This is the space I share my story. This is where I had once shared all my goodness in my old life before death came and ravaged my world, this is where I shared and still share my Gia’s brave story. This is where I share the mountaintops and the valleys. This is where I share my family’s story of living out in the deep and witnessing the messy miracles of adoption and counting the earthly cost, and yet the eternal gain of following hard after Jesus’ heart. I share the joy, and I share the pain and I share the miracles and new gifts of life that are forever blooming from my warrior’s too short earthly life. I always want to share both the joy and the pain. I always want to make much of following Jesus, where the only reason for living is found.
This is where I share defiant hope in the depths of suffering.
This is where I will share how God is using our greatest loss to grow a new goodness.
This is where I share honestly about walking life with a broken heart.
This is where I share my gritty and ugly grief that does not come wrapped in a shiny red bow.
Grief is not pretty. Grief is bloody and painful and there is no way to escape it’s gut punches. You can not rush it… you have to honor it.
If you have been following this blog since Gianna went to heaven on April 22, 2018 then you know that I have written my bleeding heart on these pages. If you are hurting, I pray that you scroll back and you read my broken heart on the posts from that first year especially and you are able to find “with-ness” in “your” wasteland. I pray that you find someone in these posts who sits with you in the dark and broken garden and sweats blood with you. I have not held back…. I have not hidden my pain from you…. Just as Jesus walked out a tomb showing His scars, we are not supposes to hide our scars. They tell a greater story of hope.
This is the only way forward for me. There is no going back…only to fight forward and dig for redemption.
I have discovered that Lamenting within the pulverizing pain that engulfs my soul is the pathway that unlocks my ears to hear His song of Hope.
I write to share the lament and to share the hope. They are deeply connected in the most holy of ways. A tapestry revealing a greater story.
God knows how I struggle each day with questions and doubts and pain within an unfinished story that holds so much pain…but, I am learning that He is the God who is not afraid of my lamenting heart. He is not afraid of my pain. He comes near. The lamenting has been my pathway to praise. He breathes life into my soul because I am not afraid of bringing HIM all my outbursts and all my anger…. and I sit and I stay close to HIS heart and pound on His chest. I stay near to His chest.
He is the God who sees and who knows and who never ever leaves me. He holds me close. You can not wrestle someone without holding them close.
My prayer is that I let Jesus’ example lead my pen and my grief journey. The bible is not sugar coated and it does not avoid the ugliness of pain and the bloodiness of torture and groaning of lament. Just read the psalms and JOB and Habakuk (among a few) and you hear the heart groans of a purged faith that is tested by fire and affliction and despair.
Faith is not pretty, it is ugly… and bloody. In fact Habakuk’s name is translated to mean: to wrestle and Embrace…
Wrestling is not glorious, but glory is unearthed within the struggle.
This is the space I share about the wrestling and the embracing….all the hard…all the broken….yet, all the ways God comes near and makes himself known and grows us even within our greatest grief and can take the greatest devastation of life and birth new Life and Love from it. This is where I share how He is conceiving wild purpose from the dark pain. There is Goodness that chases us down when we allow our hearts to face the darkest night.
He is the Author of a story, a story of hints of Restoration within the ruins that will be completed on the shores of eternity… I write to unearth glimpses of this unseen glory.
Our journey through the valleys and through the mountains reflect His story of Hope.
I write to share the story of HOPE. To Testify to TRUTH within the VALLEY.
My passion is to write from the depths of the wilderness and to pass the blazing torch of HOPE to other wilderness-walkers.
I did not want this calling. I begged God in the hospital, as I weeped over my broken and dying daughter’s heart, that He would take this cup from me and not call me to this path…. I screamed at Him to heal her and pour out HIS mercy!!!!
He did not. He performed a higher miracle that is not understandable in this broken world.
He is God and I am not. I wrestle with this surrender every day.
I write to wrestle, I write to surrender. This space is where I allow God to take the pen and lean hard into to a story that does not make sense or feel good. This space is where I battle the never-ending tension between feelings and TRUTH…. the broken earth of now, and my Perfect heavenly future that awaits me with my baby girl.
This is not me writing my story, if it were…. then I would have written it very differently and my God knows this about me. This is me recording HIS story through my family….and He is not done. So we pray to steward it well as we re-surrender every day to a chapter that we hate.
Each day I rise up to a story that God has written through my life. Each day I pray to be able to tell the story well and honestly. Each day I pray for grace to live fully in honor of what I have been given in this story…even when I feel so much loss in the story. Each day I pray for the bravery to honor the pain and to courageously face the darkest night.
