But real life calls and interviews, laundry, chores and projects don't wait for my broken heart to mend. So after gathering my wits this morning, I started back in on the counters at my parents house. I have been trying to help them fix their kitchen up and the mindless tasks of repetitive motion seem to bring some relief. So I stopped crying, brushed my hair, scrubbed my face, threw on my ripped jeans and destroyed shirt and started in.
I resounded to worship while I worked. I may not feel it, but I needed to pull on the garment of praise and remember that no matter how bad things get down here, God is still good and I still need to tell Him He's good. I needed to tell Him He was good.
A song I used to sing with the worship band back in DC came on while I was working: Hosanna. I started worshipping repeating the words over and over, not knowing what I was really saying. I had sang it so many times in front of people I had memorized it rote. Over and over I sang "Hosanna! Hosaaannaaa!! Hosanna in the highest!" I forgot what Hosanna means, but it didn't matter. I knew it was good and I knew I needed to sing it... loud.
The song built, and with it my voice. Not my heart, not my mind, but just my voice. The song hit the bridge and with it I hit my feet. Stomping, screaming and yelling "We're on our knees!! We're ON OUR KNEES!!! Hosanna! Hosanna in the HIGHEST!!" I lifted my hands yelling out "Heal my heart and make it clean!!! Open up my eyes to the things unseen!! Show me to love like You have loved me!!! Break my heart for what breaks Yours!! Everything I am for Your kingdoms cause as I walk from earth into eternity!!!!"
Everything I had been feeling and hurting over and needed was right there in that statement. Clean my heart, help me love like You do, everything for Your kingdom... it was all I have been sacrificing and more.
My life, my circumstances may never quite turn out the way I want them. I am broken and hurting and when this heals, I am sure there will be something else that I will have to heal from and round and round it will go as I walk from here into eternity. But that's just the thing. This still isn't about me. My life is a sacrifice in return for His sacrifice. I have promised everything to Him, my future, my past, my present. I can't take it back now just because it hurts. So my heart hurts, so I feel like I've lost everything, so what if I am scared and broken? Does that ever change His heart, His sacrifice, His love and grace for me? No. It never has, so why should it change mine for Him? Should He become untrustworthy because I feel confused and hurt? If this is what is part of my journey that will turn into a sacrifice of praise and maybe one day brings something to His kingdom, than who am I to question? Who am I to withhold?
His faith in me has never wavered, it has never changed and has never lessened, no matter what mistakes I've made, no matter what stupid things I have done, why should my faith in Him waver, when He's not even human? These aren't even mistakes, or failures, they are part of His larger plan. Why should it change my love and commitment to Him and His cause just because I don't like part of it?
If all it was, was to love and learn to be loved, if all it was, was to experience this heartbreak and know how much more I love the Lord, if it was only for a short purpose and time, who am I to judge? I am a vessel to be used as He pleases. I trust Him. He doesn't use capriciously and He doesn't sacrifice for nothing. That's not His character, so if He doesn't, than whatever He is asking me to undergo and still trust Him, it is part of His good and mine. It becomes my honor, my joy to choose to love Him and others in the face of loss and confusion.
Someday I may understand, someday I may see better, someday I may be aware, but if I'm not, if this always feels like an experiment gone bad, if I never get to see the fruit, that's okay. I know somehow, somewhere, it was part of a bigger plan. My heart was scarred to want to love like I have been loved, my heart was broken for what breaks His, my everything again is turned over for His kingdom. I am being taught in real time, in real experience to love through pain, to want the best for someone over getting what I want, my heart is being broken to not return anger for pain. That's enough. That's so good for now. That's what I want, that's what I have always wanted. If this is what it takes, if this is what it means to learn it, than I'm okay with that. When the pain comes, I will continue to turn it over, when the anger comes I will continue to yell "Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!!! Your will be done!!!"
As the song finished and my arms lowered, my heart broke again and tears began to form over what should have been, what I thought was, but that's okay. It's going to hurt for a while, its going to be painful. It's part of the sacrifice, part of the journey, part of the plan. It's not something to shrink from, to ignore, to pretend it isn't there, it's part of learning to still love in the face of pain. My life is in His hands, safe and tucked away as a living sacrifice. He is a Healer and I know I will heal in time.
I won't fear what's to be, I won't fear tomorrow, I will embrace today for what it is, a day in the kingdom. I won't let fear steal the love I have. I may never know something like what I lost again, but if that's His will, I have to trust. This is a transitory life, marked for eternity and that's my goal, not here... not now. I pray blessing in my life, but not circumstantial, heavenly. give me more of You Lord, give me more of You.
As I went back to scrubbing and crying, the song changed, but I still mumbled the only phrase I could. Hosanna... Hosanna in the highest.
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