What A Beautiful Savior

There’s something beautiful about coming to the end of your self…

In the moments when you don’t know how to keep going.

The moments when you realize you’re not strong enough… when you’ve finally reached a time in your life when for once you can’t even rely on yourself to get you through the day.

You wake up and all you can do is pray “Lord I can’t do it. I don’t know how. Give me the strength to get through the day”.

You find yourself anxiously awaiting sleep. Because you know that with sleep will come a reprieve from the troubles of the day.

But then you wake up… and everything comes flooding back again….

And AGAIN, you pray the SAME prayer.

You say the prayer because it’s your life line, because you honestly don’t know how you’re going to make it through the pain, hurt, or sorrow. Because you feel like you’re being swallowed whole.

Then you say the prayer because you know it’s the only reason you’ve gotten this far. You feel numb and hopeless. And all you know is that if you keep praying and trusting eventually maybe everything will suck less.

Finally you say the prayer because you’re in awe. You realize that Christ is the only reason you get through the hours, days, weeks and months. You realize that you’re no longer reliant upon your own strength. Because you’ve discovered your darkest, weakest, and lowest point. You’ve watched sorrow, grief, fear and hurt invade your life. You sit and watch as a life you never wanted becomes the life that you have been given.

But in the midst of the darkest of moments, you find Jesus…

You find Jesus.

Not the stereotypical Sunday school answer “Jesus”…

But the battered, bruised and crucified Jesus.  The real. Jesus.

Not the typical image of perfection.

But the man who came to abolish the confines of religion. The man who came to fellowship with beggars, thieves, liars, prostitutes, etc.

The man who redefined what it means to be a Christian. Who was born a normal birth, who lived a normal human life, who experienced grief, anxiety, and hardships.

You find Jesus with arms open. Whispering “I will carry you”.

You finally fall into his arms. Crying “I need YOU.”

And he knows. He’s been waiting. Waiting for you to give up. Waiting for you to stop trying to be perfect… Waiting for you to fall on your knees in complete exhaustion. Because he wants you.

He wants to carry you.

What a beautiful Savior,

who humbles himself to carry us. To care for us.

What a beautiful savior who enters into the darkness to find us. To walk with us.

We have a beautiful savior who meets us in the darkness providing a peace that only he can provide.

Life is broken. WE are broken. But if the brokenness serves as a constant reminder of our need for the cross-of the beauty that emerges from suffering… Then I hope that we always struggle with brokenness.

There's a time for everything

Right now I’m nursing a broken heart. All year I’ve been battling depression and anxiety. Between moving home from college and transitioning back to caring for my dad my days have proven to be challenging. I became engaged earlier this year and that added a level of happiness and at times stress…

I had my wedding dress, a wedding more than half way planned, a house being remodeled, and a new life planned… But come May all that changed- My fiancé and I parted ways. With our separation came a darkness I’ve yet to experience in my short 23 years on this planet.  A darkness that looms around every corner, following me like a cloud of rain.

I’m used to trials. Difficulty, pain… they aren’t strange visitors to me. I recognize them and almost call them friends. I’ve experienced moments of doubt, moments of asking God “why?”, moments of anger, shame, and guilt… But none of those moments measure up to the darkness I face in my life today.

New adversaries have sprung against me, leaving me wounded. Anxiety and depression are their names… Unable to leave the house I’ve cowered at home as my pulse has quickened, as my arms have gone numb, and my mind races. Unable to leave my bed because the depression has taken away any desire to do the things I love. I’ve been unable to be in public because I’ve been unable to control my emotions and my physical responses to stress.  I was a passive observer as I watched life go by from afar- trying to get through the day, knowing that when sleep would find me I would know a few hours of much needed peace. But sleep never found me… Food no longer seemed important. 

I share this not to gain pity… But to be honest. To be real.

BUT

In my experience-(between finally beginning to work through the reality of my father’s disease and then a broken engagement.) I’ve felt at my wit’s end… wondering how much more I can take… knowing that so far my strength has been non existent. That daily I cry out to God asking for him to carry me through the day… To carry me through the moments I don’t know how I’m going to move through because the pain is so great. That, YES there have been moments in my past that I’ve questioned the goodness of my father. But through this current storm there has never been a moment that I’ve doubted Christ’s power.  I’ve looked to him to carry me at the moments when I wasn’t sure if I’d move forward. I’ve looked to him to remind me that I am loved. Greatly and deeply. So deeply that he gifted me with his grace… allowing me to boast in my weakness. Allowing me to proclaim that I am broken and hurting. Allowing me to accept my inability to rescue myself… Ridding me of myself.  Reminding me that he walks with me through every hardship. He holds me and cries with me when the depression is unbearable. He reminds me that he too has felt the pain and sadness that overtake me each day. He reminds me that I’m imperfect and that’s exactly who he want’s me to be.

So yes, the darkness is overwhelming. But I trust in a savior who is brighter than the darkness. I trust that this darkness has been overcome… I refuse to pretend that my life as a Christian is perfect and that I have it all together. Because living that life brings nothing but harm… I am free. I am free to be broken. I am free to fail… because in the end… his grace. Is. Sufficient.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.