(What a journey this has been. Today I find myself tired. I am back to working my regular hours now, back to all the household responsibilities. Paying the bills, doing the laundry, the dishes, etc. You all know this routine. Just back to life. All the while, God stirs inside me so deeply, and I can truly say doing something new and tender. But tonight I still find myself tired. I have been humbled by the numbers of you reading this blog and following this with me. I am considering where this blog goes from here. This writing, though so vulnerable, has been life-giving to me. Thank you for helping me create this space. I am going to spend the next days deciding how often I will write publicly. In the last month alone I have written over 23,000 words on this blog. I am really enjoying this writing and have had tremendous encouragement in it. Please stay tuned if you would like. It is a great honor.
What follows is an emotional outpouring as I considered God’s love while listening to some worship music by Gungor, the group who sung “Jonan’s” songs, as I call them. Feel free to listen to this beautiful song about God’s love and pursuit of us before or after reading the rest of this post. I pray it blesses you deeply. With love, Kimberly)
So I guess the purpose of life isn’t that we slide last minute into Christ’s arm as we pray a prayer of faith on our deathbed. Though He would certainly accept us even then. Nor is it to come to Him early so we can avoid all suffering. Though many seem to think their prayers will gain this for them. But, rather, maybe it is to walk with Him closely, all the days we can. Learning the bits we can gain from what He has chosen to reveal to us through the natural world and through Scripture. Allowing Him to bring us plentiful redemption in our suffering. To turn to Him… as He has pursued us first. To see that no matter when we turn to Him and finally offer our hearts in surrender to follow Him for our lives, it is always with the reality that late have we come to love Him. For He has pursued us through torrents of pain, he was there when we cried alone, when we were avoiding Him with great resolve. He has chased us down streets of pride and deceit. Through alleyways of arrogance, and through that awful valley of death. He has whispered to us through the lies that confuse our thoughts; he has sat in stillness with us even when we have ignored Him.
He was there when I crumbled on the floor in tears. He was there when it was snowing. He was there when I found out. He was there as Jonan Eilam was born on earth. He was the One who welcomed him into heaven. He was in that ultrasound room. He gave me my Jonan pin. He has sent me myriads of cards. He has been the generosity of the church. He has been in Kevin and Karen Miller. He has been in my doctor who has been so kind. He was in nurse Nikki at my beside. He worked through Beverly’s servant hands. He was with us when we threw the dirt. He prompted every prayer. He caused worship to well up in my heart.
My greatest prayer is that the depth of Christ’s love be felt in everyone who has journeyed this with me. Why you have loved me and Jonan I just don’t comprehend. But I, too, know now what it is to love deeply and not fully understand why. May you know Christ. Jesus the Christ. Not some idea of a god who exists somewhere out there. But the God who came to live and die as one of us, so He could bring redemption to all the reasons that made you cry as you read these blog posts… for my pain, but also for your own in the tender areas of your own heart. May you know His crazy pursuit of your heart in all the times you have wondered: “What is that stirring in me?” It is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
May all the preconceptions of God we have be broken and may the One who created reality itself form in us a picture of a Himself that is beyond our wildest imagination, but not formed by our imagination. May this God fill us with all we need to know His love, one day at a time…in our daily routines, the stillness we seek and stillness we run from, in our struggles in marriage, parenting, singleness, careers, finances, homes…in our struggles of intellect, physicality, and soul. When we do great things for others, and when we need to be saved from ourselves.
May you find Him there, loving you.
After all this, it is His breath I breathe, His life that carries me. Because He died, I can live. And, oh, how difficult to give up a son for a greater purpose. “Yet not my will, Father, but Yours be done.”
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