This year has been tough for me so far.
I'm not ready to tell all the stories yet. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to tell all these stories.
But I can tell you how I feel.
Tired.
Sad.
Scared.
I wonder.
I grieve.
I pray to see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
That's just kind of how it is right now.
Probably not by accident, at this same time, I've been working on final revisions of The Book.
You know The Book.
The memoir of my breakdown and healing and all the grace found in strange places along the way.
The memoir where I talk about how God takes the stinkiest, smelliest, worst manure piles of life and redeems.
That book.
photo: Andy Bruner
If there was anybody who needed to read that book through 157 times this spring, it was me, I guess.
Because in that book I've written about all the times when I was just at The End, and how God met me in every one of those places, and how his love carried me through.
There are many days right now when I feel like I am at the end of myself again.
I just don't know what to do. I can't make things better. I just have to wait.
And somehow, God continues to meet me in those places and carry me through this strange and scary no man's land.
The other night, I heard this song on the radio, and I fell in love with these words:
Life can be hard, and hard can be good.
Because that is a truth that I know in my heart. Hard can be amazing.
Some of the hardest things in my life have been redeemed into the best things in my life.
And the Owner of that process loves me and mine and you and yours with an Everlasting Love.
I cling to that.
And I wait, like we wait for the roadside wildflowers in Texas every spring, for beautiful things to happen in no man's land.
He took his chances and he ran
Out from the hills to no mans land
Oh my lord life was hard, back then
Oklahoma sky was his roof.
Tore into the earth it brought him food
Oh my lord, life was hard back then
He said oh,
Life can be hard
But oh,
Hard can be good
So he built his home where no one else would
I follow in his footsteps in my dreams
Memories of my old bedtime stories.
Oh my lord, life seemed good back then
He said oh,
Life can be hard but
Oh,
Hard can be good
And he built his home where no one else would
I felt my heart beat!
I filled my lungs deep
In no mans land
And then like my forefathers I took a chance
credits
No Man's Land, from Darkest Hours, released 14 January 2014
Songwriter: Wheeler Sparks