Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The Most Important Decision

I'm still waiting. Waiting for the Lord to scoop me out of my valley and heal the brokenness that fills my heart. Sometimes I feel like I've been waiting forever and sometimes I feel that the time has passed quickly and I remember I've been broken for a lot longer than I've wanted to be. 
Today is just one of those days where all you can do is surrender because..what else? Nothing. I was in a hurry today and left the house this morning without eating breakfast but managed to throw the last half of a bag of almonds in my bag to eat later. I also left without my meal card which is a bummer because I had it set so today I could grab lunch without it being rushed at all. So, I find myself with ample time before my 4 minute presentation that will give me ample time before my following class.By ample I mean: more than 20 minutes. Time enough to breathe but not enough to run home and grab food.

I think I'm excited for my ASL presentation. I'm nervous too, though. I usually don't get nervous for presentations any more, but today's topic is "An important, life-changing decision." We could have picked anything: choosing majors, choosing a college, etc. I didn't think those were exactly life-changing decisions for me. I thought and thought about what to present and all I could come up with was the time I let God come into the dark places of my heart and make me a new person. I'm happy to share this decision, but nervous. Yesterday we did practices with the class and I warned my signing partners that they might find my story weird. To my pleasent surprise, they all listened..er..watched..intently and all responded saying it was a good story, a good decision. I was encouraged... I *am* encouraged. 

But I am still in my dark valley. But, that important decision that I made back in high school at the age of 16 is still the most important decision I make everyday. As time continues to pass and the brokenness stays with me, I choose Jesus and comfort stays just as much as the brokenness. It really is confusing how one can feel so loved by God and close to God and surrendered to God and still be broken. Humbling too. I ask God often what more I need to do and He responds, "Wait." Sometimes I don't know if I'm broken because of my circumstances or if I'm broken because I am waiting. But I suppose one would need an accurate description of what broken means. For me, it is simply a constant state of a loss of hope. But, my decision is Christ. I choose to trust even in the darkness. For I am convinced that somewhere at the end of it, God will take the blindfold off and there will be for me a great surprise that will fill me with joy. And even though I'm stubbing my toes trying to find my way with a blindfold on, I will come to place of rest and I will one day be whole.


But until then, I will make the decision of trust. And it is the most important decision I will ever make.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

When Peace Like a River

I rather doubt that I have quite come to the end of the dark time I've been walking in these last several weeks, but I will say that I do believe the seeds of hope that were sewn in tears are starting to produce their promised harvest of joy. It's still in the baby stages of it and it is by no means overwhelming or spilling out. But, I can say for sure that I am not as broken as I have been.
Not as empty and without hope. There is peace in knowing that. I believe it is the part in my battle against the enemy where the Lord has stepped up to fight for me and I may enter into a place of rest in God's strong tower. 

Funny how that is. I've never thought of that before, honestly. I think I've always focussed so much on how the Lord said he would fight for us that I never thought about how he wouldn't have given us Holy armor in the first place if He didn't expect us to go to war and fight ourselves. And then I get so upset the moment I'm in the line of fire out on the battle field because I didn't think it was my job to fight. Well, lesson learned. There is a reason we are supposed to be ready in and out of season. There is a reason why Paul tells to train like an athlete. 

All that being said, God's message to me is still wait and trust. I wish this calling got easier with practice. As many times as God has had me learn that lesson, I've never got the science of it down. 
But now that I have been emptied of so much of me, there is peace like a river, or perhaps a small creek, trickling slowly onto my wounded heart..and it is soothing.  


  1. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
    When sorrows like sea billows roll;
    Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
    It is well, it is well, with my soul.
  2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
    Let this blest assurance control,
    That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
    And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
  3. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
    My sin, not in part but the whole,
    Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
    Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
  4. For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
    If Jordan above me shall roll,
    No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
    Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
  5. But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
    The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
    Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
    Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!
  6. And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
    The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
    The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
    Even so, it is well with my soul
    .

Saturday, October 20, 2012

And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.

As I wrote earlier, I've quite entered into a dark time in my walk with the Lord. Not that I feel the Lord has left me, quite the opposite actually. But a dark cloud of pain and sadness has come over me and as much as I beg relief, my savior continues to tell me to wait and trust. 

