This one was written last Monday night, May 6. It actually kept me up too late on a work night, but hey – God is good, and I wanted to write it down! Ha. So, here we are. It’s a bit of a manifesto in a way, though I want to write something geared more towards that specifically. But, this is very much a testament to God working His miracle in my life.

Sometimes
God’s most wonderful orchestrations
His most beautifully personal
displays of power
happen when we least expect.
When we have lost all will to live,
when we are so debilitatingly surrounded
by the deathly weight of hopelessness –
sometimes,
it is then that He works the most.
When we can’t see Him,
when we can’t feel Him,
when we can’t hear Him.
When we can’t imagine life any other way,
and when we cry out and plead,
is our dawn ever fully going to break.
It is then
when we are flat on our face
that God works His miracles.
Our God is a relentless God.
His deep love for humanity
took Him all the way to the cross…
even when we ran from Him,
even when we rejected Him,
even when we cried out “why”.
Our God is a relentless God,
and He refuses to give up on us.
Even when we give up
on ourselves…
ESPECIALLY when we give up
on ourselves.
In my own life, in my own story,
I found myself wondering
legitimately wondering
if my own dawn would ever break.
I was resigned.
I was ready to stop trying,
I was ready to give up.
I would plead with God
to end my suffering
in the only way I knew possible.
I would plead with God
to let me die.
And then I would be angry
every time I woke up still breathing,
heart beating,
still turning oxygen
into carbon dioxide.
When I knew I couldn’t
take even one more step,
God stepped in.
Actually… He had stepped in
long ago.
But even after I could see Him work
in a way like never before,
I still spent many nights
feeling so very stuck and defeated.
But then…
oh, but then.
I finally started to feel it…
… and I finally started to believe it.
But God,
I ask through my overwhelmed tears.
Why didn’t you give up?
My walls of fear
were as high as the sky
and as wide as the ends of the earth.
How… how did you do it?
I hear Him start to speak…
My beloved daughter,
I rose from the grave
all those years ago.
If I have the power
to defeat death itself,
I have the power
to break through your walls.
No matter how big they are,
no matter how strong they are.
You just need to realize that I can
and believe that I can.
I love you with an everlasting love.
… as I think about what I’ve heard
and begin to speak up in protest,
He pulls me close.
He quiets my anxious heart,
and His embrace begins
to fill me with peace.
I feel my body relax
and I feel my breathing slow.
So, this is what it feels like, I say.
He asks me what I mean,
this relentless God of the universe.
This is what it feels like
to be fully known and fully loved.
I take a moment to ponder…
This is what it feels like
to finally be free.