Hope Unending: Returning Home & Finding More预览

Mountains and Bedroom Windows

My dear one, I hold you close now. Feel my heartbeat. That’s it. Just there. Lean your head against my chest. Just stay. Let us stay here for a little while. I wrap my arms around you, my precious one, my delight, my dearest heart whom I never want to let go. I don’t. I don’t let you go. I never have. I never will. 

Daughter, you don’t have to rise to see me. You don’t have to be strong to be with me. You don’t need to be healed to leave this bed and feel my light shine on you. 

I am your shield. I am your compass. I am your resting place. I am the blanket covering you. Do you feel me all around you? May I be with you? I don’t think you need words now. You need to believe in something that goes deeper than what words can tell. You need to look inside yourself and see me there. You need to be shown what happens when the eyes of one’s heart truly sees. 

With these eyes, she sees darkness around her but is blind to it, too, because of my light. She feels darkness pressing in, tangibly—her skin aching from what sadness feels like in a heart—but yet she sees my face. The eyes of her heart are looking in my eyes. My eyes, ever on her, reassure her, comfort her, remind her it is okay to be sad. 

I will one day take this from you—this sadness, this pain. I will one day take this from you—the room spinning and the air so thin you feel you can’t breathe. Let me settle you. Let me be your air. Let me shine my light down upon you. This place is temporary, and there is hope. I have light and fresh air and new things just for you.

I am with you when you are sad. I never leave you. I am right here. Just let me hold you, and I will let the light in. Just let me stay.

You will get used to me. You will learn to trust me. You will let me heal the hard places, the aching thorns that pierce your heart and make it difficult to rise. 

I pull out the thorns, and I help you rise. I touch the wounds, the burning gashes fester and bleed unless you let me touch my hand upon them, and let me in.

I see that girl you see, and I rescue her. I see that dear one, the one you despise, and I love her, and I heal her. She is radiant, wild, and strong. She rises and stands. Her hair flows straight back in the wind, and she looks to the mountains, and she mounts the horse that comes from the cliffs, and she jumps on its back, and she rides. She rides into the mountains, and she knows who she is and where she goes. She goes forth, deeper into the places of darkness so that other sisters, whom she will soon know, can be rescued by my love too. She has been rescued, so she rides the places where other daughters who are trapped and lost can see and know there is a way. Yes, yes, I will bring you home. Yes, yes, I will find you. 

Yes, yes, I will show you how, now, you are indeed found. It is a long road to healing. I am not saying you won’t feel like giving up. But I am here. I have you. 

You know there is light, even if you can’t yet see it. It is beyond the darkness, despite the darkness. It has overcome the darkness. Step into that light. The darkness cannot bear it. 

With me, you can bear anything, child.

Exercise & Prayer

Get out a pen and find a piece of paper or a journal. Write down the best thing God could ever say to you. What do you most want to hear? Then write down the most wonderful thing God could dream up for you to do with your life. 

Now surrender these words to him. Ask him what he thinks of them. Trust that he will speak. Wait for him. Write down what he says. Test it against Scripture. (Does this sound like him? Is this true to his character?) Hold it close. 

Father, when I am weary and overwhelmed, you come and carry me. I am not alone. You are my compass. You are my strength. You pull out the thorns in my heart, bind my wounds, and make me whole. With you, I am filled with joy and courage. With you, I can walk forward, unafraid of what is ahead. You heal me and guide me up into the mountains. I follow you. No looking back. In Jesus’ name, Amen.