Oh a New Year. All over people filled with hope of excitement to coming, new beginnings. For me...I feel the tentacles of depression seeping it. I can't seem to move past all the pain. But it is time, it is time to move on, it is time to let go, it is time to seek LIFE again. Feeling like a zombie for so long has left me dead on ideas of how to move on.
This showed up in my inbox this morning. And boy it hit home:
““One thing I did do: I read about counting one thousand gifts.” She said this. And then she punctuated it with all the breath she still had:
“I HAD to count all my gifts — had to.To keep me ‘here’.”
Live! Live! … Drink.
When you are dying of thirst, passively reading about water quenches little; the only way to be quenched is to actually get a cup and drink. We have to do more than read and think and plan, we’ll have to do something.
You’ve got to open up your mouth and swallow.
You’ve got to grab a pen and count gifts. You’ve got to look for the glory and hunt for the grace and laugh in the dark and seize beauty in ugly and you can lose everything but nothing can steal Jesus and He is enough and you have got. to. live.
She said that later: “We don’t see God in so much (if any) of what we do. But He IS there. Using all our pain to help others. And we’ve got this privilege of bringing Him glory. Imagine…!”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine that.
I could hardly believe you could say something like that after your vowed, tender heart had been abandoned like that, after your heart had been gorged like that.
But she was the one who had lived it and hadn’t right bled to death and she had counted gifts because she had to, had to if she was going to stay here, and she’d brought Him impossible glory in the impossible and she had testified He had saved her, so how can you not want to live a truth like that?
Believing something is one thing. But the best only comes when you decide to Be Living it.
….. Why is it hardest, to open yourself up and let yourself be blessed?” (Holy Experience - When You’re Ready for More than Hardly Surviving Your Life- Ann VosKamp)
So, I am doing the January Joy Dare….it is Time to Live, it is time for Joy…..
5. Something you’re reading, making, seeing
1. Pain Redeemed {when our deepest sorrows meet God} Natasha Metzler
2. Plans to go back to school 3. Snow falling
6. One thing in your bag, your fridge, your heart
1. My fav. Lipstick 2. Yummy mango 3. Heaviness that leads to healing
7. 3 Graces from people you love
1. Breakfast made by a sister 2. Extra cuddles from the cutest little man 3. Tea with a wise friend who speaks words of life.
