another year is ending.
glory.
my heart is in shambles tonight - but it's a beautiful thing.
i feel like i'm coming to the end of myself all over again. it can be an overwhelming feeling sometimes, and exhilarating the next. i am believing that the past few years have not been in vain. i'm believing that beauty comes from ashes and that a humble and contrite spirit will not be denied.
this afternoon i hopped on my bike and road just over thirty miles around, and outside of, town. my knees hurt, my hips are sore - all those heavy lifts from last week are still wearing my body down. but as i pressed on, even in the forty degree weather, i had a beautiful encounter with god.
some time ago, i rode my bike everywhere. in those moments (or hours), i experienced a nearness of god unlike anything i've ever encountered before. these days, though they are full and exhausting, i like get in my mobile prayer closet as often as possible and hear him speak to me on the open road. today was no exception...
this has been a year of:
new perspective
community
heartache
heartbreak
passions lost//and found again
dying to self
being rebuilt
on the road today, as i was praying, as i was letting out my frustrations before the lord, i experienced every sort of emotion one could imagine. i was heartbroken over relationships lost. i was angry over time wasted. i was frustrated over plans being foiled. the two questions that still resound in my heart are: have these years been wasted? and, will i continue to chose love? i believe the lord is re-vamping my heart to recognize the beauty in the ashes, the joy that comes forth from mourning, the truth that love is all we live for and all that satisfies!
but it all comes back to knowing our first love.
love him, wholeheartedly, with everything, holding nothing back, embracing the unknown.
out of this flows rivers of life that invade the nations, that invade the brokenhearted.
take me back to this first love, oh beloved one.
in a few weeks, i will fly away from this beautiful place. i've been hedged in, in texas of all places, for five years more or less. through the misery, through learning to embrace the pain, through coming to love this land, i have to believe it was all for purpose. i cannot see the fruit of this season yet, but i know it was of the lord.
and now, in my pain, he is letting me fly.
old dreams are being resurrected.
a spirit is being revived.
my hope is in him - not in a dream, not in community, not in a ministry.
and so he's letting me fly.
oh caged dove, come alive again - come and fly up to new heights.
kona: here i come.
