So, I have been wanting to put together a post sharing all the treasures of the books that I have been reading this year and had the opportunity to review! But, I have not gotten around to scrounging together these books and hunting them down from every corner of my home and kindle shelf! The struggle is real! Sometimes I feel like I am so A.D.D and I have too many tabs open in my brain and I look forward to simplifying this coming new year. But, I have been hungry and finding great books by wise authors has nourished my soul and strengthened my spirit in the times I have needed tangible mentors, counselors and hand-holding through this wilderness season. Books have helped me grow in Truth.
In fact, One of my favorite singers and authors is Andrew Peterson! If you are not familiar with Andrew Peterson and His newest book: Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making I definitely recommend it, especially if you love to “create” and share honesty and beauty and truth with the world. God designed us all to be “image-bearers” and “torch-bearers”…. He endowed each of us with special gifts and callings to make much of His light within this dark world. This book will encourage your heart to step out, in your own chaotic, imperfect, creative journeys of healing and growing and messy-making.
In fact, there is a specific quote that He wrote that has resonated with me this season that God has been calling me out of my safe spaces and inviting me to share more of what He teaches me. Simultaneously. as He has been humbling me with His word and lifting my head to the light, I feel a push back from a “darkness” that wants to shut me up.
So when I came across this quote, I knew I was engaging in a war of the invisible kind!
This quote basically felt like a hug in the dark. It felt like God was literally lifting me out of the miry pit, handing me a candle, kissing the top of my head and saying…. Go, go and bring light, even if you have to stumble forward in the wilderness…even when you feel smothered in darkness. Share what I am showing you and rebel against the despair!
So, here we are just days before the New Year. It is New Year’s EVE EVE and I decided, instead of waiting for after the New Year, that I would launch my new Facebook page now, that would be an eventual launch pad for an upcoming Podcast (more on that adventure later) and other writing projects. This is a desire and vision that I have had for quite some time now. I envisioned creating a community where we could all unearth HOPE together within our wilderness seasons. Because, when we miss the invitation to bravely enter someone’s brokenness and pain, we also miss GOD coming so near and close and shining HOPE. We miss HIS presence when we cower away from hard places and keep up the facades of “everything is okay!” You see, He is not in the facades or in the fake “I am okay!” answers…. He is near to the most busted up people. He is near the broken-hearted, so let’s go to the most broken landscapes and see HIS face. It is our pain that brings God close.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18 NIV).
Therefore, I wanted to create a place where we could walk together and sing from our desert places about our struggles and about a God who meets us there with daily manna and never leaves or forsakes us.
But, just as I started to plan and launch, I felt attacked by darkness. There was this presence of darkness that brought shame and unworthiness and a voice that was saying, “just shut up, because who would listen to you?” I felt the enemy of darkness say, “you do not have your life together and you are a failure, so you are not worthy to share light!” “Just stay hidden!”, these voices kept shouting and belittling me and making me feel so unworthy!
I know, sounds harsh! But….maybe you can relate? These loud voices desired to make me feel inadequate and embarrassed and it worked. It is so easy to succumb to the oppression and stay hidden away, where it feels safer.
But, I could not shake this fire in my belly that wanted to burn brightly of HIS palpable HOPE. I felt like God kept whispering to my soul, you need to keep sharing how real I am, so they can discover ME real in their wastelands!
Therefore, instead of waiting to launch, I decided I would stand up to these lies and stomp on satan’s head and force myself to step out of my comfort zone now. I do not do this because I feel ready, or confident or self-assured or like I have answers or “my crap together”… it is quite the opposite. I do this as a rebellious call to action against the torments of the enemy who wants to keep us in despair. The enemy wants to paralyze us with our shame. I wanted to share rebellious hope that is louder then the voices of darkness! I share from my place of weakness, so God’s strength can be glorified. It is not easy to put yourself out there and risk criticism and judgement, but I have also learned this past year that I am no longer a slave to the world’s approval. Audience of one.
It is in my inadequacies that God becomes all I need.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
(2 Corinithians 12:9)
Truthfully, I am a mess. I struggle with pride and anger and unforgiveness and disappointment…and I can not wait till the day when I am made new and fully with Jesus and like Him.
We are all messes…. we are all weak and sinful and in need of HIS overflowing grace everyday. And, TRUTH says that the only place I need to hide is behind my Jesus! I am hidden in JESUS and I am worthy to be called, “Daughter of the King” because of what He did for me on the cross not because of anything I did or do. I am not worthy, but JESUS in me is so worthy to be shared! That is the Gospel. I am being sanctified and stepping forward and falling back on His arms of grace. It is a dance of mercy that carries me.
So, that is my PRAYER as I spread my wings through this public forum and launch my upcoming podcast and work on my writing projects, and as I start to share more about my personal struggles and battles: I pray That I fade away, and that JESUS becomes the center light. I do not want light shining on me, I want to “reflect” His defiant light in the darkness. I pray That you see HIM so tangibly in our story that you are overcome with praise to the God who sees us all. I hope that you read (and listen to) mine and other’s stories of light in the dark and are encouraged to unearth your own seeds of HOPE in your midnight gardens. That Johanna Cannelongo becomes only a vessel and nothing more. That I make so much of HIS power through my weakness, that HE gets all the glory!
We are all broken and we all need each other to call back the light to bust through the darkness. We need community so that when our torches blow out by the loud shouts from the enemy, our neighbor can re-light it for us by the fuel of God’s promises and grace. We need each other’s stories to see God real and faithful and close. We need to remind each other of our eternal perspective so that the temporary sorrows do not drown us.
So, I hope you will hop over to Facebook and join our community and follow and like our page!
