A Letter to Explain {Why Words Have Escaped Me}

Let me explain why this is so late.

Yes, I knew the link opened on Monday. Yes, I knew we were writing a letter to explain. Yes, I did know that a couple of weeks ago, too.

But, let me explain.

Lately, I’ve been more speechless than usual. My heart expressions that typically get put in words are more like groanings and sighs.

Don’t worry, it’s a good thing. A God thing. Just a hard to write about thing. A hard to explain thing.

The words I’d love to say are to people and about events that need a different forum for exposure. The insights and truths that have been breaking forth in my soul lead to long stories that involve weaving and building. Much too much to explain here.

So let me explain this.

When God says he’s good, he is.

A little girl was broken and should never have survived what she did. But here I am. The damage is severe enough that I should have no hope, but joy has decided to break through. I know my God sustains. Especially in the midst of this dark plunge into revelation.

My heart was unreachable through the protective defenses that I created, but God is clever. He sought me. He touched me. He gave me the gift of seeing my methods of coping in my own strength apart from him. He sweetened that gift with a wave of repentance. I wrote awhile back about all my frames of brokenness. For one small moment, my good God helped me connect and I was able to grieve for the broken me. That, my friends was a miracle, pure and simple.Words escape me, that he would do that for me.

So what has changed? In a nutshell, I see a new thing, so I can be a new way. I was blind, stumbling in the dark, thinking I could see. Now, I see and I realize how blind I had been.

But there is one more thing to tell. I didn’t do it alone. Of course my good God was with me. But, this year, for the first time in my life, I have entrusted the whole of myself to trustworthy friends and to gifted healers in my church who offered their time, their prayers and their hearts in such a way that I have been enfolded into safety and my heart has found the courage to bloom. As I relaxed and leaned into the embrace of my friends and my healers, God’s spirit began to flow. Through their warm hugs, their pointed questions, their listening ears, their encouragements, their hard and painful truths, and their spirit filled prayers to draw me forth into life, God has become more real to me than I have ever known. And I believe he meant it to be that way.

Some might wonder about this. Some might say my healer is God, I should only entrust myself to him. I did. For many years I relied solely on him to help me. But I was broken in the context of relationship. He wanted to heal me in the context of relationship.  So he sent his appointed servants to take hold of my hands. They led me away from the blind path I had chosen out in the desert (away from relationship) so that I could find him. I’d wandered long enough to know I was hopelessly lost. I was finally desperate enough to risk joining with others on the journey. They helped me find what I could never discover alone.

So, I have a new outlook, and you know what I see. A long road. A road that lasts a lifetime. Wholeness is yet a long way off. I have yet to risk the search for healing on deeper levels of relationship. My family and my marriage have suffered long years of receiving the bare minimum from me. It’s a new level of courage I’m looking for now. It’s a new level of risk that faces me. But, might I explain once more? When God says he’s good he is. He sustains. He is clever. And, he is jealous for me, every broken frame.

I'm linking up with Ruth Povey at Letter's To. Hope to see you there!