Hope Standing

"Deep calls to deep
       in the roar of your waterfalls;
       all your waves and breakers
       have swept over me.
 By day the LORD directs his love,
       at night his song is with me—
       a prayer to the God of my life." Psalm 42:7,8


As I drove home from church last night I heard this verse rush through my head.....


Deep calling to deep.


That simple sentence is so profound to me right now.


As I stood in church with my eyes shut tight, letting the worship music wash over me I let myself release.... I began to unclench my fists that I had been keeping tightly held together.


I let myself be overwhelmed.


I let Him overcome me.
I let the deep things in me cry out to the One who's deep love for me always humbles and awes me.


I felt the tears before I knew that they were falling.
As I stood there I began to sway and move with the swell of the music that speaks to the deepest parts of my soul. 


These last few days... weeks... months... have been so much.


But I know. I always know that it is in these moments of profound unrest that I have the opportunity to seek Him out.
To reach out to Him.... run to Him... with the tears falling down my face, dirt smudged, and stumbling.....


His arms are always waiting.
They are always waiting.... for me.


My oldest child is home again.
She has been gone for a while now.
Serving God. Seeking Him for the things that He has placed deep in her own heart.
And we let her go.... we had to let her go. She ultimately doesn't belong to us.
And even though she is home right now...we still are. We are still learning to let her go.


The hardest thing a parent will ever be asked to do....


As I brushed the hair back from her head just a few days ago... days that feel like years at this moment.... I just inhaled deeply..... I squeezed my eyes shut and let my mom tears fall...


And they haven't stopped falling...


I haven't let her see them.


She has turned to me at moments that we have been deep in conversation and said, "Mom. Don't cry..."


If she only knew.


Whenever I have had a stolen moment to myself I do it.... 
They are my comfort.
They are my solace.
Every tear is the love that has been stored up since the moment I felt her fluttering in the center of my very being.
They are my fight that I have been fighting for her since I knew that God has called her from the sweet and tender age of two years old.


And as I swept my fingers through her hair that night, I couldn't help but let them fall.
I wanted them to take away her fight that she is fighting right now.
I wanted them to sooth and calm her confusing emotions.
I wanted them to heal the hurts... the pain... the sickness that has made her come home to us too soon.
And in that moment God showed me a picture that took my breath... and dissolved any resolve that I thought that I was holding onto. There was more to my tears... more to the picture that He showed me.


She didn't know it....
We had just finished talking before I shut out the light and sat back down on her bed.
She didn't know that the words that she had just spoken had wounded me to my core.
She didn't know.
I knew that what she said was just one of those things that you speak and you don't think about what it is that you are saying... or how it has just impacted the hearing of the one that you have just spoken them to.


It wasn't a big deal.
It shouldn't have been.
But it was.
Because in that moment God showed me the meaning of why those words impacted me so much... why they hurt when I knew that they shouldn't.


It was like spying an ice burg just peeking from the top of icy waters.
The crest not showing what lies just underneath.
The power of what is really under that small icy mountain.


I saw myself.... standing in front of my daughter.
I was beaten and bruised. Beaten....
I could feel the pain of each wound.
And then I saw it... the enemy of us both.
And then the action that  made me flinch.... the slap to my face became almost physical.... I had to stop myself from flinching in the natural... as I saw my face wrench to the side with the impact as it hit me...as my knees buckled... I saw my daughter fall to the ground behind me.
I felt myself look back up... right in the face of the one trying so hard to break my fighting spirit....
And I saw myself drag myself back up... standing as straight and tall as I could... determined... resolved.
"I will not bend... you will not break us."
I could feel myself say it.
The power of those words holding such conviction that they are still echoing in my heart.


I will not bend.
I will never give up hope.
And I will continue to stand and hope in the One who is worthy of all my fight. 
All my hope.


In that moment I knew.
This picture revealed to me what I have always known... have always felt.


All those nights that I woke up out of a sound sleep to touch the foreheads of my children.
Every time I bent over them and whispered prayers of love... of hope... of hurt over what they were hurting over...
I was placing myself in front of them.
I was standing to take the blows.



My daughter is grown now.
She is learning how.
For herself.
But for now... for whatever reason I have the honor of doing it... God has allowed me to once again stand in front of her.
Not to take the defeat.
Not even to take the beating.
But because He knows.


He knows me.


I will stand and protect what is mine until the fight is over.
Until it is won.


And He knows that I know that I can not do it alone.


That I am depending on Him.
Fully and completely.
Hoping in Him. Trusting in Him.
Loving Him... and loving those that He has given to me as a gift.


A love like this is undefinable.
And it can not be understood until you are the one who chooses to love this way.


I was given my children for a reason.
And a long time ago I chose to give them back to the One who gave them to me in the first place.
I have had to continue this practice to this day.
And they belong to Him.
And so it is for that that I stand and fight.
When they can't... don't know how... or even know what it is that they are up against.
And even when they do... I will still fight with them.
Side by side.
And when they are married and have children of their own I will continue to stand with them.
I will continue to saturate the halls of heaven with my petitions... my pleas... my requests... my hope and my love.


I know the One to whom I serve. 
I am continually learning more and more about Who He really is.
His character... His heart... and His unbending love.
The love of a Father.
A love that doesn't even compare to the love that I feel as a mom.
Unless you are a mom... that statement is profound.  


He has stood since the beginning of time... since the time that life began...
He will always stand.
He stands for me.
For my daughter.
For all of the treasures of my heart.
It is because of this that I will stand.
I will believe Him when He says that He is going to heal my daughter.
When He has said that He is going to heal me.
My entire family.


I believe Him.


And I choose to trust Him.


With everything I have.
And everything that I am.


Because I know... I know that at the end of this season that I will stand with my daughter, my entire family.
Whole.
Healed.
And victorious.


Victorious.


Don't you just love that word?
I do.


And it is what I am claiming over every single situation, trial, hurt, sickness, and wound that exists at this moment.


God's victory.
God's provision.
God's healing.
God's glory.


His glory.
In our lives and over it.


In and over.


So I stand....




....until another tomorrow.


~m.


"Come, let us return to the LORD
         For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
         He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
    ²"He will revive us after two days;
         He will raise us up on the third day,
         That we may live before Him." Hosea 6:1,2