year. It is not me whom has held my family together while struggles have tried to tear us down and rip us apart. It is not me who gives myself the strength to wake up every day and live and try again. Heck, it is not even me who thinks I have a story to tell. (This would explain my blank blog for a period of time I do not care to admit)

Here's the good news, it's not you either! Yup, deep breath. It's ok, let it out. You don't have to have it all together, hold it together or keep it held together! Heck, I am no where near about to tell you some super neat and tidy 10 step plan to fix your life in 30 days. Nope, NOT EVEN CLOSE. Although I am open to all tips and suggestions.

What I am here to tell you is that there is someone else in charge. Someone who knows you better than you know yourself. Someone who knows the intimate details of your life and heart (even those scary ones we try to hide) I know, I know, then why the pain, why the lack of understanding, why the addiction, why the loss, why the suffering, abuse, loneliness, injustice, illness, uncertainty. I don't know, remember, I already mentioned, It's not me!

Allow me to get to the helpful part. It's Jesus. Now I'm not coming at you as some holier than thou, you should just get yourself some Jesus and your life will be all better, preachy know it all. Just in case you don't know me and hadn't been able to decipher that as of yet.

I am writing this through literal pain, both emotional and physical. Chronic pain and I have become super close these past two years. There's one life issue I will be clear on for now. To say that I am learning (after almost 10 years of believing) that God actually IS with me, would be an understatement. I want to tell you this because here's the thing, if he is with me, he is with you too! Not only is he with me (and you) he is literally waiting for us to let him run the show! To fully embrace the concept that it is HIS show already! The whole thing too, not just the parts we feel like allowing him the pleasure of directing. As if God himself needs US to micro manage him! I don't know about you but when I think of it that way, I can't help but laugh at myself a bit.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is found in Mark 5:24-34

{A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”  Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”}

There is so much to be learned from this unnamed woman who's story has now touched generation after generation. From her attempts to remedy herself, to exhausting her resources seeking help from anyone she could. Let's also take into account her personal suffering aside from the presumable physical pain, of being labeled unclean and unworthy due to the likely judgement of her "condition". She set all of this aside and traveled by grace alone to simply touch the garment of the only one true healer. The only one in control. Clearly she had tried and exhausted all efforts on her own with out him, but that didn't matter to him. He knew in a crowd of many that she had touched him. He knew more importantly, her heart. He knew her as he knows me. As he knows you. 
He is the one who can heal. He is the one who gives peace beyond understanding. He is the one in control. Not because of us but actually in spite of us! "Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?" Galatians 3:5 

So, wherever life finds you in this very moment please know, it's not you either! It's not about us, what we are doing, not doing or even can do. It is about BELIEF! Choosing to believe despite what our eyes may see and our hearts may feel. To believe that Jesus can and will give us peace beyond understanding and set us free from our suffering. That he loves YOU that much. That if we ask him to enter into our messy lives, he can and he will. Just believe and seek. You will surely find him waiting.

"Take heart, Daughter. Your FAITH has made you well." Jesus (Matthew 9:22) 


Live Loved,
Melissa