Hey… it’s me.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been on here, and we need to talk.

No more keeping up appearances. No more masks. Letting down the facade and being vulnerable was my intent with creating this blog but in truth, I have shied away from this goal since day one. One of my favorite quotes is “with brave wings she flies” yet I have failed to embrace this in the authorship (is that even a word…?) of this blog.

In creating this outlet, I knew that I would have to be vulnerable but total vulnerability is terrifying and admitting truths that you wish to be false is even harder.

The biggest truth that I have been withholding is the season that I am currently in regarding my relationship with Christ. After a time of intensity, heartbreak and dependence, I began drifting away from my Father. But the bizarre thing is that while I drifted, I still held on (contradictory, I know.. bear with me).

The best way to describe it is that I am holding onto a rope, hanging on for my life at the end. My Father is the one holding the rope at the top and is cheering for me to just climb, as I am struggling to make that move. I have not run from my Father, as I am still holding onto His rope with my every being, yet I have slipped away in proximity and intimacy( I mean, I am still the crazy lady who prays out loud in her car!). I have not yet climbed up, as I know that this would mean admittance, accountability, and change. This would mean stepping out of the comfortable, albeit less than joyful, place that I have found myself in.

For a while, and honestly to this day, I didn’t want to admit this fact to myself, let alone to the world. I thought that to keep it to myself would be to protect myself and hope for the best. I tend to have a habit of internalizing feelings that I do not wish to express to the world and that is exactly what I have been doing for quite some time.

I was embarrassed. I thought that if I was not the strongest and most steadfastly devout Christian that I had no place sharing my faith, hoping to touch others.

But it is in this season of turmoil and distance that God has spoken something to me… I am not a failure for falling away, I am merely proof of the fact that this world needs a savior.

I don’t need to be ashamed of a season of faith, for seasons don’t last forever. Every winter turns to spring and every harsh summer gives way to a beautiful fall.

I can rejoice in this season, not because of the distance, but because of the strides He has made to close the distance. I am a messed up, dirty rotten sinner that Jesus came to save. He didn’t come for perfect, clean, and pure people (for they don’t exist), He came for the broken, for the sinful, for the wanderer. He came for me. Regardless of the fact that I fall into desolate seasons of my faith.

Romans 5:8

“I loved you at your darkest.”

What a miraculous and beautiful statement it is to say that Jesus knew that this season would come for me, and yet He still faced the cross. He still died. He still suffered. For me.

He knew that this season would pass.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like ME.

While I may say I don’t feel His presence as abundantly as I have during other seasons of my life, it is during this one that I feel His grace in its truest and most abundant form. Each and every time I reach out to Him, I feel His acceptance and love and can feel Him tugging on my heartstrings and pulling me back. He accepts and embraces my, at times quite small, steps. Much like the prodigal son in Luke, when He sees me coming back, He runs to me and welcomes me in with all of His love and grace and infinite mercy.

Luke 15:20-24

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

The father did not condemn his child for wandering away, much like how our God does not chastise us upon return for the moments when we slipped away. What a beautiful mystery, this grace that He has for us. We will never understand its full capacity and nature, but we constantly experience it and stand in it in the eyes of our Father.

We are all wanderers. Perhaps, you stepped away for a day, perhaps a year, a decade, a near lifetime. But God doesn’t care about how long you were away, but merely that you took the step to come back to Him. We all drift in this life, but we can always come back to the arms of the one from which we came, and in which we will forever reside.

I will come home. We all will.

Take that step, climb that rope, and come home to His waiting arms.

I shared my heart with you, so this post, more than any other, please feel free to share yours with me.

I love y’all, my fellow wanderers.

God bless you

❤

Me