Me & My Gang :)

 

As much as I have hated grieving, I cannot even begin to explain to you how thankful I am for that process in this very moment. I have oh so many things to share with you about my processes with grief and what God showed me over last weekend, but for now all I have time to share is that God used grief to let me heart grow, and grow, and even grow some more. This picture will forever be a picture that will serve as a reminder of how much I have and will continue to learn about love. 

Last fall, my heart was quite possibly Grinch like, very much too many sizes too small, but today, the woman who sits above in that picture, the woman who sits writing to you tonight, is a woman whom God is truly teaching how to love. I asked God to help me feel loved, which praise the Lord I am learning more and more about. I never imagined that in the process God would teach me how love. I thought that feeling love would be my magic answer....I won't lie, being loved on is a wonderful feeling and experience, but I had no idea how much more AMAZING it is when you feel your heart be overwhelmed with love for another person. I prayed for God to make me more empathetic, but empathy (for me) has really only come as love for people has grown in my heart.

My heart is overwhelmed with love for 13 young women; women who need nurturing, mothering, and everything else that goes into that; women who everyday God is using to redeem my story. I never thought my heart could be filled with such love, but God never ceases to amaze me with how He continues to bring redemption and restoration in my life in beautiful ways!

All these gifts have been blessings to walking in grief...oh grief, whoever knew this would be my story, a story of grieving great loss & pain to find an abundance of love & joy on the other side! 

 
"My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us."  

Ephesians 3:14-20