letters I can't send (#2 of 3)
There are days when I feel
The best of me is ready to begin
Then there days when I feel
I'm letting go and soaring on the wind
'Cause I've learned in laughter or in pain
How to survive
I get on my knees, I get on my knees
There I am before the love that changes me
See I don't know how, but there's power
When I'm on my knees
“The will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.” ~ Billy Graham
Boy did I ever learn the truth in the quote above throughout the decade of my thirties. I discovered that the “random” invitation to join Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) a few years back in Kansas, was not so random after all. In those years of really digging into the Word of God, my roots of faith began to grow deeper than I could have ever imagined.
As a child, my parents planted the seeds, they set the foundation, and nurtured my faith as far as they could, but I learned in my thirties, that while the faith my parents seeded was rich, full of vitamins and nutrients necessary for growth, the roots were shallow and would not be strong enough to sustain me all of my life. I needed more. I needed to really know God and to trust Him, and I had to own it.
Some of our greatest moments with God are going to be in our deepest moments of darkness.
I had to do the work and allow God to do the work in me, in order to give strength to the roots that were started in my childhood. Through my pain and failures, God was calling me to grow deeper. I was not going to come out on the other side of my thirties healed, whole, and redeemed any other way.
I found my fortress and shelter in Christ by spending time on my knees, but it wasn’t initially by choice.
photo credit: Boonyachoat
I had to make Christ my cornerstone, my anchor, and my personal place of refuge, and in those years of struggling, wrestling, hating, fighting, questioning, hurting, and healing, I found my rock, my strength in Christ by spending time on my knees, but it wasn’t initially by choice. It was through brokenness, exhaustion, and complete surrender that I finally went to my knees, and that is when I began to stand, stand on my own faith because it was becoming mine, and the roots were anchoring deep.
My faith would become personal and stronger than ever in my surrender and weakness.
If only our younger selves understood the growth that can happen through our valleys, that some of our greatest moments with God are going to be in our deepest moments of darkness where the only place we have to go is on our knees, where only the grace of God can sustain us.
Oh, thirty-something Melinda, I wish you knew what I know now about where you are right now, but in a way, I’m glad I can’t forewarn you because then you wouldn’t know what I know today. You would have missed the blessings from the trials.
If I could tell you what to expect throughout these years, this is what I would tell you.
Dear Thirty, something, soon to be single Mom,
You are about to learn that when you suffer, when you’re abandoned and betrayed, God is still working, still sustaining, still making, “all things work together for good to them that love God.” (Romans 8:28)
Life looks absolutely NOTHING like you thought it would at this stage. You will not be some corporate executive, the PTO President, homeroom mom, perfect, happy, and loved housewife of a successful Christian businessman. You will not be superwoman. You will not have the life you envisioned in any way shape or form, but trust me, God’s not done with you yet.
I wish you knew that God is breaking you for your best life. I promise you; God is working in you right now. In all your trials and pain, in all your anger and depression, He is calling you to surrender your pride and ego, to release what you thought was best, to live what is His best for you and your sons. God can and will still use you. Just let go and follow His lead. You can trust Him. Your fighting and your fear to trust only prolongs your years in the wilderness wandering aimlessly while trying to control your life.
Your thirties are going to be a decade of brokenness, healing, trials, redemption, loss, overcoming, faithlessness, faithfulness, growth, and complete surrender. You are going to be so angry, and even “wrestle with God” as scripture tells us Jacob wrestled with God, and you are going to personally experience The Holy Spirit interceding for you in your pain.
The faith, grown in those years of study with Bible Study Fellowship is the faith that gives you courage to surrender it all to God that January morning in 2001. That January morning where you will drop your two oldest at school, the youngest with the sitter, and you will come home, and you will surrender it all to God. You will lay it all, your marriage, your pain, your family, your confusion, everything at the foot of the cross.
photo credit: Jackson Simmer @simmerdownjpg
That will be the day God decides you are ready to know your truth and allows the unraveling to begin.
You are going to begin to see the restoration that God was doing in you and for you in preparation for the answers to the prayers you had been praying for years. You are about to experience God making your faith, YOUR FAITH. You no longer will be living off the faith of your parents, but you are going to experience God, personally.
photo credit: Cdoncel @cdoncel
This is going to be a hard, hard decade. Your sons are going to be hard on you and they are going to rebel. You are going to have some real challenges with them. Remember, they are causalities in all of this. They had no say in anything happening right now. They are reaping the consequences of the sins of their parents. They are angry, they are hurting, and they are scared.
