streets of gold.

There are days we wish we could do over. There are days we wish we could relive. Recently, we all faced a different kind of day. It was the kind of day that throws you to your tired knees, sobbing to God to take it all away and to rewrite the story. I have screamed at God every day since July 28th, 2014.

That day, I woke up with swollen eyes as I ordered a coffee that was entirely too expensive just so I could waste time waiting. My friend, Ashley, and I, spent our morning in silence in a coffee shop. Not because we were at a loss for words, but because any sound or vowel brought hot tears to our eyes. As we sat there, attempting to drink our coffee, we waited for the news that we wished wasn’t already down in the pits of empty stomachs.


I’ve never despised a day more. The day I fell to the dirty hospital floor, begging my best friend to wake up.

But she couldn't.


She couldn’t open her perfect eyes because she was already running towards the One who spoke her into existence. Even knowing this, I’ve woken up every day since then praying that July 28th was just a horrible nightmare. However, each morning I am reminded of how badly the pain throbs. It’s the kind of pain that you don’t know how to deal with. Two months later, I am finally emerging out from underneath the heavy rock of denial. As I am coming to terms with what has has happened, it has done nothing but give me one wish: to live under that rock for the rest of my life.

Taylor is the kind of friend that parents pray for their children to have. Loyalty and determination define that red headed spark. Never believing anything was too far from her grasp, she has never allowed anyone or anything to dull her dreams or convince her that she couldn’t be what she was created to be. She laughed without fear and had a movie quote that could find its place in any moment. She was brilliant and full of wit- an individual who never met a stranger and never allowed herself to become one. Everyone’s biggest cheerleader, I think one of her purest goals in life was that each person knew just how special they were. With everything in her, she would do all that she could to remind you of your value; a true heart of the most precious gold. The glue of every group, Taylor kept everyone in contact and made sure that each visit left no room for any friendship to change. She was the friend that turned into the family I needed at the time when I wished I wasn’t in my own. Her mom quickly became Mama Witch to me and anyone else who was lucky enough to know her longer than ten minutes. Time spent with the Witcher family will do nothing but strengthen your heart and make you realize what God created family to be like. Their love and their laughter made me come back consistently all throughout high school. To this day, I still find myself over at Mama Witch’s, hoping she’ll have some great dating advice or enough Diet Coke & Lime cans to hold me over until I return. However, when I do these things now, there is a hollow silence. The biggest part of the puzzle is missing. This is what I still can’t allow myself to comprehend.


I find myself bawling at church every Sunday. Not because I am moved by the worship, humbled by His grace, or overwhelmed by His presence, but because I am so angry I don’t know how to even begin to talk to God. I don’t want to talk to Him. I don’t want to praise Him for being good all the time, because I can’t find the goodness in my overwhelming tears for Taylor. I haven’t felt ready to be happy or to find the joy in the circumstance, because that means I’m moving away from that day. Even though time is moving away from July 28th, I don’t want my heart to follow the calendar.



God willing, I will grow up. I will get married, have kids, and grow old. But Taylor will always be twenty. I still can’t let myself mourn beyond that. Every time I begin to feel like I can move forward, I am stopped dead in my tracks with those thoughts. That’s when the anger hits. The anger at a merciful God who took away the biggest spark He could have put on this earth. It’s hard for me to even listen to people declare thankfulness that she’s in a better place because the only thing my mind can do is dream about how much I need her. How much we all need her. “Praise God” isn’t what I’m thinking when I’m thinking about that day. The only words that can come to my mind or mouth are usually angry sobs to God because my anger hinders me from forming any real sentence. Why do we have to be the ones to experience this kind of pain? I have spent the last two months this way: furious at my Creator.



Tonight, ironically enough, scripture ended up comforting me- even though I have believed for two months that it would only make me want to throw my Bible at the wall. I’ve tried to let God back into this part of my heart that is filled with confusion and anger. I figured starting with scripture was the easiest step. With it, I didn’t have to tell Him how much I’m hurting; I could just read His responses.

I came across Psalms 22 verses 1 and 2.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
 Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
 Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
 and by night, but I find no rest.”

David’s words were the first words that were outside of Taylor’s close circle that I could relate to. I feel forsaken. I feel like God is distant from me, and I have never felt so alone. I feel just like David- worn out from crying with no answer from my God. So, I felt justified in my anger. If the man made in God’s likeness could cry and scream and yell at God, then so could I. However, the verse doesn’t stop there. David goes on to praise God regardless through the rest of the chapter.

“Yet you are holy,
 enthroned on the praises of Israel.
 In you our fathers trusted;
 they trusted, and you delivered them.
 To you they cried and were rescued;
 in you they trusted and were not put to shame… For he has not despised or abhorred
 the affliction of the afflicted,
 and he has not hidden his face from him,
 but has heard, when he cried to him.”

It’s finally hit me, even though I had no intention to let it.

