The Lost One....

 

Ya know sweet friends...... God has been showing me some things the last few weeks. Things about me. They have not been harsh things, but things I never really knew about myself and in this process of Him showing me who I am (which, is honestly what I've been asking Him to do this whole past year...so, He is a God who answers us, and in ways we don't always expect) but He has simultaneously been showing me how He sees me. Which has humbled me in more ways than I can count. I don't know, I think there's a huge difference in claiming the things we KNOW that God says we are and pondering those things and then there's the revelation of Him showing us how He SEES us, in all our moments, in our victories and our struggles, in our pain and in our brokenness....that just, reaches into a whole different level of understanding and grounding for our identity and worth. (another thing I've been struggling to find this year) 

If you've been following along on this journey since last September, you already know that the word "lost" has come out of my mouth a million times and even today, if I had to pick one word to describe how I'm feeling in the midst of everything in my life... it would still be the word I would choose to use. The crazy thing is, even though I still feel incredibly lost in life right now, this past year has been an incredible journey of "finding" a lot of things. So when I say that I'm lost today, it's not in a depressive way. Does that make sense? Not that I don't have some dark days where I do just want to give up, because I do and I think those days are understandable.... but I'm more lost in the sense that I just don't know what is happening around me, in my marriage, my future, this journey. But I have discovered many things along the way this past year. The pain is producing fruit sweet friends. The fire is refining the weak places. The waiting is hard right now, I'm actually waiting on quite a few things but I believe that it is producing endurance and faith and I don't know what else but I know God is good and His heart for me is good so, I'm learning to trust the waiting even though at times it feels so painful. The obedience that God has required of me this past year, is producing .... life. He's breathing life back into these dead dry bones, into the empty places, everyday that I choose to bow down in surrender (sometimes, that action takes me a few days, not gonna lie) and walk in obedience, willfully laying things down at His feet, handing Him the broken pieces to do with as He wills....I feel life creeping back into me. And for that sweet friends, all of this hard, is worth it.

      You know, God showed me something pretty powerful the other day....  I've always heard the parable of the lost sheep right? you too.... and honestly, I've never really liked that parable... I know right? what? Yeah, I don't mean it as bad as it sounds it's just that I've always been kind of envious of the fact that God would leave the 99 and go chase after a sheep that took off and left the rest, out doing it's own thing, not following the Shepherd. Right? Guess I kinda acted like the prodigal sons brother to be honest. And I don't know why that story has always made me feel like an outsider almost, an outsider of God's love it almost felt like. Talk about a revelation in THAT department, it never dawned on me that I actually felt like an outsider of God's love and care like that. Just something I never honestly realized about myself until I started thinking about the parable of the lost sheep.

But then God, in His perfect way, corrected me even further..... the lost sheep was about a prodigal and that story is a beautiful picture of how fiercely God loves the ones who stray, He's not "done" with them just because they chose to run away from Him...if YOU are prodigal right now sweet friend, God is absolutely chasing after you, because He loves you, He won't force you to choose Him back, but just turn around sweet friend and you'll find Him right there, arms open wide. 

 God has been speaking to my heart this year, but really been bringing it home the last few weeks. I have felt so lost, and alone, and my focus has been on "getting right with God" in all the areas that I have really "accidentally" strayed because of my ignorance, but regardless, it's left me alone in the dark. And that's where the revelation has hit me sweet friends, A lost sheep....is a lost sheep. A lost sheep could also be one that somehow got distracted and all of sudden, couldn't find it's way back. A lost sheep maybe isn't being rebellious in it's journey, maybe it just got stuck somewhere, it got scared, and started feeling hopeless and alone, maybe it turned around one day and noticed the rest of the flock kept going without it because none of them noticed it got stuck somewhere.... maybe it became afraid no one would come back to save it. The lost sheep was left wandering around afraid it wouldn't find it's way back, missing the Shepherd's voice, missing the safety and protection of the flock..... See, in other passages of scripture, The Good Shepherd is mentioned again as one who KNOWS His sheep and His sheep KNOW His voice, a Shepherd that protects His Sheep. I love that picture, we carry them in our shop, the one of Jesus hovering over the lost sheep and holding back all the wolves. 

I AM a lost sheep sweet friends. And His gaze turned to me and He came running to grab ahold of me in the dark and He has been leading me back home. 

