Defining Word: Hesed
חסד, pronounced kheh-sed: love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, loyalty, acts of devotion and loving-kindness
For months now, this one thing has felt impossible to talk about. I don’t have the right words; I type and delete, think and don’t say, and wrestle with these frustrating tears. All I think I know is that it should be easier by now and it’s not. I finally confess to my husband in the car that I’ve made it to the point where I have to let go. I want the pain to subside and so I can move on with my life. Maybe I can prove to God just how much I trust Him if I let go of this desire for good. Even though I can’t make eye contact with Gio, I know he’s looking at me tenderly when he tells me that’s not what God is asking of me. I don’t believe him and I tell him as much in the moment.
My whole body is in this fight. My spirit is wrestling with the lies, desperately longing to surrender to Truth. My mind works against me, convincing me Truth isn’t real. My bones are physically aching from the sorrow I’ve carried for so many years. My eyes well up with tears that never seem to stop coming.
In the moment, I know he might be right, but I have absolutely no strength to try to believe him. Where are you, God? Where is your steadfast love right now? I am weak and I don’t feel an ounce of your strength in me.
I feel as defeated as I possibly could be.
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We celebrated five years of marriage last month with our first trip away since our honeymoon. It was just 3 days in Indianapolis, but the time was so sweet, so hot (thank you 100 degree heat wave) and so filled with laughter. This year more than ever, I’m reminded that we make a choice to love every single day. Our love is a harvest we reap where we choose to water the field. It yields fruit where the roots have been buried deep in Jesus. These five years have been altogether one of the deepest delights I’ve known and also some of the most refining and painful years of my life. Some days I wake up and wonder how I could possibly love a human more than I love him and then other days I say and do things that hurt him, regret them, and feel like a complete and utter failure. With all the growing we’ve done so far, there’s still so much more to go. I am grateful that our marriage doesn’t depend solely on us, but on the power of the Holy Spirit always working through us. Our five-year-old marriage is a glorious evidence of God’s love manifest in us. We only know how to love at all because we have known the love of God poured out for us.
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For almost two straight weeks, every time I have a deep conversation about this spiritual journey at night, my book addresses the very same thing when I open it the next morning. I find myself reading A.W. Tozer’s reflections wondering how these words penned 80 years ago are like a highway straight into my heart. Every single time. It feels like a squeeze of the knee or a sweet and knowing wink from my Father. All things are meaningful in His hands and no words are wasted. So much clarity comes when I sit in the dawn of a new day with that book. The fog around the fears I expressed yesterday lifts, just a little, and I’m grateful. It could be a coincidence, but I have eyes to see how the kindness of God lets the glow of His face warm my cheeks each time I sit and read.
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I deleted IG off my phone on June 1st and haven’t posted since. A tingly kind of awareness springs up without something mind-numbing to turn to when my mind becomes an uncomfortable place to be. I can’t hide from the fears that keep showing up, the insecurities I’m realizing exist deep inside, the certain anxiety that’s always lingering. I can’t hide from any of it and that feels absolutely wretched sometimes. And yet, I am walking in God’s mercy because hiding is delaying the healing and freedom I know my Father has for me. So I put one foot in front of other, making my way through this overgrown brush, linking hands with sorrow and suffering as I go a way I haven’t before. I can already see little glimpses of fresh growth amidst the weeds in my heart and it gives me hope that there’s more (and better) to come. Love just can’t stand to leave me behind and let me hide.
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When she crosses her arms and tells me honestly what she’s seeing and hearing, I finally let the walls come down. This precious friend has touched a part of my heart that didn’t understand its loneliness until now, so I let her see the agony with which I’ve been suffering. What’s the right way forward? How will I know what to do? I don’t want to make a mistake and I definitely don’t want to hurt like that again. I keep saying I’m open to whatever God wants from me, but the truth is that my arms are crossed like a defiant little toddler’s and I absolutely will not let Him mess with me. Closed off and boarded up is a better description of my heart most days than opened up and ready for business. I want to trust, but it feels like this desire stands in the way of deeper contentment in Christ.
“It’s a foreign idea to imagine that we might desire God so strongly and passionately that every other desire could still be fully felt and yet not control us. It’s a more familiar idea to try hard to fix our eyes on Heaven in a way that lets us feel no other desire with passion…’Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Find some way to feel less pain, to reduce your desire for what you do not have. If you succeed, call it contentment. Call it deep trust.’ We think that’s what Jesus taught. But it’s really advice from Buddha.”1
To me, deepening desire feels like allowing for deeper pain, and maybe it is. But if it is allowing for deeper pain, it is also allowing for deeper joy. Both pain and joy remind me daily how much I long for deeper connection with Jesus. This journey is well worth staying present to the pain so that I can realize the fullness of joy when it comes. There’s no other way. May the unfulfilled longings I feel now teach me how to long better and harder for the joy of the Lord and for His presence and love manifest in me.
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If your days feel like a disjointed jumble of pain and pleasure experiences, I hope you’ll find some solace in these reflections. You are not alone. I choose to write these words for you not because I’ve mastered the lessons woven between them or because I am beyond the pain between the lines. I write so that when I take it in - all the pain and all the joy - I see how there is peace in the midst of the chaos. I see how God’s hesed is flowing like a river whose depths I’ve yet to truly discover. I hope you can see it too.
I do want complete and utter trust to mark these days. My heart swells with love and then anger and fear blow in with a tornado warning that threatens to shake my very foundation. But they don’t. The winds might blow across my heart with an ugly scream, but the foundation is steady. Whenever my mind stills, I find there’s a song on my lips2 that declares of the love and faithfulness of God and I know it’s the overflow of joy holding fast even though I don’t always feel it. I need to remember this daily. The absence of desire is not the proof of my trust in God; there is no promise for absolute relief from this wrestling between flesh and spirit. It is only in the hope that has been rooted down deep in Jesus Christ and the joy that I find every time I close my eyes and ask for Him that I know I’ll be okay. His love is not the fulfillment of all of my dreams. His hesed is the mercy and faithfulness to form me more in the image of Christ every day. He is unfailing and kind in this mission, covenantally present always, and devoted to the flourishing of my heart. Abiding in Him will always be my most worthwhile pursuit.
Every lesser dream opens my eyes to the glory of this greatest dream: that I might dwell in Him and Him in me.
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An excerpt from Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb. One of the most incredible books I’ve read this year.
Usually to the tune of something from this album by Abbie Gamboa. I’ve been listening to this album constantly because somehow she manages to find words for what my heart is saying that my mind can’t yet comprehend.
Have you ever thought about writing a book. It should be so awesome and SO encouraging.
I am so thankful you are grounded in the source of all wisdom, peace, and strength. So proud of you and the way you express yourself. Big hugs friend.