Last night I left to spend time with a dear friend of mine who has shared many a pain from her own heart with me and I knew it would be good just to get out and not let myself be ruled by the depression I seem to find myself battling. It was good to just share with her the things that have been weighing heavy on my heart and how the uncertainty of my future has cause me to plummet into a dark hole. 
During our conversation she opened her daily devotional and said, "can I read this to you? I don't know what it says yet, but I prayed that today's devotion would apply." 
What she then read was perfect. It was all about trusting God with your future and knowing that He has a plan. There was so much encouragement in those words...it was a God moment. I would say one of my biggest struggles in this war with darkness is feeling loved. I know I'm loved. I  *know* it. But I still question my worth sometimes. (A lot of times.) I often find myself working to earn favor from people and from God. I've somehow convinced myself everything is conditional and if I am not _____ I am not worth loving. 

Upon arriving home and seeing my own Beside Blessings devotional by Charles Swindoll sitting on my nightstand I decided to see if God had any words for me in that one too. He sure did!

To love and be loved is the bedrock of our existence. 
But love must also flex and adapt. Rigid love is not true love. 
It is a veiled manipulation, a conditional time bomb that
explodes when frustrated. Genuine love willingly waits!
It isn't pushy or demanding. While it has its limits, its
boundaries are far-reaching. It neither clutches nor
clings. Real love is not shortsighted, selfish, or
insensitive. It detects needs and does what is best
for the other person without being told. 

The last few nights I've been praying before drifting off that God would come meet me in my dreams. He has. I've slept soundly and while most of the time I do not remember my dreams, I've woken up remembering being told I was loved and that I needed to wait and trust. So last night after reading these words I slept soundly and awoke asking the Lord for more words of encouragement. What He gave to me were these:

We know the sovereign Potter is working with us as He pleases.
He is the Potter, we are the clay. He is the one who gives
the commands; we are the ones who obey. He never has to
explain Himself; He never has to ask permission. He is 
shaping us over into the image of His Son, regardless of the
pain and heartache that may require. Those lessons are
learned a little easier when we remember that we are not 
in charge, He is. 

I keep asking the Father what part of me is so stubborn that all this shaping is causing so much pain. But I am learning that I've had my fingers wrapped tightly around my own hopes and dreams for sometime now. I've been praying that God would bless what I'm doing and He is prying my fingers off and telling me to do what He's blessing. It's not an easy lesson. Typically surrender comes after exhausting oneself in battle first. No one goes out and raises their white flag first thing. The white flag usually comes after the grass has been burned, bodies have been dropped, and one side has no other option than to give up. I hate to think that I have gone to war with my savior's will. But perhaps, somewhere along the way, I did. 
It begs the questions though, all those times that David was crying out, "How long, O Lord, before you hear my cry for help? How long, O Lord before you save me?" for all those times, how many times do you suppose God as responding with, "How long, David, before you trust me? How many bodies before you surrender? How much heartache before you let go? How long?" And perhaps that is His response to us. 
"How much pain will you allow yourself in holding onto your own dashed hopes and dreams, Fern, before you let go and let me do something more amazing with your life? How many things must I pry from your hands before you surrender?" Well, I guess it's easier to throw your hands up in the air when your arms are empty. 

And that is where I am.  Empty. Empty of everything I have tried to fill my heart with for a long time. Perhaps it has been years that I have been striving towards dreams and goals that seem to be fading quickly. But, there is room for God. And perhaps it is a Job moment where everything is taken away and then blessed twice over. But that is for God to decide. All I know is that at the end of the day, I want to be able to say, " And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold"


“But he knows where I am going.
    And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.
11 For I have stayed on God’s paths;
    I have followed his ways and not turned aside.
12 I have not departed from his commands,
    but have treasured his words more than daily food.
13 But once he has made his decision, who can change his mind?
    Whatever he wants to do, he does.
14 So he will do to me whatever he has planned.
    He controls my destiny.
15 No wonder I am so terrified in his presence.
    When I think of it, terror grips me.
16 God has made me sick at heart;
    the Almighty has terrified me.
17 Darkness is all around me;
    thick, impenetrable darkness is everywhere." Job 23:10-17



Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Thursday, October 18, 2012

When the Darkness closes in, Lord

Half way through October.. half way through the semester. That's so crazy!! How am I doing? I don't know. It's been a goal of mine to be as transparent in my walk with the Lord to the best of my ability. I'm still learning what that means. I know there is a balance between living life with all my dirty laundry hanging out for the world to see and simply being genuine all the time. 

