No matter how many times I recover there's always these moments in hard days when I have to do a whole lot of talking to myself and recounting of the ways God has brought me back to life. Because it’s way too easy for me to feel swallowed up in my struggles and get lost in my hurt and if I’m being real its easy to crawl into bed at night wondering how I’ll ever survive another day like today while holding onto beauty too.

Friends, this is the rhythm that's been happening all too often for me. In fact it was the story I told myself just last night and Joe can speak to its truth.The poor guy is so worn out as he’s fighting his own kind of battle and then he has to hear me spill my aching heart out too, but we've always been about this.

No matter what kind of battle we're buried in we've learned we're better when we fight it together.

It can be really hard to walk through the pain of suffering. It's much easier to look for a way around it, another path to walk or even a detour to avoid it all together. We humans love to pop cheap pain-relievers and find antidotes for suffering. Because as humans we're much more comfortable with a cure than with our healing.
In fact this just happened tonight at a local cafe as I was trying to find a moment to myself and type this thing out. A minister who I've spoken to a couple of times walked over and asked what the Drs were saying about Joe's curability. I get it. I've been there so many times. I too want to know how this thing is going to play out and not just in the days to come, but in the months and years as well.

You see, I used to pray for God to take away all of the suffering, all the hard and ugly days, which never seemed to fully leave. I used to beg for him to bring us peace from seasons like this so we could move onto the 'better days'. I really truly believed that we somehow got lost in the hard while others were living their own version of the good. I prayed for God to cease these interruptions, until I realized the 'interruptions' were the work he was doing inside of us.These hard & holy seasons have been shaping and molding our hearts. They were where wounds call for deeper understanding, where worries search for deeper worship and where burdens find their deepest joy. Lately, I've been finding within the deep suffering we are given deep places to minister to others.
You see, every one of us has a beautiful and sometimes unawakened gift to care, to sit inside another's pain and the ability to listen to another's wounds. But because we’re human we can get easily distracted and forget our calling. I believe we've each been gifted to feed the masses and even offer a stranger some compassion.Those who can sit with others in silence often not knowing what to say but knowing their presence is enough have the power to revive a crippled heart.

Yet why do we often keep these gifts hidden in embarrassment when this is the gift we’ve been given to share?
Why is it that we will hand over some small crackers before we will ever look into the eyes of a broken soul? Why are words of comfort so hard for us to speak? Why are we so quick to overlook others for something more pressing?

Perhaps, its because you're a lot like me and we're so full of our own stuff we struggle to clear enough room in our hearts to invite someone’s soul in.

You see, for us to truly receive another's soul we have to choose to empty ourselves first.

And friend, this is harder than it seems.
Lately, I've been trying to work on this, because sometimes its easier to draw a circle around us and forget what lies within. But this season of suffering didn't come for us to separate ourselves in safety. And this is one of the hardest lessons of them all.That we might not just wait for this season to pass us by before we let the goodness of God be seen through us, but within the hardest of these days we would allow God's strength, his power and his Holy Spirit to be experienced all those around us. And honestly some days I don't get this thing right, because the human side of me wins. But I'm learning every day that a piece of this is gracing myself with the ample amount of compassion I need for others and this is doing something beautiful inside of me. It's ministering to me within the walls of my soul as it bleeds over to those close to me.

It’s a strange thing, but sometimes God does the amazing work of allowing my shortfalls to become the sweet place of his miracles, because grace is felt when it’s needed most. So friend, if you've been wondering if you've been doing this well, I encourage you instead of measuring it by the things you're getting right and try counting the ways God's being seen through your brokenness. And perhaps through your mutual sharing of vulnerability God will be seen the most vividly through your weaknesses.

This sweet friend is where our worship over worry has been the most real for us. Because its when our hearts have been feeling all too heavy and our hearts have felt overwhelmed with questions that we push play and fix our hearts and minds on God. It's where we feel the most alive and where God is reviving our hearts and breathing life into our lungs. It's where we climb into heaven's presence and let it do the fighting for us as we surrender all control to God. We do this not as ones who have figured it all out, but as ones who are seeing glimpses of what’s to come, ones who are finding the source of where our joy comes from and ones who know we can't make it without the One we find here in our presence every single time.