My story is filled with great joy but also great pain that walks so close to all the joy. A story of mountains and miracles….but a story of low valleys and deep disappointment. All chapters are honored…and all are given space. Both Joy and Grief are given a voice here.
There are holy and sacred treasures in this dark valley. I am discovering that it is this very heart-shattering pain that is birthing new life and a new goodness within my wilderness….
He is my daddy in heaven like never before…. He is closer to my heart than ever before. I know Him more intimately than ever before. He is my prince of Peace in my storm of destruction. Through my sorrow, I have seen my God.
He is giving me NEW eyes to SEE what is UNSEEN. New purpose, new callings, and New courage. Courage to open my eyes to see light.
That is WILD peace in my storm.
New eyes to see a wild HOPE that blooms like unexpected wildflowers from this dry desert landscape.
He gives Eyes to see the streams in the wilderness that feed the wild HOPE.
Even through tragedy, my God is more real than ever before.
How can that be?
It is all Grace.
Saving relentless and WILD Grace that hunts us down in the valley of the shadow of death.
So, my desire is to write and record the WILD journey from the valley of ruins. The journey of limping with Hope in the darkest night from the depths of the messy wilderness of my Loss and grief when life still feels foggy and disorienting.
This is not easy for me, it is brutally hard and exhausting and wearisome but it is necessary.
I write for me…. I write to keep feeling when some days I want to go numb. I write to see what’s scorched on my heart laid down on a page in front of me.
I write to vomit my heart groans. I write to record truth to stomp on Satan’s head.
I write to keep letting the pain move through me, so it does not come out sideways.
I write to keep life growing in my heart and to keep blooming within my wasteland of disappointment.
I write to keep crawling forward. I write to testify to a GOD who performs miracles in the middle of a mess.
It was so much easier to write before….It is easy to write when your prayers were answered.
It is easy to write when your God came through and moved the mountain and you can testify to SEEN goodness. It’s easy to write when He saved your daughter and she lives to tell about it and you can always fall back on that SEEN MIRACLE as your Hope! SEEN HOPE is easier.
But, that did not happen. And, here I am, tested in the fire….. being refined in the furnace, holding tightly to truth while feeling the burn of this broken earth.
I still want to declare my God’s truths… even from the middle of the story, when the happy ending did not happen. When my earthly hope failed me…when there is no more chance for earthly healing. When earthly hope failed. When the biblical formula of: “PRAY AND BELIEVE hard enough and THE MOUNTAIN will move” failed me. When it felt like faith failed me. I need to write from this place of the absolute feeling of betrayal that is cradled within an eternal and never changing promise from God. To write from the place of Truth when feelings scream louder.
TO write when I am forced to face a God who never fails, despite seen failure.
I want to write from the place of deconstructed faith.…When everything I believed has had to be re-constructed by TRUTH.
When everything is gone and His word is all I got.
I want to write right from the messy middle where Trust is needed because there is no sight and no moved mountain in a chapter that continues to slay me. A story told From the place of doubts and blind faith and questions and unseen HOPE.
I write to speak light to the darkness.
“What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.
-Matthew 10:27
To declare truth in the darkest midnight of my soul. I write to defeat th enemy who wants to keep me in the dark.
And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb
Revelations 12:11
and by their testimony.
And they did not love their lives so much
that they were afraid to die.
To sing a New Song…. a song of light that breaks the darkness.
To sing at Midnight in a broken garden…..Even if it is a broken Hallelujah.
I write for those who also walk their own seasons of wastelands, in their own broken landscapes where it may feel barren, dead and lifeless and empty and lonely.
I write for those who can not see.
Who can not feel. Who can not trust.
For those who can not find the LENS to hold up to their red, swollen tear filled eyes.
I write for those Who may need a fellow wilderness-walker to declare truth over them when the enemy torments them in the darkest valley. I write for those who may need to hear a song of HOPE, or just for those who only need someone to to sit in the wrongness of it all with no answers….no silver lining, no red bow to wrap it all up pretty. Just Someone to sit in the ugly and ravaged land and agree that this is TERRIBLE and WRONG!
Whether your story is a story of loss, heartbreak, depression, rejection, shame, or deep disappointment or abandonment or fear or destruction…. you are not alone in the darkness. We all carry a form of BROKEN because we live in the Saturday of our souls. We were made for the restored Garden of Easter Sunday. But we sit between two gardens….
I am no longer afraid of the most broken of places because I know they are a pathway to HOPE… I am walking the darkest night of my soul. I am living my greatest nightmare and I am still breathing and I am able to smile and feel new life. That is a miracle. The miracles of life that I want to testify to. But, I also want to write to be WITH you in your pain with no answers… With-ness in pain is what brings light to darkness.
