These past few months have been tough to say the least. I have always tried to keep my life nice and neat and pretty. I try to be strong and paint any situation into a pretty picture. But life isn't always so easy to control and it gets messy before you even realize what's happening. Then on top of that throw in an enemy who lies in wait to pounce on your greatest weaknesses at your weakest moments and you have a full load of messy.
If it makes me stronger, makes me a better person, and strengthens my relationship with the Lord, then I will accept the messes of life. I will pick myself up by my boot straps and wade through the muck if it means I get to know my Savior better.
Weakness is a humbling place to be and sometimes that's exactly the place God needs to bring us to.
I have learned a lot about my Lord through this season. Oh how I wish that there had been a better way. An easier, less painful way. But will I ever understand what it means that God is near to the broken hearted, if I never experience heart ache? Would I truly know what it means for God to meet me where I am, and to make beauty out of my mess, if life is always sunshine and roses? Can I truly understand God as Healer unless I have needed and experienced His healing? Will I be able to appreciate His unfailing love that has no conditions attached to it, if I don't recognize that I am quite a wreck at times...more often that I care to admit? Praise God on that last one. He knows I am going to screw things up and yet He is just waiting to shower me with Grace to remind me that He will never stop loving me!
Now I don't believe that God wants us to go through hard times so we can discover these parts of Himself, but I believe sometimes it's the only way we can understand a God greater than our human minds can conceive, a love to great for our limited human hearts to truly wrap our heads around.
Yes the messy parts of life stink big time (I censored that a bit);)! And I will probably continue to do my part to avoid them at all cost. And I am certain I will continue to be annoyingly optimistic to try to avoid any glimpse of life being messy. But I hope in your moments of weakness and hurting that come that are simply unavoidable that you have the hope of Christ. That's what's truly heart breaking, is that everyday millions of people go through tough times without the hope of Christ.
I pray that you can see the beauty in your mess. To truly experience Him as Redeemer and Healer and Restorer and Faithful and Lover and Strength and Hope and Peace has been the beauty from the mess for me and has changed my view of my Father in the most precious way.
"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
Psalm 73:26
