Have you ever wondered if
your own personal desert season will EVER end?

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When will I find my life long love?

When will I hold my own babies in my arms?

When will I have enough money to buy that house?

When will I get that dream job or afford to stay at home or buy the right car or take the perfect vacation?

When will eating chocolate actually help me LOSE calories?

Okay, so maybe the last one will never REALLY happen…

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But sometimes life feels like moving from one waiting room to the next, checking in, watching others go in and out of those sacred back room doors, wondering when it will be MY turn, feeling forgotten or maybe even abandoned.

My pilgrimage through my own personal ongoing valley — chronic pain, infertility, indefinite ministry sabbatical, relocating continents — feeling the fortification of my character every step of the way, has become a daily reality. I often find my heart and soul succumbing to moments of sheer desperation, gripping anxiety, and even plain, old despair.

The Father relentlessly pursues me with a passion that creates unspeakable joy and agonizing tears, causing me to question if there is anything truly left for me to give.

And somehow there still is, as He digs deeper into the recesses of my subconscious, molding and shaping me into His image and likeness more and more each day.

The undertaking often leaves me empty, poured & spilled out at His feet, longing for His mercy & grace, which was always there for the asking.

But…..

….I was too stubborn to ask, let alone, receive what He had been holding out to me all along.

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So He plows deeper, breaking through years of good-girl tendencies and self-protecting hardened soil, until He unearths the richness He always knew was there.

Because He created it after all.

So as I am stripped of my self, my flesh, my willful desires, He opens me up to a world strange and wonderful, full and free, ready to be filled with His purpose, His love, His destiny.

And in those moments, the paradox of the Gospel becomes clearer….

I must decrease
so He can increase

I must be empty
to feel full

I must die
so I can truly live

God works through disregarded and ignored vessels.

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 He delights in the plain, the simple, the ordinary.

So I walk around empty…

…still fighting the flesh inside of me that wants to fill its own desires
but here in the vacancy, subtle reminders stir my spirit, drawing me back to His heart beat.

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And THAT is for you too, my sweet sister!

My cup overflows….