for someday...

I know that none of our sorrow is wasted with the Lord. That not one tear is beyond His sight and that He has purpose for every ounce of sadness and redemption for every heartbreak. So I want to remember this season, to take this time captive. I have started to  pray fervently that He would sanctify it and use it mightily, that it would not be merely a time of great loss, but I would see it have a distinct purpose and I would come to praise Him for the pain. I want to look back and see His incomprehensible work on display and praise Him for the glorious plan He had and the way He brought all things together for a purpose far beyond my comprehension. 

I think I can sit humbly in this place and say I don’t see the other side. I know that my heart is tender and can easily be broken and wounded. I also think I am generous in giving grace and continuing to pour my heart into others regardless of my feelings, not wanting my bruises to be the badges that mark my life. Trying desperately not to run and hide or cease the sharing because it’s just too painful to feel invisible and unwanted and brushed aside as “fitting” feels less and less tangible. I know I want to remember what all of this feels like so I can try with all my might to love well if I ever reach that proverbial other side, so I can embrace someone who feels so much like me if I get to move beyond this (seemingly unending) season someday. 

I pray when my wedding day does come (and I pray it does come) it won’t be all about how it isn’t good for man to be alone and that people won’t walk out of our ceremony feeling wounded because of their own losses, but it will be a truly joyous celebration of what the Lord has done and provided in each of our lives and the way we want to follow hard after Him. I pray it will invite everyone into His great plan and purpose for our family and how so each person there is divinely called and is part of that beautiful story. 

I hope alongside my husband to lovingly embrace some great single girl (or guy or both) and invite her to be part of our family. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture or act of valor - but I hope she is at our house on a weekly basis for dinner and conversation and a ridiculous television show of some sort - I hope it is normal for her to just drop by - that she feels welcome and wanted and included. I hope that on holidays she knows she has a place to belong because SHE IS FAMILY, and our table is open to her always. I hope that when we have kids, they call her aunt and when silly holidays like mother’s day roll around, our kids choose to celebrate her as well as me and we encourage that because it really DOES matter. I pray He helps me see where I can care and provide healing and slave to weary and broken hearts. Where I can speak truth and remind a beautiful young woman that she is seen and beloved even if the Lord has not yet answered the deep cry of her heart. I pray I will be used as an answer to her prayers in the midst of her loneliness because I GET IT. 

And maybe it looks absolutely NOTHING like any of this - but I am going to keep writing it down and asking Him to help me remember and to carefully orchestrate and craft purpose and significance and meaning from the wreckage, to use the broken and messy to make beautiful. And I know He will be faithful - and someday I will look back and praise Him for the wonderful and divine and glorious plan He had all along. I will trust Him with my story, even if right now the story is the storm.