Finding a way through grief

 I hadn’t known until that day...Grief is like caged fear. 

And if you let enough tears come and not be afraid, the tears can wash away the walls, and you will breathe again. 

It will hurt. 

You may never fully recover. 

But who wants to cover over the memories of them and all the ways their love opened us up? 

Wherever our hearts are broken open, their love lives on forever in us right there. 

And that’s the thing: It’s the broken hearts that find the haunting loveliness of a new beat — it’s the broken hearts that make a song that echoes God’s. 

Pay no mind to anything that tries to tell you different: Grief is the guaranteed price we pay for love.

If you hold the past too tightly, your arms have no room for the present — no room for the gifts of now.

There’s a way to let the burn of your pain become a fuel for your way.

What is my greatest fear?

What is my greatest motivator?

What is Truth?

Who is God?

What is Success?

Unless you ask yourself the right questions, your life will never live into the right answers.

The greatest motivator can be fear. 

This will kill you 

The greatest fear can be that grace and God will run out and there won’t be enough — we won’t be enough. 

This fear is a fraud. 

Let go of the lie.

All fear is executed with one line: There is enough. 

All fear shrivels when you serenade it with one refrain: There is abundance. 

There is always more — because God is always here. 

There is enough. God is enough — and He makes everything enough.

The only reality is relationship.

Because Truth is God — if you don’t make time for intimacy with Him, the lies of everything else make you insane.

When you make islands of intimacy with God, you can survive any storm.

Love is not always agreement with someone, but it is always sacrifice for someone. 

Success is showing up and kneeling down.

There are a handful of questions that are always waiting to take our hand and find a way through.

The power to change

 So I was thinking about a question I was asked awhile ago.

 If I was able to change anything in my past would I?

My first reaction was “oh yes, there are some things I would definitely do different.”

But then I felt God moving through my heart. 

There are some mistakes I have made.

 

There are some incidence I would like to be erased. 

There are some obvious mistakes that I know others have thought I made.  

But then I thought of my oldest and then my second oldest, both born out of wedlock. 

Yes being easily willing to give my heart away to anyone that was asking is definitely something I would want to change. 

I do wish I would have protected myself more. 

Then I thought they would not be here and without them I would not be who I am today. 

So my answer to that question is 

no, I would not change ANYTHING in my past.

I would not change the love I gave hoping in return to receive the same love back. 

I loved passionately even when the one I was loving was “not feeling it.” 

I reached inside my heart and became what that person I loved needed at that time.  

Yes it hurt. 

Yes I was rejected....but it felt good too; It felt good to love someone when they didn’t feel lovable.

I would never want to change that moment when I saw my love push through their hate. 

To see freshness in their eyes; a sort of freedom to be you and still be loved. 

No matter how much pain I felt it was overcame by  the washing of acceptance. 

I would not change the hurt, the rejection, the battles. 

I would take them in with all the love, 

the support

&& peace that I have had as well. 

Without all I have experienced I would not be me. 

The good and the bad. 

Which if you think about it wasn't really bad it just seemed that way at the time. 

I could let the bitterness and pain over take me if I chose but I choose to be stronger than my pain. 

I choose to push through that bitterness and help others to love instead of joining the hate.