Hey you who are feeling a little beaten up and broken lately,I see you and I feel your ache.Your hand that's holding your weary head up and your tired heart that feels like its taken in all the pain it can-Know that God is right beside you ready to carry you...Every ache and every disappointmentyou're experiencing is seen and felt up in heaven's presence. As we've been walking through this hard journey surrounded by so many traveling a hard journey of their own I've been feeling like spilling out a bit of what we're gathering along the way.Because our journeys are about more than the broken steps we take. Sometimes being human in all our flesh and bones can honestly be the scariest thing we do...because we know underneath lies a heart that holds insurmountable joy and yet experiences pain of its own kind. There are moments that the beauty of life takes our breath away and other times we're breathless because we ache so deeply.These past few months my eyes have been tracking so many lives being lived on the edge...there's an over awareness of the hard & holy happening over here. Because for some reason every thing else seems to be paling in contrast right now. I watch families gather around brave souls fighting and I wonder what we were all doing just months ago. And I like to believe strangers are handpicked by God for us to endure the fire beside. Yet I also know these hard times only exist for moments in years within our lives as none steal the totality of our existence. The cancer, that's crashed into our lives RIGHT NOW won't follow us to heaven's door...and for you, whatever the broken hard you're enduring RIGHT NOW will have no place in heaven for you either. Because where there's God, there's healing and new life.And until then we have the gift of worship to experience God's presence inside of.Prior to all of this,worship felt like something hard to choose much like a forced rhythm rather than a prayer graciously given to us. It's a lot like the blossoms I buy plants for,worship is a hidden gift  inside our relationship with God. A life-giving act.  When we first chose to trade our worries in for worship God began untwisting our hearts and massaging their brokenness and heaven began ministering to our hurting hearts. The words we couldn't find to pray,the words we couldn't form we found written in these songs.Because in the hilltops of heaven sits God, who is so faithful....who chooses to sit upon the summits and in the slopes with us all the same. And there really is no other way to get through the valley than to walk through it with God. Because even though our natural tendency is to worry, I've been realizing worry doesn't invite God into our struggles, instead it pushes him aside. It denies God to act on our behalf and just gets us lost thinking in circles. When we first found the lump on Joe's neck, we knew it wasn't good, as it grew so fast. In fact it doubled itself in the matter of hours and tripled itself in just a day. By the next morning as we were getting ready I pressed play on a song and it was within those sacred moments that we found worship overcame worry.  You see, worship for us through all of this has been a holy place of refuge- a sacred place we're meeting God. It's here we've heard God whispering his big words as he's reminding us that he will send down a rescue. So. over and over we return to his presence because it's in these times we feel the strongest sense of this crazy battle being won. It's in the worship that we see God fighting the battle for us and we experience him the most. And as we're choosing Worship over Worry these days there's others who are standing beside us worshiping through their own version of hard and somehow together we're getting to watch all of heaven fight for each one of us...Because that's what worship does-it unites as it heals and shows us we're all on the same side with the One who is mightily fighting on our behalf. Because our scars become our stories.They tell the brave things we've lived through.They remind us of the battles we've bravely fought and won. And every one of us has these markings.  Because underneath them lies real stories. Ones we've courageously fought...So, if you're facing some hard days of your own...Know you're surrounded by a room full of warriors facing their own brave stories aseach of us are fighting for our wounds to become scars that tell of our survival. Because on days like today friends the struggle is real...even when it might just consist of staying up late to get these words written.Because the truth is most days I don't even know how to capture what's happening over here. And I'm sure you would say the same about the life you're living...the scars you've endured and those just beginning to heal...all have been given to us to tell our stories and to show we never fight alone...So, stay brave dear one and continue trading your worries in for worship every time...We will be fighting right beside you.