Remember always, while it’s going to feel as though they are against you, hate you, give you all their anger and rebellion, you are their safe place. You are their constant. You have not moved. It’s natural you are going to be their punching bag. Be bigger than them. Be strong and love them unconditionally no matter how much they say they hate you and call on God for all you need to navigate these years.
Your 30’s will be really hard, and you will want to run away and escape all the pain and sense of failure. You will still be buying into the lies of the enemy that you are a failure, a loser, and everything your sons are going through is solely your fault. You will believe you have let everyone down because you are still seeking affirmation from people and not God.
You will isolate yourself for a couple of years out of pain and embarrassment. You will even withdrawal from church. You will go through years of anger towards God, wondering how the person who betrayed you, your ex-husband, is seemingly “winning” at life, why it seems as though everything he touches turns to gold, and you are drowning, and your sons are hurting so badly. You will live in the “why God” and the “life is not fair” stage for a bit, but just know, God sees you.
photo credit: Andy Li @andylid0
When you decide your are ready to stop isolating yourself you are going to begin to reinvest in old female friendships, and new ones. These friends will end up being your army of prayer warriors who build you up, hold you up when you are exhausted, who hold you accountable when you are weak, and who restore your faith in women.
You are going to find, now more than ever, that no matter how good your relationship with a husband might be, women need women. Women were made for community, and you will never forget this going forward and you will encourage women of all ages to build female friendships across the generations. It will be a passion of yours because you learn so much about the importance of that during these years.
photo credit: Joel Muniz @jmuniz
You are going to look back on your thirties and you are going to know one day, those years, while incredibly difficult and painful, those were actually some of your best years ever. Believe it or not, you are going to almost wish for the brokenness and pure surrender again in order to feel and know God’s presence like you knew it in those years.
I promise you, you will look back on your thirties and thank God for what He did for you and in you, for the woman of faith He turned you into, and for the brokenness that brought you to your knees and humbled your heart to the place where He could work to release you from years of bondage and lies of the enemy.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm — my great army that I sent among you.” (Joel 2:25)
Your questioning and doubt of God’s love for women will be dismantled, as He lovingly, faithfully, and patiently restores you during this decade. You will one day see and know how He used your afflictions to refine you and draw you closer to Him.
“For you, God, have tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” (Psalm 66: 10-12)
photo credit: oneclearvision
“ A refiner's fire melts down a metal, such as gold or silver, for purification purposes. Once a metal is in its melted down state, the dross in the metal rises to the top and is then removed from the metal before it cools.
God spoke this analogy through the prophet Malachi to describe how he purifies our hearts. Just as a refiner’s fire, God will draw out our dross – our broken, sinful ways – so that we will stand pure and righteous before him.
A refiner’s fire does not destroy the metal, rather it allows the junk within to come up so that it can be removed. A refiner’s fire does not consume, it makes the metal better and more valuable. This comparison helps makes sense of what God’s redemptive work may look like and accomplish in each of us.
God will purify us in similar ways. He does not consume us, rather, being in relationship with God draws us to righteousness and away from sinfulness. God uses our suffering, our sinfulness, and our shortcomings to refine us just as a refiner’s fire, so that the dross within our hearts will rise to the surface and can then be removed. How humbling to stand before God with hearts made pure.” (Pamela Palmer, What is the Refiner’s Fire in Malachi?)
Sweet, Melinda, (you will also learn the value of speaking words of affirmation to yourself) a thirty something, single mom, as hard as these years are, God has always been with you. This isn’t your destination. This is preparation. God will use you, maybe not in the “grand” ways you thought, but it will be in the ways He knows are best for you.
As Billy Graham said, “Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion – it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.
Trust the process and hold on beautiful soul because God is going to do some mighty things in your next couple of decades and I cannot wait to tell you all about it!
photo credit: DJ Johnson @dj_johns1
Happy & Loved,
Your 50 something you
Is your faith yours or are your roots still shallow? Have you allowed God to do the hard work that needs to be done in you or are you still pushing Him away? Have you been through the refining fires and allowed God to remove the junk needed to be removed or are you still fighting the process? Are you past the point of weary? Are you desperate for some healing? He broke me, and restored me. He can restore you too.
Never forget, " Regardless of how broken you have become, your purpose is still intact." Michael Phillips