The saving grace of my Jesus is with me, with you…… He weeps and bleeds with us when no one else will. He is sitting in our sorrow with us When the world moves on and we are still left hemorrhaging at every new wave that unexpectedly takes us out.
I want to declare Truth in the wilderness. I want to share a story that has a glimpse of a thread of redemption woven throughout each page because of a God who is not afraid of the blackest night. This is the holy glimpse that allows me to catch my breath.
I want to write to testify to the TRUTH that God meets us in these messy broken midnight Gardens and HE sits with us and He aches with us as He bleeds with us and He is not done.
In the desperate weeping and longing for my beautiful daughter, HE also whispers a song of HOPE over all my broken places.
As psalm 23 states, He chases us down with Goodness deep down in the darkest valleys.
When I write, I pray for new eyes to see my Jesus and HIS miracles of NEW LIFE within my agony.
I pray to see what is UNSEEN. I did not get my happy earthly ending or a beautiful miracle for my Gianna that I would much rather be writing about… I got a “to be continued…and now trust me with blind eyes” story and I am walking the middle mess and Clinging to a Future GLORY! I write declaring I WILL SEE HER AGAIN…so I walk forward, even in the wilderness…..
I ALSO WRITE FOR the brave ones who desire to walk close to those who are sitting in the midnight of their souls.
I write in this space for those of you who are brave enough to walk close to the most shattered of all hearts. Because that is Holy Ground.
I write for you too because I know you are walking brave and bold and risky to be close to the broken-hearted. I share my broken heart so that you have some guidance about how to minister to those who you love who are hurting so deeply.
I share for those who do not know how to help but want so desperately to help those you love. Thank you for wanting to learn how to help….. I write often about grief awareness and the need for society to normalize grief and not be afraid of the most broken of places or the darkest pains.
Thank you for being willing to sit in their dark night with them. Thank you for sitting in their broken places with them with no answers but just to sit and mirror their ache. To just feel all the pain with them in their grief with no platitudes and no answers. My encouragement, is to GO…. go bravely to the hurting and sit in the dark with them and understand that no words are necessary. You can not fix them and their pain…. just go BE WITH and silently pray….and witness together how God meets them in the wastelands of their souls and let them lament!! God is not afraid of their doubts, so you don’t have to be either. He will not let them go, even when they let go. You are not the answer, but you can sojourn with them as they crawl through the wasteland.
My prayer is that God is seen through my honest words and that you feel safe to lean in close to my broken heart when your heart may be breaking.
Because, If you are sitting in a demolished landscape of a wrecked garden and you too carry a form of deep Broken…My prayer for my readers, and for those who walk the wilderness and those who wonder if light will ever break forth again… my prayer is that you see glimpses of a wild Hope that is promised within all the soul crushing landscape.
I want to write to you…. and sit with you…. and pray for you. I want to sit in the broken garden with you and dig for Hope with you. I want to tell you that God says that your wailing is welcome and your wrestling is necessary to unearth seeds of truth that will bloom new life.
I am not afraid of your pain, but most importantly….. neither is Jesus.
My prayer, as you read my words and sit with me, is that you feel God sitting and aching with you in all the ruins. That, when you are ready, you are able to unearth hope, encouragement, with-ness, wisdom, empathy and light in the darkness from my story of a God who allows me (and you) to wrestle for HOPE.
But, if you are not ready right now, I get it…and that is okay. So, just close the computer, or close my page and maybe close your eyes and know you are not alone…because sometimes all we can do is breathe and ache to hear the agreement of agony.
It is ok to want to hear NOTHING else except the words: “I HATE THIS and IT IS NOT FAIR!!!!” Because, If Jesus could cry out in a midnight garden for God to take this cup, then so can we.
It is not fair and I hate this broken world with you.
If you are still leaning in, and listening to my words…thank you for letting me come close to your broken heart. Thank you for reading my heart. I desire to be real and share honestly and candidly about limping this broken earth in both languishing grief and yet the overwhelming gratefulness for Wild Hope that is cultivated from the depths of the dark Wastelands.
When you are ready, I hope you will stick around and linger a little longer to keep reading my heart. I want to share our family’s story of WILD HOPE within our wilderness... I want to share, from the place of a broken heart, a testimony of a God who is more real in the darkness then He ever was in the seasons of light. I want to share from the place of unanswered questions that will never get answered this side of heaven. I want to share from the place of a heart that is both wrestling and embracing. Both surrendering and doubting. Both clinging to Truth and floundering in Faith.