God understood my screams and sobs. He understood my anger and welcomed my sadness because He hasn’t left. Even though I have tried to push Him away in my anger, He doesn’t budge. He waits patiently for me to come back and to need Him. He hopes I once again desire His comfort- ready to provide it the second I ask. You see, you and I aren’t made to carry this burden of confusion alone. The world is heavy, and life is a mess. When we try to walk with the weight of the world, we are robbing God of His glory. We are saying, “I want to carry this to the finish line so that I can get the recognition for it.” In reality, God deserves and wants to cross that finish line for us. He gets the glory in all things whether we believes He is worthy or not.

I am still healing. We are all still healing. The majority of us are only starting to entertain the idea of even beginning the process. This kind of healing is not a cut that gets better with time. It’s like losing an arm and learning to paint like Da Vinci with your opposite hand. It will never feel the same. You can never forget, and you will never fully recover; you just learn how to evolve with it. You don’t have to heal any certain way. You just learn to survive the pain and somehow allow God to intervene with the rest. We are learning to cry out to Him and let Him hold us up so that we try and withstand the next wave of emotion. Moments will become easier to live as days will slowly unveil more joy, however long it may take for those days to arrive.


I am recognizing that I am broken, emotionally exhausted, and confused. And I will probably remain this way indefinitely. We will all probably remain this way for some time. But God continues to welcome us back to Him because we were never made to endure it on our own. I don’t know why God took Taylor from the Earth. I do not think I will ever fully understand His timing, and that’s something I am going to try to live with. I am trying to be still and trust that He is God and even in this, He is still good all the time- because He is still there. I am learning that faith truly is the evidence of the things that are unseen. And I will have faith in Him, even if I only have faith smaller than a mustard seed. At least there is no rigidness for how much faith we have to put in Christ.

He just asks us to at least try.

Even though it is completely selfish for me to wish she still walked among this broken world with us, I am going to wish it every day for the rest of my life. One day, I will allow myself to be joyful in the circumstance. Someday, I will be able to join in saying “Praise You, Father, for making her whole with You.” Until then, I will cry out to Him in pain of the empty hole left in so many lives.


I can only attempt to believe my own words in this moment, but my hope is that it will get easier. Every day the sun will rise and every day the sun will set as her favorite Oklahoma painted sky. And every time I look at that sky and all of its brilliance, I know she is dancing on streets of gold in red cowboy boots and tambourine in hand. With flowers in her hair, she is dancing.

And someday, together, we will walk on streets of gold.

go.

I realized that I am afraid of a lot different things.
That might even be underestimating my true feelings- I'm actually terrified.

Some people find their fears in heights, insects, or the dark. We might be afraid that we won't get the job we wanted, the perfect house with the white fence, or the fairytale ending. I'm afraid of some of those things, but there is one thing that terrifies me more than all of that.

The word "GO."

You might think, "How can one word scare someone so much?"
I've realized that it's not just a word, but a journey.

I've spent the last few years of my life over analyzing it. Honestly I constantly obsessed over my future and my purpose. I have a feeling you might have spent a lot of time doing the same thing. It's in our nature to wonder. There is beauty in the wondering. But that beauty is tarnished when we try unveil every part of it.

That's exactly what I did. I tried to unveil every aspect of my future so that I didn't have to wonder. You could say that I had a blueprint to my life. But that's the humor in life; you never end up where you planned to go.

My world was absolutely rocked when I heard Matthew 28:19-20 for the very first time.

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. Be sure of this, I am with you always until the end of the age."

.
I read this over and over and over again. I was floored. Jesus gave plenty of commandments in the Bible, but this one weighed on me heavier than I ever anticipated. I had found my purpose in one simple word. "GO." Panic creeped in- no, actually it barged in. I am supposed to go. God was asking me to go, to step outside of myself, away from all comfort and seek Him with all that I am. The panic I experienced kept me from truly discovering what Christ desired for me for a very long time. Anytime anyone brought up a life of ministry I shied away and thought "Well, that is very noble, but Christ doesn't need me for that. Someone else will do it." I thought that for an entire year before God shook me one day and said "No. I want you."

I was reading in my Bible one day in Exodus. I wasn't even half way into the book of Exodus before God had completely changed my heart.
In Exodus 3 and 4, God revealed himself to Moses using a burning bush. I almost skipped over this part because I thought I already knew the story from being a kid- but am I glad I kept my place in reading. In chapter 4 God tells Moses that He has heard the cries of His people, the Israelites, and that He was going to save them, but that He was going to use Moses to do it. The response of Moses is where I immediately found my identity.

Instead of immediate obedience, Moses scrambled for every excuse that he could invent.

"Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—“that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”
But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”


I quickly realized that I am just like Moses- cowardly. How often does God ask us to do something and we respond with excuses? Reading this changed my entire outlook. It was time to stop making excuses and waiting until something else presents itself. God wants me now. Time will always run out, but Jesus won't. Someone else might do the job, but what is my purpose if I am not relentlessly pursuing Christ and His Kingdom? How is the world going to know of a Grace that never fails, a Love that never dies, and a Freedom that will forever ring?

Suddenly my outlook on life completely changed. I spend a lot less time worrying about exactly where I'll be- and more time worrying about who I'll be. What I have come to understand is that I might be broken and weary but I am created to further the Kingdom. I don't know about you, but to me that is the greatest honor to receive. God chose us to further the Kingdom! He didn't pick us because He had nothing better or because someone else was busy. He designed us in His image to glorify Him.

