Sustained by the King

Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.
Psalm 126:5-6, NLT

On June 3rd, I opened my One Year Bible for the first time since January 17th. In the month and change since, God’s Word has revived and electrified my soul like never before. I have spent hours seeking Truth in scripture, journaling my prayers, and crying out to Him. My quiet time has been filled with a passion for the Lord that I haven’t experienced in nearly 10 years. I’ve spent most of my 20s running towards my own desires, some morally good and some morally terrible. Regardless of their moral value, my desires have all led me away from the true heart of Christ and towards the world’s depravity. The further I drifted from the high school senior who woke at dawn with a prayer journal and her Mom’s old Bible; the more confused and empty I became. Even while I was married and actively involved in youth ministry, I knew any drop of God’s presence would be fleeting, because my heart was a desert. The soil of my heart, for the last eight or so years, was rocky ground.

And the one sown on rocky ground—this is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he has no root and is short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away.
Matthew 13:20-21 CSB

In 2022, the Lord began slowly dripping water onto the rocky soil of my heart. After a year of immeasurable loss, grief, fear, depression, and crisis, I wandered into a small church filled with strangers and the presence of God. Though flawed and broken, the people in that small church showed me Jesus like I had never seen him before. And because my heart was so broken, so empty, so twisted in despair, I was finally ready to receive him. The two years between now and then have been filled with chaos, change, heartbreak, and blessing that would take an entire novel to share. My year of heartache turned all the comforts and distractions of my early 20s to ashes. No husband, no baby, no home, no community, no popularity. In that darkness and desolation, the Lord began to pour His love over my heart.

Let me experience your faithful love in the morning, for I trust in you. Reveal to me the way I should go because I appeal to you.
Psalm 143:8 CSB

As I began making “good choices”: pursuing godly friendships, sharing my testimony, inviting people to church; I was still caught in a cycle of “bad choices”: living without boundaries, filling my heart with things of the world, and using vices to numb my complete and total lack of self-worth. Praise to God and God alone, my community surrounded me with joy and love like never before. If I had been left to my own vices, I would have spent another year chasing whatever validation I could, wherever I could. But God had a different plan.

In his endless gentleness and grace, he knew exactly what I could handle in each season. He knew I didn’t trust him or his people. He knew I was jaded and bitter. He knew I was selfish and stubborn. As he used a new community, home, and job to slowly knit my life back together, his love began to soothe my jagged soul. Another breakup, another dead-end job, and a dozen failed first dates later, my heart was finally soft enough to receive him. He brought me to the edge of the pit, staring down into the memories of my lowest place, and pulled me back from the precipice before I could repeat my past mistakes. He gave me a new beginning, new life, and new heart.

For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding.
Ephesians 1:4-8 CSB

On June 3rd, I opened my One Year Bible… I found an empty journal… and I began to pray. In the 5 weeks since, the Lord has refined my heart like never before. As I’ve pressed into him, my soul has been cut apart, laid open, and examined in painfully beautiful vulnerability. He has, and continues to, burn impatience and stubbornness from my heart in a warm blaze of divine love. He’s laid impossible dreams in my heart and asked me to trust him. He’s given me a glimpse of my soul’s greatest longing and asked me to wait for his timing. In all of my impatience and efforts to sprint through the fire, he gently sets his hands on my shoulders and nudges me to rest in his presence.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.
John 15:1-2 CSB

I have been through the dark night of the soul. I have filled my sheets with tears and stretched myself over the cliff’s edge to end it all. I have blown up my life in fear and desperation. I have doubted, rejected, and run from God time and time again.

But in his mercy… the prodigal has come home.

As I toddle through trusting him, I know he holds my hands with endless strength and steadfast love. As I turn my eyes away from my brokenness and towards his promises, I know he sees me covered in the redemption of Jesus Christ. As I take shaky steps towards sanctification, I know he lights the path with truth and wisdom.

There is much work to be done, but in every moment of refining I remember: 
In my hunger, You are good. In my longing, You are good. In my questions, You are good. 

Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.
Psalm 143:8, NLT