Finding Joy in the Journey

I’ve been away awhile.

My heart has been locked in a cage, not knowing it was trapped.

God gave me the courage to open a door, let more light in, but that could not happen until I closed another behind me.

Closing a door makes my palms sweat and shake in fear, tears flow from my eyes. Everything feels like it’s falling apart, releasing out of me. I have no control, like a baby again.

But I know that I am held by a magnificent God who has never let me out of His control.




I just finished reading an excellent memoir, Pieces of Glass (Sept. release, Zondervan) by Sarah Kay. This young woman lost her fiancé in a skiing accident, and her words allow me to feel her pain. I empathize with the loss of hope, as I’m consoled that despite the messiness of the journey, hope can be found again.



These words resonate with me:

A fledgling grown-up – young enough to be confused but old enough to take care of myself.

It is never wrong to be strongly affected by something or someone.

I am woman. Strong woman, soft woman, deep woman, fiery woman, wounded woman, young woman. The need to love, to nurture, to give, to hold, and to be held…these are what makes me she! My heart screams out in defiance. I know that I’m capable and competent, and people will pay me good money to work for them. But who will love me? I’m attractive and smart…I’m young and able, beautiful and capable. But is that all there is?

I remember I have a choice. I can choose to consider this time as a trial placed in my path to refine me. I choose to see it as an anointing of love even in the worst and most unexplainable of tragedies. I don’t believe that God allows suffering simply to make us better Christians. Instead, I believe He has redeemed the brokenness of our world by using the suffering that breaks to become something that makes us beautiful. He is not a God who justifies the means by the end.