TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

It’s April/May.

It might as well be May, because we only have one more week, and at the rate we throw days around our head, releasing them like we’re all Olympic shot put catapult kind of gals, well, to us…
its May.

So four whole months into 2015, and I like to believe in progress. I like to believe I know more about myself than I did four months ago. I like to imagine the Holy Spirit while I am trying to think of what exactly I am coming before the throne of the Almighty to ask, and in all my fumbling around (because the reality is I just know my issues, not what I actually need more of), I let the silence carry my little legs to the place where I envision the Holy Spirit, doing what he does, praying over me through wordless groans, asking for the exact addition or subtraction I need for my life to flourish a little more each day. I believe in him and his all-knowingness to carry me to where I need.

So here is where I am at, because recently I have begun to catch on to a little thing a favorite blogger of mine has been doing, in which each month she begins by telling you what she learned the last. So, of course, I kept coming to her page on the day of the post, thinking that’s strange. I am going to be completely honest, as I trust you not to judge me, when I thought how unbelievable useless this was. I could not understand the value of going back and making a list of the silly things I’ve learned through the past month. But, God is funny and loves to take these seemingly insignificant observations we make and suddenly connect them in ways we are left wondering how we never thought of that side of things before.

He’s all about revelation, love. The Father loves to take us deeper.

So when I was thinking about all the silly little things I have learned about myself and all the things he’s revealing to me through our usual game of connect the dots, the importance of knowing what we have learned suddenly sunk to rock bottom.

It’s not just the big things that we are to take note of, the proof lying in his playful ways, leaving his clues around for us to string into a bigger message.

It’s not just a selfish little autobiography, a time to be a narcissist, but rather, a time to grow in a way that can only take place with some attempts to get to know how God created you, and where your strengths and weaknesses rest.

Its reflection, love, and reflection is vital to build up and not to stay in the same place. Knowing where you came from is a sanctuary of thankfulness. It’s a reminder on the hot mess kind of days that there is progress and this is not the end.

So, only because it’s been on my heart so much lately, let me tell you some of my findings.

1. Can we just go back to progress?
I finally got around to reading Lysa Terkeurst’s book Unglued, and it could not have come at a better timing. Life gets messy and recently my emotions have been crawling right down beside it all. So to hear someone tell you they feel hurt and broken, too, and cannot seem to reign in their emotions? To hear someone swoop in for a loving hug when you feel like the furthest from worthy? It’s the realization you’re not insane and the loving reminder every day is progress and the sister hug that you are not alone.

2. I’m a gardening wanna-be.
When I moved on my own, I had this visualization of my patio being covered with tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, flowers, herbs, you name it. In my head I am an unstoppable green thumbed gardener. In reality I killed the first three plants I have had in the apartment.

Mostly, I just have the worst memory ever and watering plants isn’t the first thing on my mind. Or the fifth. Ever.

3. I needed my husband when he came.
I think this will be where I leave everything, but it’s true, and the funny thing is it’s something I hadn’t even realized until this week. A week after our wedding day.

For some reason, around Easter, I couldn’t stop thinking about the same time period last year. To be honest, I was a mess. My grandfather joined heaven’s choir after an ugly illness and I was in a place in my life where I have never really felt further from God. I went from the highest peak to the lowest place in a matter of months, and I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself out. With every decision I made, I walked further away.

The year changed me, and to be honest with you to even write about it all draws the biggest lump into my throat. Lord, it was so hard. So when my husband came, thank God for how he works, little did I know it was the Lord saying it is finished. This was it, because the thing is, I have never in my life been someone to talk faith to the faithless. I know how wrong that sounds, but I’m holding my heart out to you, praying the Lord will let you see it in purity. I have never been one to talk to people who don’t believe in Jesus in the same way I do, let alone to keep talking about him after they fill me in on their disbelief. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have kept going if he hadn’t probed. God used my husband’s curiosity to bring about my own healing. God used him to bring me back in, to root me into a church, and to reveal parts of himself I had yet to see.

Little did I know, he was acting like my husband long before the question was even asked, leading me and encouraging me back into the loving arms of my Father, pushing me to go deeper.

So, God is good and sneakily used my husband to save us both. He’s that good.