Talk about a humbling month. You know what else is crazy about this? This whole past year... I am not kidding, go back to September and simply read my first blog, which actually has more significance than I realized a few seconds ago, but THIS THEME of The Lord is my Shepherd.... has been so prevalent in my journey this far. God has literally dropped this theme throughout my journey. In the beginning, when I first started recognizing it, I believed it had something to do with me just feeling sort of  "Shepherdless".... no church home, obviously my husband wasn't really leading me anywhere, I felt stuck... so I sort of just thought maybe that's what it was and maybe that it was more just about a journey of healing. Then, someone that God has placed in my life early on in all of this, God has actually tied this theme into our relationship which has been super cool and I have no idea what it really means but it's unique for sure, I've never had a theme tied to a friendship from God before so it's been a humbling journey knowing that God really is in the small details of our lives and He cares about us all so much that He does little things to let us know that He is working in our lives in unique and special ways. 

Though, He IS my Shepherd, and He IS healing me on this journey, this theme is presenting so many levels of my relationship with Him. I did not expect to have this current revelation of me being a lost sheep and how much He cares even for me. I needed this revelation. There is just something about God giving us a picture and reassuring us of His love for us, like He just did for me, that burns deep in our souls doesn't it? I mean, He died on the cross, the truth of that is enough...and yet here He is...running after us in the dark whether it's because we chose to run away, or because we simply got lost....His love for us is fierce sweet friends.

I needed this revelation, especially right now. Life is a bit strange, all this chaos that keeps my soul tired right now, literally every day, is present but in spite of it all, I'm finding joy in the small things. I feel so blessed to watch God placing people in my life that I do believe genuinely care. The crazy thing is, there's really only like 2 people still that know a fair amount of what is actually going on or has gone on in my life the past year. Only 4 people total (that are in our lives) that even know about this blog (that I am aware of). So at times, that feels weird, that I'm sitting among people that I know are genuine and caring, and honestly have no clue the kinds of battles I'm facing, and yet I still cannot bring myself to expose this part of my journey. I think I'm kind of stuck in that too, I don't want to do or say anything that I will regret and I am hopeful things can change and I don't want to cause problems for Shawn if they do ya know? I'm lost here in this place as well. Definitely a battle between wanting to do what is right and healthy and also not really knowing fully what that is right now. And simultaneously, feeling really alone and wishing I could just spill it all to people I'm sure would rally to lift me up. frustrating place to be...and it all rests with me, it's no one's responsibility but mine to be that transparent. 

bleh.

I'm sure it shouldn't be this complicated, and I'm sure I am wrong somewhere in all this confusion. But I also don't like making decisions out of confusion. So I'm hoping God will help me see the truth of what I should do here, or speak to those listening to Him and I will walk accordingly. I'm pretty sure I'll know if it's God leading someone into this mess lol. We'll see whether I crack at some point, or whether God pushes the envelope. Cuz I really do not know what the right thing to do is. I'm so tired. 

It's also brought about a real attitude of caring for people in me. Which makes sense. Sometimes I think about the fact that here I am, facing some really hard things, some days feel unbearable at times even, heart breaking things and yet the people around me, have no clue. And how many people do we interact with in our lives that we just really don't know what they are dealing with? And how do we really remedy this? Because the answer is not to bury our lives (like I'm clearly doing) and the answer isn't to bear all things to "everyone"....we know that is wisdom too. But somewhere there's a balance and I think we should be doing more in the being transparent with people AND being the kind of people that make better efforts to let those friends, family, strangers, KNOW that we actually WANT to know how they are REALLY doing. Right? I think a lot of us have lost that art of deep connection with people. And I can't help but think that Satan has had something to do with that. So as much as I'm hurting, I am reminded that I do not know everything that goes on in a person's life and I need to always do my best to love on people that God places in front of me and not be afraid to boldly let them know that I really do care about the things they're scared to share. And then just let God lead the relationship. 

Life can be complicated lol. But, I think the important thing sweet friends, is that we make it our daily goal...to chase after God. "Seek Me and you will FIND Me, if you seek Me with your WHOLE heart." and I think that is the key to everything. I am absolutely feeling lost right now, but I will seek Him in the dark, and I will trust that He knows exactly where I'm at. He's holding back the wolves. He's taking my hand and leading me forward out of the dark. Some days, He's picking me up and carrying me when I just can't do it anymore. Because He is Always Faithful to us. I love that.