When The Smoke Cleared

The dark days, that’s what I call 2014-17. No one on the outside would know, but inside I was dying. I’m pretty sure I cried every day at one point or another, but silent tears, hidden tears. Outside I would smile and keep moving, but inside me, where no-one knows or sees, I was devastated. No one around me knew how much I was hurting. I’m pretty good at listening, but not so good at being on the other end. I carried on. Life continued. But I was swimming in a storm of hurt and brokenness. It felt like I was slowly suffocating. I smiled, but the smile never reached my heart. My smiles were just a protection against the stark truth: I was broken. I started to say I was desperately alone, but that isn’t true. I was desperate, yes, but alone, no. It was during this time that I found a truth that I gripped to my heart, a truth I had always said but hadn’t needed to truly take to my core. This truth was a lifeline. This truth held me together as I wanted to spin out of control. Truth: Jesus is all I need. Every. Single. Day, I ran, and I do mean ran, to Jesus. But that isn’t even quite accurate. He was with me, in me, surrounding me. I didn’t have to run. He was always with me. I just had to stop and sit at his feet. I layed my head on his lap, and sobbed. And he held me. He stroked my hair. He let me cry. And He whispered. I had never heard whispers so precious, so tender, so intimate. You see, he whispered that he loves me. LOVES me. My pieces were his treasures. He held my brokenness as if it was the most cherished thing in the world. And he was enough. He said the most incredible thing. I sensed this in the very center of my being. “I delight in you. I am pleased.” Pleased? How could he be pleased when I was a mess? But my mess was His place of intimacy and grace… and healing began. It wasn’t a flood of healing, just a drip each moment, like the drip of an IV bag, just enough for the moment until suddenly you realize, you’re better.

As I made my way through the war of those years, I began draw closer and closer to Jesus. Part of the journey was reading through the Bible, every day reading His words that became my words. And He would speak to me through his love letters. Such. Great. Love. I remember the day that it dawned on me that I had survived the war. I had this image of a movie war scene where the battle is raging, and smoke is billowing. But the camera focuses on a part of the smoke-filled battle zone. And there, there in the smoke, we see a soldier with a wounded soldier being held up and dragged out of the smoke, away from the enemy. When the smoke clears, I see something so amazing. That wounded soldier? It's me. It’s me being carried out of the war. I had made it. Yes, I was wounded, but I was alive. Held up by my Jesus. Carried by my Savior. My Warrior God who is mighty to save. And I would never be the same. I was more tender. I was more authentic. I was able to look at others and touch their pain because I too had felt pain. And I had a new strength – an anchor that won’t let me get tossed by the waves.

Strange thing, that war. I am so thankful for it. Who would be thankful for utter despair? It was the hardest thing I had gone through, yet, and here’s the strange thing, the most beautiful. I found an intimate relationship with the God of the universe. I found that He sits with me, cries with me, and loves me through the dark. He gave me a verse those years that was my anchor: “The floods have risen up, Oh Lord. The floods have roared like thunder. The floods have lifted their pounding waves. But mightier than the violent raging seas, mightier than the breakers on the shore, the LORD above is mightier than these.” (Psalm 93:3-4)

What did God do with that storm? He opened up a ministry for women. He showed me, as I talked with women in Haiti, Brazil, Honduras, and here in the US, that although we have different hurts, different brokenness, we have the same Savior whom we can run to, and he’ll hold, and love, and cry. And then He’ll whisper – precious, tender whispers. And we’ll heal.