There is a purpose for our lives, our stories are not in vain, there will be, there is, beauty and wonders even out of the debris of painful, hard times, because this is the essence of redemption. Sometimes it feels hard to push through the midst of the disappointments, and the shame of when things aren’t as you dreamed. But I have found, often, it is in these times that some of the rarest treasures are recovered. Recovered within us and around us.
Our stories, and personally, the narrative of my journey has looked so unlike I once dreamt or gazed ahead expecting. And yet, there is beauty, beauty in all the ebbs and flows, losses and gain, joys and grief, it’s not always, has not always been easy for me to find the beauty, but somehow as our narratives stretch on and we dust off the debris of the seasons we can find seeds of life. And when tended to, these seeds in fact cultivate a resilience in me for integrity, they grow out of the rough, the diamonds of who I truly am at core, the seeds perhaps reveal, refine the more true, and often until then, the secret dreaming of my heart, they hard times have often awakened the seeds of the essence of me. Because it’s in these season we get to refine our values, we get woken up to what matters, when we get shaken the less true falls away, we become warriors for the heart of what makes us us. It never feels like that, but if we do not yield to hopelessness’ invitation we are able to glean truth that even in adversity there is life and hope. Because things will pass, and the gospel is true, we do have a overreaching narrative of redemption and restoration, of rescue and renewal.
What we set our to accomplish or how we first begin to dream our stories would evolve changes, at times it’s disrupted, but we do not loose more than we gain, we grow and adapt and we develop, with the story. When we choose to believe we gain, for we do not gain through understanding, but through faith. Faith can be unshakable, come what may.
It’s true that often in despair that we can’t see seeds, we are not aware of gifts, we are not able to give voice to the beauty, these chapters feel full of war wounds and our whole being can be tender to the pain, we don’t want to show. Yet, there is a force of grace that even when we don’t feel or see is like a current in our being drawing us through to quieter waters, lusher meadows, and as we stand firm, as we fend off hopelessness and draw on resilience in faith, as we do, we find our feet have taken us through and we then stand in meadows where there is sweetness that begins to drown out the bitter, the mire begins to harden into firm footing, the grey ashes find colour and even beauty, and it comes subtly, it comes moment by moment as we lean into the simple softness that begins to replace the harsher ones and gently revelations enlighten the subtle, and sometimes the strong despairing of our world, and hearts.
This is the gift we so easily forget, life is in motion, we are led, there is change. Life is not singular, nor monotonous, there are many strands, plans, purposes, threads of narratives, colours that brings us together, bring all that we are into some kind of destiny, expression, a unique ‘us’ kind of wonderful. There is not a pass or fail, that we often deem we live by, but there is growth, and in growing, there is evolving, change, transformation,.
The greatness that holds us is far surpassing than the narrow lens we often view ourselves, our stories through. The masterpiece we each are is constantly gaining colour and brush strokes, taking on tone, light, form. The breadth of us expanding far beyond that which we dreamt or hoped, and we rise to fill it as we change our mindset to the surpassing wonders of our Author’s. I realise often we can dream bigger, hope wilder, posses more, and still it is small, it is limited, The Artist of our lives sees more, and makes more possible.
And so, when we stand in the meadows, amongst the countless blades of wild grasses, speckled with numerous droplets of colour, the wild lands, that are not necessary, or uniformed, the land that is not flat or singular but wild and varied, messy, untamed, yet a fully true expression. There our eyes see, our lives are like such meadows, such wild lands, there is beauty and wonder in all that makes us us, for it is making us. Nothing is wasted, we are unfinished, but we are becoming. We are in the seasons. We are glorious as we grow. We are more than we dreamt we could be. We can not fail, we do not loose, we make our every season an offering, even, especially in the mystery and pain and everything become beautiful in its time. The seeds of such sown in adversity to grow with bounty.
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