In all honesty, I think at this point my answer to that question would be, "not good." Not that my life is bad. I've just come to a point of exhaustion. I knew it was coming too.. God gave me some warning. Around the time of See You At the Pole I was SO encouraged. I was encouraged by SYATP, I was encouraged by an email I got from one of the Salt Co staff guys, I was encouraged by my Bible study and my quiet times and just life. It was great. Not that those things are discouraging now, I just knew that soon I would be headed for rough waters. I knew when I smiled at the encouraging email that God was sending a life ring. It was almost as if he handed it to me saying, "Hey, you're gonna need this real soon." It was like when you can smell the rain in the air before it gets here and it turns out to be some crazy big storm with thunder and lightning and torrents of rain. 

You would assume that since I knew it was coming that I did all I could to batten down the hatches and prepare myself for a storm. I didn't, really. I didn't slow down enough to let myself prepare. And now I've found myself in a lifeboat with broken oars and while rowing gets me nowhere I'm still exhausting myself in an attempt to keep the thing from taking on too much water and sinking. What I need is a rescue, I think. 

But, I'm not sure it's a storm I'm in, actually. My pastor sometimes talks about there being a dark night of the soul. A time where the lights are gone and there is darkness. And in that darkness, there is pain. 
And I wish I could pinpoint what causes the pain exactly. I mean, there are a lot of things in my life right now that are causing pain. But I think the greatest anguish of my heart is that I go before the Lord every day, multiple times a day and pour out my heart to Him but the pain is still there. I spend hours before him and I listen to His voice and read His Word and yet the pain remains. Everyday I ask Him to take away the pain and every day He quiets me with His love but tells me to wait. And there is pain in waiting. He tells me He loves me and tells me He has a plan and I trust Him. I know He has a plan. His plans are always great. But sometimes the darkness is overwhelming. 

Not all my pain is because I have to wait. Some of it is because I am easily snared into believing the devil's lies. Lies about my identity and my worth. Lies about my value.
And there are other things, too, that pull and wrench at my heart. And currently I think my heart looks like it went through a meat grinder. 

But I wouldn't say my joy is all gone. It's there. Somewhere deep within there is a joy that is not shaken and the darkness cannot reach it. And somewhere deep within I know I am loved. I know that I need to wait and ride out the storm. But when you're in the thickest, blackest, darkest part of it, it's hard to see the hope. It's hard to see how far in you are and how much longer you have to keep going in it. It's hard to see God. In fact, I don't think I can at all. But I do feel Him. Which is a little odd for me.. most the time I'm discouraged because I can see Him but not feel Him. I know I'm being carried in all of this, but it still hurts. 

Perhaps this is like the time I was little and stepped on two bees with the same foot in a matter of 15 seconds. My dad carried me back to the house but my foot still hurt the whole time I was being carried. 
In fact, the pain stayed with me for a week after that and my foot swelled so big I couldn't put a shoe on. So I guess for now I just need to cling to knowledge that at some point hope will rise and the darkness will tremble. At some point my savior is going to come crashing through the thick dark clouds and whisk me away on his horse and together we shall ride away into the sunset and live happily ever after. 

Until then, I'll just put my hands up and wait. 

You called my name, reached out your hand, 
Restored my life, and I was redeemed, 
The moment you entered my life, 
Amazing grace, Christ gave that day, 
My life was changed, 
Went from my shoulders, fell the weight of my sin
So it's with everything I am, 
I reach out for your hand, 
The hope that changed a second chance I've gained, 
On you I throw my life, casting all my fears aside, 
How could greater love than this, ever possibly exist

Consume my thoughts, as I rest in you, 
I'm now in love, with a Saviour, 
Bearing the marks of his love



So I wait upon you now, 
With my hands released to you, 
Where a little faiths enough, 
To see mountains lift and move, 
Yeah and I wait upon you now, 
Dedicated to your will, 
To this love that will remain, 
A love that never fails