Tonight is the first low-key night i’ve had in a while so im going to take advantage of it and jot some thoughts down that have been swirling my head for a while.
At the beginning of the summer, I began to read a book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. As I started reading it , I got the feeling that it wasnt gonna be my type of book. I wasn’t meshing well with the style and I felt like the book was repeating things I already knew. How prideful I realize I was then and how evident those thoughts were of my heart condition. I wouldnt have believed then all the things that I would learn as I read this book.
For starters, this book had a lot to do with loss, death, and feeling like the world has turned against you. As i began reading i didn’t much resonate with these themes. I feel that I have been extremely fortunate with my family and have experienced very little traumatic loss. What I hadn’t learned yet was that loss is not only felt when a loved one passes on but can be felt during a broken relationship, in everyday life, or at random times. And God would soon reveal to me how much loss is actually in my life currently that i had really been pushing to the side and not dealing with.
As much as I feel out of the loop when im at school about family happenings, i think i have been using it as an excuse to not really see the brokeness in my family. These past few weeks that I have been home, God has really bombarded me with images of brokenness in my own family that i had turned a blind eye to. God sent me back home for a reason and I guess i have just been overwhelmed by how clear He is making it. I was expecting to have to deceipher criptic codes and to wait for a sign, and im sure there is deeper stuff going on then I can seen now but there is a lot that is already evident.
Now coming full circle, I realize how huge of a blessing this book has and will continue to be this summer. I am experience loss, a sort of loss of my created innocence or more accurately of my ignorance. I pray that God continues to open my eyes to loss and despair in this world so I may be spurred on to continue to seek His Grace and Love.
One passage from the book that I absolutely love right now is below. It totally puts struggles and suffering into perspective.
“That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God who we endlessly crave. Maybe so. But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? to more-God places? How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy? self-focus for God-communion. To fully live-to live full of grace and joy and all that is beauty eternal. It is possible, wildly” (23).
I titled this post love, Your baby girl because it is a song that has been stuck in my head lately but I think it is fitting. I want to be God’s little girl, diligently doing His work but I am also the baby of my family which puts me at a unique position. I can lead my family to healing and to Christ as the baby of the family. I pray that I continue to seek Him and Him alone and that i dont become self-gratifying and self-absorbed. I pray for the strength to continue to encounter the painful brokenness that is our human race but courage to seek the awesome Hope we have in Christ.
