When my journey through this life feels like death around every corner, I’ve learned to let myself feel the torment. The aches and pains that this life brings. The shredding of my heart when things are ripped away from me that I held so dear, but were never mine to hold in the first place.
But, I have also learned that I cannot stay there. This is a temporary win for Satan, but he does not have the final word. My pain is real, but it does not have to stop me, freeze me, or steal my joy.
I’ve cried tears as I’ve had to say goodbye to dreams, to hopes, to a future full of love. And I don’t regret feeling it deeply. It helps me process it better. And to understand myself better later on.
And although life can be so harsh at times, I read about the heart of my Father in the Psalms and I weep with a hope that is so present. So calming.
The faithfulness that I see in God is exquisite. Absolutely breathtaking.
Read Psalm 139 with me.
“O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.a
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.”
Even through the valley of death, he is there! He knows everything that I need, even before I do, or maybe never will.
I am seen. I am heard. I am loved. And I am known.
Never will I find a love more complete, than when I look into the eyes of my Jesus while I walk through the valley.
He is there.
Relentless Rise 