Wholeness

I think it’s been a month since I’ve written on my blog.  It’s been a month of sorting-out for me.

Lots of outside time.  Lots of prayer.  Lots of Yellowstone. :)

Finally, I think I am getting there.  I had so many “false summits”…moments where I was sure that I had made it, but only turned to find another high peak of myself and my will, looming ahead.

An old friend of ours is going through an immense trial right now.  He wrote about it publicly recently, and something he said really struck me.

“Believing God lives is much more difficult after enduring heart ache, despair, loss, and true gut-wrenching pain. Especially because by professing belief in a deity that allows such things and worse to be present and perpetuated throughout life means that there must be a purpose to it all.

Believing that God is there and that He loves us also means picking up the other end of the stick…believing that there is a purpose to it all.  The step (more like leap) forward after that is believing that there is a loving, benevolent purpose to it all.  (This is the step that C.S. Lewis shared with us all in his deepest sorrow.)

This past year and a half has been a monumental climb.  I have finally figured out what I was really climbing towards.  I was climbing toward a higher alter than I have ever visited.  And every time I climbed, I found there was a greater height, a greater sacrifice, yet waiting.  Another place where I had always known the answers, but had not yet had to ask the questions.

But finally, truly, I have placed the gift of my will and my heart on that high and holy alter.

And now I’ve climbed down, never to ask again for the requested gift to be changed.  I’ve learned to find joy again in doing not my will, but the will of Him who sent me.  For a long time, I resisted the joy.  In resisting the joy, I resisted giving all that I truly needed to give.  I resisted life.

Moments of intense sorrow are being replaced by moments of deep, intense calm and joy.  I look around me every day in wonder.  I see more.  I’m happy.

And somehow, my heart is approaching whole again.  Sorrow carves out a place in us.  Wholeness is not the absence of that sorrow.  It is a hole of grief that has been filled by a Savior who understands and succors it all.

 

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