hard places

I had one of those moments the other night, ya know those cries where it seems the tears and snot are somehow going up your forehead and then dribbling about everywhere else? It was a rough moment. And one that needed to happen but it was also a good moment. Somewhere amidst the weepy wailing and pile of tissues, though I cant say for sure exactly when it happened, I realized I was no longer crying out of hurt but from a place of being loved. The reality of this season and the abounding grace of God that somehow allows the hardest places to be the richest places, just completely hit me flat out.

How does that work exactly? That in a season of heart ache, brokenness and just plain frustration and often times anger, I can experience the deepest, purest, richest love I have ever known. This icky mess that is my heart is being tended to so gently. I cannot comprehend it. Every day I feel the tension and struggle of my issues and hurt grinding against the environment around me yet it always manages to collide with His mercy. And its in that split second that all those lies and fears and harsh realities become the very things that heighten me to his love, faithfulness, loyalty, strength, ability, power, kindness and peace. 

The hardest places are the richest places. Treasure is for those who dig, who venture out beyond what's easy. Peter wasn't in the kiddie pool when Jesus called him out of the boat. He was in the middle of a lake. A lake I imagine to be rather deep. And there just so happened to be a great storm at the time. That hard place became the place where he walked on water with Jesus.

That's where I want to be. I don't want to stay where I feel good and graze the tip of what He is. I want to go in even further, run through the pain, confusion, loneliness, let's call it what it is-crap, that comes and find Him- and here is the beauty- He is not just on the other side. He is right there in the middle of it with you. When Romans 8 talks about the Holy Spirit being our intercessor, Paul used a word in the Greek that I cant remember. But it basically depicts the Holy Spirit jumping right down there in the pit with you, meeting you exactly where you are, coming alongside, and helping you out. What an incredible Jesus. That He would meet us where we are and labor beside us.

I feel so full. Granted, it may be a mixture of pain and joy, but there is joy nonetheless. And it is my strength.