Here I go breaking the silence on the blog. Please accept our apologies for the break, KD and I have been busy braving life. KD, this one is for you.
For you KD on the occasion of your birthday.
I miss you. I miss spending so very much time with you almost every day. But you know what? I’m not scared for you anymore. I don’t worry about how you are doing, and whether you are lost in a dark place without me there. You’re doing crazy things. I see you leaning into God, braving the unknown, learning what makes you come alive, and trying rollercoasters. You prophesy over the lost, weep with the hurting, and war for the broken. That is you. That is the KD I have always seen.
When you were completely wrecked, when you had no faith left, when you stopped crying because you stopped feeling, nothing made me stop seeing freedom for you. Freedom is built into your DNA. It’s a part of you. No matter how far you ran, you never could have escaped it. Now I see you proclaiming that freedom over others. You are using your freedom to break other’s prison locks. You show Jesus.
Here KD, is your birthday wish from Hope. You, my friend, will always fly over the highest mountain tops. You will run into the vast unknown of the future and laugh when fear tries to intimidate you. You will walk with the creative designer of all and sit in rapt attention at his words. There will be doors that you break down without slowing your pace. You will not be fooled by fake Christianity, but will call it out. You will lose count of the souls you are going to mother. You will carry the breakthrough that many people have been desperate for. You, the one that has been broken, has been dead, has stopped believing. You are a walking miracle.
I am sorry that you only realized this now. You are amazingly smart and talented so it’s no fault of your own that you didn’t get it before. You’ve always loved how He told you that He was proud of you. It made you feel special and set apart, called out really. You wanted Him to forever be proud. You also knew that it would probably never be reality because you know yourself. You know how you mess up and fall apart and how the memories never seem to ease.
So you chose to love the good moments and hoped that they would come more often. He was the only one that you were willing to perform for. I wish that you would have known sooner the truth about what He was really telling you.
Every time He spoke the words, “I’m proud of you” He would never finish the sentence. You always felt like there was more to the phrase so you added your own words. I know you didn’t do it intentionally. It was an automatic response. You honestly thought that He said the phrase, “I’m proud of what you did. I’m proud of what you accomplished. I’m proud of your strength, your sacrifice, and your dreams.”
Hope, you can rest now knowing that what He said was what He meant to say. I know it still feels a bit confusing to you. You will have a hard time fully understanding what that sentence means to you. It will be hard to comprehend for awhile. Because when He said that He is proud of you, you don’t know who ‘you’ is. You aren’t sure what He is talking about. It will take time Hope, to learn who you really are. When you know that, you will know what He says when He tells you, “I am proud of you.”
You can stop adding words to His words. You can stop feeling sad about disappointing Him with your performance. He is proud of you! That will never change. He gave you a new heart, one of his own in fact and He made it just the right fit. You are allowed to find out why He is proud of you.
To see the invisible is to know that things aren’t always as they seem.
Believe is a strong word.
I believe that the sick are meant to be healed, the lost are meant to be found, the dead are meant to live, the curses of sin are meant to be broken, the past is meant to be redeemed.
But I have seen the sick not being healed, the lost have stayed lost, the dead never took another breath, the curses continue to fester, and the past continued hanging over a person’s head like a cloud.
Why? I was angry at God for a really long time.
I tried to bear the pain for others. I tried to force God’s perfect will into what I believed it should be.
Then one night I saw the invisible. Nothing I had ever seen was exactly as it had seemed.
God has already redeemed all things to himself. The sick are healed, the lost are found, the dead are called to live, the curses are powerless, the past is redeemed.
It’s a matter of perspective.
Colossians 3:3 You have died and your new life is now hidden with Christ in God
Colossians 3:1 You are now raised with Christ so set your hearts on things above. (the invisible)
Colossians 3:2 Set your minds on heavenly things, not on earthly things.
We are called to see things as Christ sees them. All the things of this earth are temporary. As believers in Christ we are citizens of heaven. The things of this earth may grab at our physical bodies. In the visible world we will never experience complete wholeness but in the heavenly realm where our new life is planted all things are under the perfect redemption.
He had a blue velvet coat with gold trim. She was beautiful and humble. They danced together all night while the rest of the world faded away from their view. The perfect ending came with a stunning wedding with every detail exactly in place. They were both perfect.
The other prince wore khakis and blue dress shirts. It didn’t really matter what he looked like because she was captured by his eyes every time. There wasn’t any white horses pulling a gold carriage, but she didn’t mind. He could have given Prince Charming lessons about how to treat a lady.
Hope knew which man she would choose. It wasn’t even a question to her. She could live without the carriage, but not without her man. Cinderella could have Prince Charming. She didn’t need fairy godmothers and glass slippers or a castle to live in. They weren’t her story to experience.
The only problem with the fairy tale was the wedding. Hope desperately wanted to be like Cinderella. She dreamed about looking perfect, but Hope didn’t live in a Cinderella world. It hurt to realize that her dreams weren’t going to become reality and she fully blamed herself for that.
Her story wasn’t Cinderella’s story. If only she could believe that truth and walk away from the painful dreams. She really isn’t sure how to do that. Cinderella dances in ballroom of every woman’s heart and she won’t be silenced. Maybe she should be allowed to have a voice. Maybe if we listened to her, we would hear the truth that we always wanted to hear.
You don’t see the broken dreams or my broken heart. My smile has grown cold, my heart has become hard, I’ve placed my hope in something other then you. You’ve had your chance and God only knows if he’ll give you another one because I’ve given you over to him.
I don’t need you in my life.
You can’t complete me.
You can’t fix me.
I’m done with not being good enough.
These prison walls are caving in around me but let them fall. If they kill me I’ll fly away.
But they won’t.
They can’t.
It’s a prison of my own mind, my own conscience.
I hate this place but refuse to leave,
I hate my life but refuse to die.
I won’t trade my life for any other and I won’t leave this life because it’s all I got.
If you could see what I’ve been through, if you knew the hell that I crawled through maybe then you’d understand why you’ve got what you got when you took me in to your heart.
Why I smiled but turned away, why I laughed and walked away. Why I turned you down when you came for me. I thought I loved you but it turns out I didn’t.
I cry at night when I think of us then I give you back to God where I got you from.
I think its settled and done and it hurts like hell but you aren’t mine and you never were.
You were like a trick that was played on me to show me exactly all that I’m not.
I’m angry because I’m all alone but I’m shutting the doors so no one can come in.
It’s safer that way.
Because people hurt.
These prison walls are my only friends, maybe this is what I was created for.
Maybe this is all I’ve got.
God’s given me the key, but I doubt it would fit and I won’t try it because it may just be another trick.
I’m sick of being here but it’s safer then hoping so here I stay. At least my heart is as broken as it could ever be this way.