Grace will lead me home.

Well, I had multiple blog drafts written up for the past few weeks, but I couldn't seem to complete them. It's like there's a million thoughts and dreams and fears and hopes in my mind and I can't quite seem to accurately articulate them in one post. But one of the few things that stands out time and again is God's steadfast love. That whether I was shaken or or frightened or lost, God was still God and in control. And how often do we, when fallen or despairing, hear the somewhat cliché phrases that God is working everything out for good? "It'll all work out someday." How do we believe something like that when it takes a tremendous effort to get through just one day? But as for me (and I hope for you), I'm not letting go of His promises, even if they've been quoted so much they've lost their meaning for some. I'm clinging to the God that said He would never "leave me nor forsake me". With fervor, I want to cry out with the psalmist -- "This is my comfort in affliction, that Your promise gives me life." I desire Paul's faith, who amidst the beatings and the pains and the thorns and the torments, "fixed his eyes on the eternal" and refused to lose heart and courage. I've learned that it's not just about being happy or having everything go right. In weakness or affliction or darkness, I'm praying for joy.  I'm so incredibly thankful that God has demonstrated and continues to reveal His love to me and shower me with His mercy (talk about  cliché ;). I'm pressing on because I know that God has brought me this far for a reason. 

“You have led me to the sadness, I have carried this pain. On a back bruised, nearly broken, I'm crying out to you. I will sing of Your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy. When death like a gypsy comes to steal what I love, I will still look to the heavens, I will still seek Your face. But I fear You aren't listening because there are no words -- just the stillness and the hunger for a faith that assures. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. While we wait for rescue with our eyes tightly shut face to the ground using our hands to cover the fatal cut…And though the pain is an ocean tossing us around, around, around, You have calmed greater waters, higher mountains have come down.”    -- Jars of Clay