Leaves

I have always loved fall. Spring is my favorite, but there's something about fall that always draws my spirit into a deep, contemplative place. A place where time slows down, and contentment and love settle in. Like taking a long, slow drink of ice cold water. The parching heat of summer is past, and the soul draining winter lies ahead. But for now I rest.

Last year, fall brought on a whole vast array of colors. It was a warm fall but it was also a live-changing fall for me. As my journey that was the last year began. I've journeyed to places I never dreamed existed, I found a life and fulfillment that was beyond my wildest dreams. And it changed me. From one single act of the Father's love reaching deep into my heart. Embracing all of me.

I've journeyed into the places of deep brokenness in my life and come out knowing the meaning of beauty. The places where hope and restoration, where healing and joy really are found. Places where I needed to repent and forgive, places where I needed God's love to surround me. And I've come so far. There's been a deep calling on my life to go to battle for the Lord. A calling to bring His Kingdom into the darkness and into the places of desperation and hopelessness in people's lives. And to journey on my own into my own brokenness and come out having found beauty gives me a courage and freedom to dive into others' areas of brokenness as well.

There is something immensely beautiful about brokenness. Look at the leaves outside. The colors that are showing now are the true colors of that tree. Only when the "masks" are stripped away, when the facade is removed, when our real, vulnerable and fragile selves are seen do we step into beauty in it's purest form. That stripping, that removing that leads to that beauty is also the first step into finding healing. In just the same way, only when Jesus' body was broken were we able to find healing. By His wounds we are healed! Personally, I have also found that the times my brokenness is the most real are the times when I have been closest to God. There really is something beautiful in brokenness.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "For God makes all things beautiful in its time. For he has set eternity in the hearts of man, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

As my journey into brokenness and beauty takes a new course this week I find myself not in a place of despair but in a place of hope. For I know that the healing that comes is not just for me, but for bringing glory to God and for bringing hope to others. Having a diagnosis of PTSD is not what I had planned, is not something I had ever thought would become a part of my life. But I have courage and hope in the One who knows me, is the One who can take our most shattered pieces and turn it into a mosaic of beauty. Only in stripping away the masks, only in the green leaves being stripped of its green to reveal its true coloring, will healing and life come. God desires freedom for us, He desires wholeness and health, He desires the best for us. But even more He desires relationship with us. If my brokenness draws me closer to God then let me be broken. For the Holy One whose body was broken for me has promised redemption and resurrection. These scars are a testament to not only God's comfort and nearness, but also a testament to the glory yet to come. So let me be broken Lord, for in that I will be made beautiful.