God is not afraid of our grappling hearts…. He knows that it is only in the honesty with Him that we can unlock our ears to His truth.
I am learning about what TRUE HOPE in my story is from a place of honest inner reflection. I am learning that, despite my feelings, True Hope is not circumstantial. So, this blog is becoming the sacred space where I drive the stake of HOPE into a ground of brokeness. This is where I record the act of anchoring myself to TRUTH in the deepest ocean among the damaging destroying waves.
True Hope in a story that does not waiver despite the chapters that nearly kill you.
I write for you and me, because You are not alone in your wilderness.
God is not done revealing HIS story of redemption!
My Prayer is that you see How Real God is in my story and perhaps that may help to unearth hope and light in your own story even when you can not feel His hand of favor anymore.
I pray that you see HOPE reflected off all the broken pieces in your broken garden. That you allow yourself to bring your pain honestly to Jesus who bleeds with you. He will not ignore your pain. He cradles your pain-filled heart and all your broken pieces and weeps with you. He does not dismiss our pain, even when He speaks the language of HOPE.
I write because I have learned that HOPE does not dismiss pain….but, WILD HOPE gives us reason to fight forward while giving my pain to the ONE who promises to redeem it all.
He is not done.
THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”
-Matthew 4:16
He is working in the darkest underground places. He is growing seeds of LIFE from the depths of your pain and loss. Suffering is strengthening my roots. The pouring out of blood from a sacred broken heart is nourishing those seeds of new life.
So come inside and I welcome you into my messy story of faith being rebuilt through the ruins.
Come as you are and lean in as I try to record the language of HOPE that God sings over my wrestling and wrecked heart.
Let’s sit together in this broken landscape and Let’s witness and wrestle and bleed together. Let’s throw plates at the trees together… let’s fall to the ground in tears. Let’s pound the ground in disagreement. Because, sometimes bravery can simply be just getting out of the bed in the morning to witness a new sunrise and believe for a light coming….and to choose to keep living in Hope unseen.
Let’s be brave together to cling to HOPE UNSEEN.
because….
Jesus. He leads the way through the wilderness.
He sits with us. He bleeds with us.
He is not done.
He is making all things NEW.
He pursues us in our darkest valleys.
I will keep writing in this space to hold on to unseen wild HOPE.
I write to fight to Hold on to HIM….in all the ache, in all the SEEN wasteland….and in all the doubts and unanswered questions. I want to write to invite others to watch how God birth new life from deepest pain.
Let’s just sit and let’s fight to believe together for what is UNSEEN….for what HE IS DOING in the deep dark shadows….
We crawl through a wasteland, but a NEW spring is coming!
..to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace…
Luke 1:79
Because Jesus is the hero of our story. His most broken cross promises a happy ending is coming. All that is wrong will be made right….
So, come. And let’s sit in the wasteland and unearth HOPE in the middle of our ruins….
Bring all your broken and I invite you to come sit in my broken garden with me and Let’s weep together, let’s lament together, and let’s dig deeply together to unearth a WILD HOPE from the depths of a dark wasteland that will give us the courage to fight forward!
Hold on friend…Hold on…
There is a Rescuer of LIGHT coming!
He left a garden at midnight where he anguished in blood and sweat and the next day He crawled up a torturing hill to calvary and was killed and buried in the deep darkness of a garden tomb. But, GOD …
GOD was not done! The story did not end at that hellish chapter, just like HE is not done with our hellish chapters. He walked out of a tomb of death and overcame death for good!!! He restores all that is BROKEN. The story is not done. A new garden is coming!
HE IS OUR WILD HOPE!
He is restoring a NEW garden where all that is wrong will be made right one day! Read for yourself, it is all in the book of Revelations, especially chapter 22. Take a look at this NEW garden with Trees of LIFE that bear fruit in every season and have healing in their leaves! It is a beautiful happy ending and I am pressing forward in this promise…..even as I limp and fall and flounder. I will not forget my future.
Our Faithful GOD IS NOT DONE, even when we can’t SEE beyond these terrible pages of grief.
In our suffering and in our broken garden, Let’s wail and weep and honor both the pain and the Hope coming! I pray that you will journey with my family in this space to look for light in the darkness, to trust a God who fiercely hunts us down with goodness in the land of the living while walking the valley of the shadow of death.
Let’s hold on and unearth a WILD HOPE together!
a Wildflower HOPE!
The Lord will surely comfort Zion
and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden,
her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the sound of singing.
Isaiah 51:3