The following I copied and pasted from my ABOUT tab on the page on Facebook:
This page is where I want to invite others to unearth HOPE together! My prayer for this public page is that you come alongside me as I write and share about how God grows us in our grief and breaks the darkness by relentlessly hunting us down with light. May you find encouragement for your own weary hearts if you also walk a season of a wilderness landscape whatever may be your story or unique struggle. I pray that you will share this page with others who need to see that God is real. I pray that together we can watch seeds of faith blossom like wildflowers of HOPE. I pray that we can witness that same redemptive HOPE break the desert floors of despair with miracles of new life! I pray that, together, we can behold the mystery of how a faithful God tangibly carries us and comes near the most broken-hearted. I also pray we can celebrate the ways we see Love and LIFE overcoming death. Death never gets the final say! That is HIS promise! Darkness never wins.
First… a little bit of our story (for those who don’t know):
God has been literally rescuing us this past year with His unshakeable HOPE, I mean LITERALLY saving my life in my darkest midnight season of my soul. I feel like I have been walking a wilderness landscape since losing my baby on earth. It is an unfathomable feeling of complete wreckage and brokenness that words can never translate adequately (though I keep trying to no avail). As many of you know, we achingly walked our 6 year old, Gianna Lilyfaith, to heaven on April 22, 2018 after she was adopted from China 4 years previously. She is our forever sparkly treasure and a brave warrior who survived 6 Open Heart Surgeries fighting to live BIG and BRAVE and Beautifully with a broken heart. She will always teach us us what it means to love and leap regardless of the risk. Her beautiful light continues to shine and grow more miracles before our eyes, even from Heaven. She is our forever gift who now makes heaven so real. We are tethered to eternity in a way that we never could fathom before this miracle that slayed our earthly hearts. Living with such deep loss is a constant battle to let truth be the louder voice above the darkness. It is a messy fight for life and light and a relentless, violent digging for seeds of HOPE! We will see her again when our ETERNAL Spring arrives and God makes all things NEW!
I know not everyone can relate to the terrible tragedy of walking your child to heaven (may you never know such sorrow), but many of you can relate to seasons and feelings of despair, darkness, trauma, fear, rejection or hopelessness. Living without our sparkly Gianna’s physical presence on earth feels like a forever broken garden. But our baby girl shows us how to live with wild HOPE, despite utter brokenness. God is teaching us what it means to live and grieve with an eternal lens. So, to honor her life… We will cling to our FOREVER HOPE in Christ who overcomes even death. This is not an easy fight. It is a tension and struggle most days, and a brave choice to move forward and watch purpose be birthed from deep pain. A journey of assurance in what our physical eyes do not see, but our spiritual hearts know is sure.
So, I am excited for what I envision for this page and for this community and I am so honored to have you here and sharing my page with others! This is the place where I will share my blog posts, our Live Gia Grow Foundation updates, wild adoption stories of hope and new life, our Podcast episodes (soon to come, can’t wait to share the details!), Our Etsy Shop Prints (to help Fund our LGGF Foundation ), and some instagram pics. I also hope to honestly share some personal thoughts and struggles through videos and discussions. Finally, I want to take ya’ll on my daunting and overwhelming journey of writing a book that I started this past year (a little secret I have been keeping). It is a crazy, humbling sacred endeavor that I feel very incapable to be walking. However, this feels like an act of obedience and it is something God has called out of my heart from depths of my pain. We were invited into a story of messy and incredible miracles that are beyond what we could have ever imagined. Therefore, I want to steward His sacred story well. I want to authentically share the story of how a little girl taught us what true HOPE and brave love is. A hope that tangibly rescues the most broken, so that you can see a GOD who never forsakes us, even in the valley of the shadow of death. God is real and He saves.
My grief is still new and somewhat fresh, and I still can not believe my baby is in heaven. But I am learning that when we find ourselves in the depths of our dry, parched desert, HE IS THERE, and HE is breathing life into what feels so dead. He grows goodness from the wastelands of our despairing hearts! He never lets us go even as we lament and lash out for what we do not understand and struggle to trust. He gets low with us and weeps with us and He grieves with us. He gently scoops under us with His grace and cradles all our broken pieces as He whispers a louder song of VICTORY over our symphony of sorrow! He never leaves us as He breaks forth living water to our parched souls.
He is never done and His stories are forever blossoming treasures and redeeming pain from the depths of the darkness. By His grace, we have personally experienced His promises of HOPE burst through the landscape of loss and despair. I pray this page is a place for all of us to share stories of rebellious HOPE and defiant joy. I pray it is also a place to be real about the truth of tragedy. Because, we do not suffer alone! Everyone can relate to sorrow and seasons of brokeness…. It is a common denominator that we all share in this broken world. But, HOPE is a stronger force than despair.
So, thank you for coming along to witness a sure HOPE that is never lost!
By sharing in this space, I pray that we will see a harvest of LIFE being unearthed from the depths of a wasteland! It is hard, messy and miraculous struggle, but so worth it because one day….one glorious day….ALL will be made new and there will be no more tears! (Revelations 21:4).
So thankful for His promises of WILD HOPE that saves, and so grateful for your presence here in this space with me! Together, let’s authentically fight forward for redemptive life.
What is your story of Hope?
Is there a wildflower of new life that God is blooming from your desert season?
Feel free to share your story or prayer request below in the comments, or on our Facebook page, so we can witness and pray for HOPE together and watch how God breaks through the night to show Himself real and so close.
This world can be so hard, but I believe We all have a story of Hope to unearth! Let’s make much of HIS power to stomp on darkness’s face and defy the enemy’s lies!
So come join us over at our Facebook page!
“The desert will rejoice and bloom like a Wildflower”
Isaiah 35:1
