Old Posts: 6/13/2014

I wanted to post some of the old posts that I was able to retain from the first blog I ever started. This is one from 2014 when I was still reeling from my separation from my abusive husband and the after-effects of over ten years of abuse. Even in the midst of my own pain, God gave me love for others who were suffering just as much or more than I was and a word specifically for them.

I'm so thankful that he gave me beauty for the ashes of my past and I know that he can do the same for so many others. After all, he says in his word that he will give us, "...a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."*

Here's the old post. It's even more relevant to me now that I'm going through a new time of mourning and loss. I hope it can help someone going through hard times know that they are not alone and that things really do get better.

"God is beginning to help me to understand that for so many, pain comes at a horrible price. A broken dream, a shattered hope, a lost love or a lost loved one, a prayer seemingly unanswered; these and other difficulties all bring us to a point of breaking that is impossible for us to come out of on our own.

"But if we could only see beyond our own pain, look through the cloud of our grief; we would realize that we are not the only ones that are hurting. There is someone standing right beside us in the midst of our pain, sometimes even carrying us through it all, whose heart is broken in two by the suffering that we are enduring.

"This remarkable, long-suffering, beautiful man loves us so deeply that his heart breaks for us even more deeply than our own hearts are breaking each time that we are in pain. But instead of turning towards him and letting him heal us from the inside out, we curse his name, we proclaim that he is not good, that he is evil or hateful, or even that he was never there to begin with.

"And still he stands beside us, weeping over his poor little lost children whom he loves so dearly; just waiting for the day that they will finally open their eyes and their calloused hearts to see that he has been with them, protecting them and helping them all along."

*Isaiah 61:3