I was not planning to blog in the middle of the night tonight. But I couldn't sleep and I decided to get up and come out in the living room.  I remembered this video my friend texted me a few days ago and decided to finally sit down and watch it. She said it made her think of me. Well, I can see why! This is heartbreak & sheer joy rolled into one beautiful story that begins and ends with God. It touched me so deeply.  I am still wiping tears. And we aren't talking cute little tears... but big, fat alligator tears accompanied by some major sobbing. So many emotions as I watched it. Please take the time to watch it yourself!  It will be so worth 14 minutes of your life.


http://www.movingworks.org/project/chloe/


I have said, felt, or lived  many of the things which they said in the video, such as:

"I struggled with trusting God's goodness at times because I felt like it was just so mean. Such a mean thing to do." <---yep

"There was like a 4 1/2 year period that I would say was really really hard on us individually, on us in our marriage and also in the way we were relating with God...especially for me." <---we are right at 4 1/2 really hard years

"Every time we would hear about someone getting pregnant we would just be devastated because we were thinking this isn't gonna happen for us. We're fools, fools who want kids and its never gonna happen." <---constant struggle

"And then I would say somewhere I feel like God shifted something in me so significant. There was a point where I started to realize, actually no, I can live like a really full and really happy life and experience so much with God and know Him so deeply and be satisfied in the deepest way a human can be satisfied, even without having a child. Sounds like a simple concept, but for me that was a big change and a big shift in my perspective." <---much to my surprise, this same major shift happened to me this summer during our first real, extended break from "trying." 

"We kept praying, God if you're saying you don't want us to be parents, take this desire from us." <--- can't count how many times I've said and prayed this

"There were tons of people praying for us and with us...it was a special thing to get to feel the body of Christ standing with you through something." <---so incredibly special

In my last post I mentioned some song lyrics. The last line was, "why can't He make me an unbreakable heart?" Oh how I've craved that through these years of heartbreak and waiting. If only I had an unbreakable heart! But you know what one of the fresher lessons I have learned is?  That God intentionally breaks our half hearted hearts so He can put them back together whole. But He never does this or anything else for the purpose of hurting us.  His ways may often seem harsh, but only because we perceive them as harsh, not because that is how they really are. I have a tendency to live by what I feel and not by what is real. I am continuing to see how unreliable and ever changing my feelings are. But God is unchangeable. He is and was and will always be perfectly loving, perfectly faithful and perfectly just.  For so many years I lived under the notion that God never actually caused my pain, but He rarely stopped or prevented it either...He just allowed it to happen. But now my perspective has changed and I feel like He has shown me that He Himself is often the One bringing the trials into my life. And somehow that is a relief, because I know that Someone who I can trust is in control of what is happening to me.  He is using them to chip away the stone around my heart to reveal the gold underneath. He is sanctifying me.  Having an unbreakable heart would be like having a perfect life. There would be no need for God or faith.  If we were never broken, we would never need Someone to put us back together. So often we think we have our own glue and we can piece it together ourselves, the way we want our hearts & lives to look. But our glue is cheap and it just doesn't hold up under heat or pressure. The more we resist His breaking and remaking, the more we add to our suffering. I once was lost, but now I'm found...and I can acknowledge that there is beauty in the broken. I can even go as far as to rejoice in it.  Was blind, but now I see. 

"See how much I love you? Do you see what I've done? I've been writing this story, you had no idea, for years I've been writing this story" ...and I realized how foolish I was. How my perspective was so skewed in my own pain that what I saw as Him not loving me was Him being the most loving He could have been."  <--- One day, like Annie,  I will be able to look back and see how foolish I was and actually thank Him for taking me down this road. I look forward to that day!

"From start to finish, this movie [if life were a movie] is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is it possible that we live as though it is about us? Our scenes in the movie, our brief lives, fall somewhere between the time Jesus ascends into heaven and when we will worship God on His throne."  Francis Chan 

Do you need a little comfort today?  How comforting that the author, producer and star of the show cares immensely about our tiny little supporting roles!  When I see Walt and Annie's story, I see Jesus. I hope He is what people will see when they look at my life, and yours... heartbreak & sheer joy rolled into one beautiful story that begins and ends with God.