Grace is Enough

This was written in the midnight darkness- when I was searching for a reason for this season of life. Struggling to make sense of the utter nonsense my life had/has become. I am not being "holy" here - simply real and broken. Realizing that I am not an island unto myself. Which in its own way, yeah, it helps - but not so much in the midnight. 💔

How many times have I prayed, cried, begged and pleaded

– in the darkness of night, or in the bright light of day –

“God, take this from me.”

The ache of Loss & Grief, the weight of Life going on.

The thorn that will not loosen its grip.

I have whispered and screamed.

I have cried a river of tears than no one has seen or heard.

I have pleaded with Him to uproot this thing that has pressed me into the ground.

This thing that seems to be melting my soul.

This thing that keeps me from taking a deep and refreshing breath.

And each time I plead and cry, I hear –

“My Grace is enough.”

With time being that which settles the dust, and in ways, quiets the waves –

I begin to think and question, wondering.

What if this place that I am begging to escape is the very place Heaven has chosen to plant me for the sake of someone else

– that they can, they will, survive?

What if my breaking is not pointless, but purposeful?

What if this is not punishment, but positioning?

In every area of life, I know there is someone walking ahead of me,

someone beside me,

and someone behind me.

We are each one in our own darkness.

Darkness that overlaps one another at times.

Someone straining to see the next step so they can take it on shaking and trembling legs.

Someone bleeding from wounds that are hidden, that resemble my own wounds.

Someone who can only feel the suffocating darkness around them.

I’ve been there.

Searching for just enough light to take one more step.

Gasping for just enough air to breathe one more moment.

Reaching for something to strong enough to hold me up one more time.

Learning to swim in the waters that threaten to drown me.

There are chains that will not fall away until someone shines a light –

And says, “I have survived this, you can too – God will meet us here.”

Perhaps this that I have begged God to remove,

or at least to change,

is what He is using as the lantern in my hand –

Lighting the path for me, and for someone else.

But God, this doesn’t feel holy.

It feels cruel.

It feels lonely.

It feels like silence.

It feels like I have been forgotten and cast aside as damaged.

I can only pray that Heaven does not, will not, waste this pain.

Not one tear.

Not one sleepless night.

Not one moment where my heart breaks again into those million pieces and they crash to the floor of my soul.

God, all I can really pray is that You are weaving this all together

– to blanket someone’s heart with Peace.

That You are writing deliverance into my story

– in that language that someone one day will understand.

And that one day, from this very place, I will say –

“Thank You, God. For staying with me through it all.”

What tries to break me,

becomes evidence that God keeps me.

What wounds me,

becomes the doorway God uses to reach someone else.

And this, this very thing, that I thought would be the end of me

– God uses it to be the creature of love and compassion that reaches out a hand to be the lifesaver for someone else.

God, I cannot despise this place I am in

– even though I would never have chosen it, and I do not like it.

I will trust the process

– and the Processor.

That You are making oil be pressed out of me that will heal wounds I have not seen yet.

That there is authority being forged somewhere deep inside this pain that will speak life into rooms I have not entered yet.

That there is purpose hidden in my suffering that is bigger than me, bigger than my understanding.

May this become something holy to You, God.

Even though it is costing me everything.

Multiply this for You.

This is heavy in my hands, and upon my heart, tonight.

Please, God, use it to cause someone to breathe

– just breathe.

Because I did not let go.

Because You did not let go of me.

Here I am, Lord.

Just as I am.