I'd like to live in the mountains, like a monk. Without the bald head and scratchy robe.

Heartache is not an unfamiliar friend

I used to distance him through being busy. I would just make sure I was never quiet, never unentertained, always working. I wouldn't stop to consider the state of my life, or of any life outside of my own. I would focus on myself, but never on my self. In this way, I was able to numb that gnawing, achy feeling that the heart sometimes whispers at you with at random times when you're just. so. tired. Numb it, not dispose of it. But numb is better than considering the state of your heart and possibly finding that it is limping along, bleeding all over the floor and beating a little less stronger-confirming your fears. Numb is a better alternative than shattering yourself against the truth that at the end of the day, all of your work and effort and striving, all of the conversations and people and events, all of the distractions and fleeting entertainment and empty laughs in empty rooms, all of the accomplishment and accolade still can't quite obliterate the unquenchable yearning for something more that was never. quite. filled. Has never quite been filled. Heartache is still waiting somewhere out there, far, but altogether closer than most everything else.

And you can distance friend heartache by being safe too. Making sure the risks that you take are only risks in name. Never overextending yourself past anything that you might not be able to pull back from. Better to have never loved, then you have never lost. Better to never try, then you will never have known defeat. Better to stay numb, then you will never really get hurt. Don't open yourself up to things that are a long shot, don't listen to dreamers, please don't take risk on off chances, and whatever you do, don't believe. Don't have faith. Don't hope. Because then heartbreak has an open door once more, and he'll walk right through. He'll shred the welcome mat, desecrate the rooms whose doors you strain to keep locked, and trample on the light until  it seems as if the house you called your heart was never anything but a black void. He'll drop you to your knees so that he can more easily kick you in the face, and it will feel like he is never going to leave.


BUT. He leaves. Oh, does he leave. And you realize that his lies, and the sorrow, and the breaking, and the tearing, and the crying and the suffering and the hurt and the tears are all counted. All seen. All understood and felt. That's what we want, isn't it? That's what our heart is yelling at us. Please. See me. 


I have decided to live my life giving heartache a try. I decide every day to give heartache a try. Because love costs. And love risks. And the ability to lose something is what makes it real, and makes it valuable. Who ever cared about losing something fake?
I think I could talk for a very long time why risks and long shots and off chances and hope and waiting and risk are worth it. They are worth it even if you lose every.single.time. But at the end of my empty words is the beginning of a fullness I cannot express, nor explain, better than this

 Romans 5:8 But God demonstrated His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us 




 WE are the risk. We are the long shots. We are the off chance, the hoped for. We are what God put Himself on the line for; we are what walked away. We are the broken results of a perfect intention. We are the prisoners of hope. We are the source of more heartache, and more disappointment, and love trampled on than we will ever experience.

I will never get over the response to rebellion. I will not forget the feeling of an offered hand in the midst of the wreckage pride left in it's wake. I won't forget the voice of Jesus that spoke so very very clearly in the middle of my heart dying inside me. I hold onto what was spoken to me after I told God that I could no longer take the loneliness and emptiness, and that if He was still willing, to take whatever was left.

"You're Mine."
Yes. I am.


God didn't call me to get results. God didn't call me to get things done. God didn't call me to never fail, He didn't call me to never be let down, and He didn't call me to be good enough. God didn't call me to succeed, and He certainly didn't call me to avoid pain and hurt and loss. And struggle. God has called me to be faithful, even unto death. And to the best of my ability, it's faithful I will be.