No Words

In my entire life, I have never been at a loss for words. I have always been a talker, a communicator, extroverted, social, opinionated, and often argumentative. Over the last 10 years God has refined some of those character traits and flaws. Cancer hit in the middle of those 10 years and I came out changed in other drastic ways from that experience as well. This extrovert is now more of an introvert as much as that’s possible!

The one thing that I always had in abundance was words. I have been complemented often on my ability to write and express my story or content and to transparently share my life and testimony. It’s been suggested by a handful of encouragers in my life that maybe I should write a book. I don’t know about that, but several years ago I did start this blog. My purpose was to tell my story of Gods hope, love and grace. I wanted to be real and transparent, as He has created me to be, to show how He is due the honor and glory for taking my stories and working them together for good. To show that there is always hope.

I wanted my blog to be full of hope, encouragement, examples of Gods love and life beyond our struggles. I wanted to communicate to others that without God at the center of my story, life could have easily overtaken me and overwhelmed me and turned out much different. I wanted to show that with God all things could work together for good for those who love Him. And I love Him so very much and I am so grateful for what he has given me in my life, much more than I deserve. He deserves all the glory and my goal is to give him that honor and glory through my words in this blog.

It has been 9 months since I have written a blog post. I have started and stopped on multiple occasions with a sentence or two, but the words wouldn’t come. This past year has been a very difficult year in my life, filled with a deep grief that I have had to work through with Gods help. I struggled daily to not allow bitterness to take root in my life, fully aware of the possibility of that happening due to the wounds inflicted on me.

I have learned enough life lessons to recognize how offense can easily turn to bitterness and when bitterness takes root it grows and corrupts everyone it touches. It is poison. I wanted desperately for God to help me cover my pain and these offenses in grace, sometimes having to work hard to do it over and over so bitterness could not take root. I have spent this past 11 months plucking “bitter weeds” out of my garden on a regular basis. Replacing those little sprouts with grace, mercy, peace and love seeds. God has walked me through it and still is, because the hurt doesn’t just go away, especially when it’s ongoing. You could say the garden of our hearts needs constant plucking and planting and tending. I want to say I’m now an expert gardener after this past season, but in all humility I am still learning as I go. My teacher, He is the expert!

Sometimes we have to lay offenses down and give it over to God over and over again. We need to recognize when our thoughts are allowing hurt to dwell and become fertile soil for “bitter weeds” to begin to grow and take root. We all know that if you don’t pluck those weeds right away, they just grow bigger and taller and thicker and stronger. Then they become much harder to pluck out and often you need bigger tools to dig down and get the roots of the weed to fully eradicate it.

This year I have not only worked hard on plucking them quickly but also replacing them with seeds of love, mercy and grace. I didn’t want my heart to just be weedless soil but a carefully tended garden full of colorful blooms. My heart has been focused on this ongoing process of healing, loving, learning and recognizing the good things God has given me even when the loss seems overwhelming. How essential it is for us to keep our eyes focused on Him and not on our circumstances.

Every time I have started to write or wanted to pour out my heart, I found it so difficult to do that because of the conflict in me between the wounds and the mercy and love I was working so hard to cover the wounds in, through Gods grace. I did not want to eradicate the work I had done by talking about the weeds. How do you express one without the other? I could not find the words. So I would start to write wanting desperately to express my heart and then the words just would not come.

I could not find a way to express my grief without exposing it and diminishing the grace and love that had replaced it. I want mercy to triumph in my life. As I’ve expressed before, joy and sorrow often coexist. God is the author and finisher of our faith. He also tells us when trials come to count it all joy! Really?! How? When our faith is tested it produces perseverance and when perseverance has finished its work we become mature and complete and lack nothing! (James 1:2-4) Joy comes from persevering! It doesn’t mean we have to enjoy the trial, just realize that with Gods help the trials help us grow and mature and eventually lack nothing which brings joy even if the sorrow remains.

Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Hebrews 12:14-15

In offering mercy and love to those who hurt us, (who hurt me), we ourselves receive grace. My grace filled garden is blooming this spring with beautiful and colorful blooms from the seeds planted where weeds could have been. But I am ever watchful over that garden of grace, tending, watering and watching to pluck out those nasty weeds as soon as they pop up! It’s a process and it takes work to have a beautiful garden. But it’s worth it!

There is hope beyond this! Thank you Lord for the grace you so generously give to us, the glory for my garden is yours!