This gives me a hope for the future that I would never be able to find even if I spent the rest of my life trying to create it. My hope resides in the one who knew me and predestined my future long before I walked on solid ground.

So it's not where you'll go, how you'll get there, or who will be alongside you when you arrive. It's about faith to take the next step of obedience. God doesn't want someone else.

He wants you.

Wait.

pa·tience
noun: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

I actually laughed when I read this definition. We live in this world where everything is immediately accessible to us. We can find out anything in less than 60 seconds, and we don't need anyone's help to do it. We are anything but patient. This attitude of "now" has really affected my life whether I like to admit it or not. I think it's affected all of our lives. But it's taken some trials and a span of time for me to humble myself and realize that I am about as impatient as it gets.

When I first thought about patience, my prideful flesh immediately thought, "Yeah, I'd say I'm pretty patient. I can wait until Christmas to open a present. I can wait to tell someone news. I can wait patiently." Sure, those things are true, I can wait if I have to.

But here's the issue: I have a hard time being patient with my Savior.

I usually pray before I act. But I always do the talking and I never really listen. And when I do listen, I take it into my own hands and will even create my own answer. I justify "God's timing" on my own feelings and information. Relying on our own feelings and information is so dangerous. It can lead us places that might be good, but cause us to settle because what God is desperate to give us is in the other direction.

God wants to give us the best. I will never understand why He believes that we deserve anything from Him, because we don't. Yet He still craves us. He wants to be adored and worshipped by us and all we do is expect from Him. We expect to be successful, we expect Him to heal disease, we expect Him to bring us a man or woman of Christ that will sweep us off our feet. And we don't deserve any of it. We are sinful, prideful, impatient people that are broken and weary. But God doesn't care. He wants to love us anyways. His arms are outstretched and open even when we act like we don't see Him calling to us.
That is how I have spent a lot of my life: acting like I don't hear God calling out to me saying "My child, wait on Me. Be still." But here's the thing about God: He is relentless in pursuing us. You've probably felt it before. After you've acted on your own feelings and information, you feel a tug on your heart of uneasiness. Even when you ignore it, random instances present themselves that are convicting you. God is a jealous God that wants our attention. And He will get it. We can fight all we want, but ultimately He is to be glorified.


This is where patience is due. We are to hope and wait on the Lord because He knows best. We might think we know best or that we know what we're doing, but we are so highly mistaken. I picture God smiling and shaking His head at me a lot. I hold onto things that I don't want to give Him, because I live in fear that He will take it away if I tell Him it's His. That why sometimes when I pray, I don't like to listen. I don't like the idea of God taking something good away from me.

I picture myself to be like a toddler, holding onto a toy that I see as the most prized possession that a child could ever begin dream of. I'll allow my parent to play with it too, only as long as I can keep one hand on it and keep control of it. My mind could never even wrap around something better, so of course I'm not willing to let go. But my parent knows so much more than I do, and behind their back is a toy that blows the toy in my hand completely out of the water. I can't get the next toy unless I let go of my current one. But I don't have enough faith to let go. God is like the parent. He has so much for us that He wants to give us, but we have to let go. Sometimes we have to be patient and trust Him to pull out the better toy from behind his back. But He is soverieign and faithful and will never lead us astray.
I have spent a lot of time in prayer asking God why He could take such good things away from me. His answer is so clear every time.

"I take good things from you because I want you to have the best things. Be still and know that I am God. You have to let go of the good, and trust Me for the best. Patience, child."

There are so many instances in the Bible where God shows His truth about bringing the best. Think about Abraham. A man with faith greater than any that have ever lived. He trusted God with everything, even the life of his own son. His life was filled with patience. I read in Hebrews 6:14-15, "'Surely I will bless and multiply you.' And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise." God gave Abraham the nations. All Abraham had to do was be patient and trust God's goodness and he was blessed with far more than he could have ever imagined for himself.


God wants to do the same for us. He wants to bless us, use us, and show us His love through His promises. Our God will not delay and will forever remain our refuge and our strength. God is able. It's time for us to start acting like it.

He will show up.

Unimaginable

"The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones: like jasper and carnelian."

Revelation 4:3

"From the Throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. "

Revelation 4:5

This morning I read Revelation 4. These two verses popped out at me. I was struck in awe of the description of the Throne of the Holy One. Revelation is where John recollects his encounter with God. He scrambles to find words that could possibly do his vision justice.

God resembles the most radiant jewels, rather than flesh and blood.

Think about the last time you saw something so beautiful- so beautiful that words could not measure up.

A sunset, a newborn, a rainbow.

John also describes the flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder coming from God's Throne.

Ordinary Words Cannot Compare.

How awesome is it, that we have the opportunity to serve a God who hold the stars steadily in His hands, and holds our hearts at the same time? Maybe you need to slow down for a minute after being reminded of the God who created the galaxies and mountains, and the dust and the molecules. How amazing is it that we get to spend eternity praising such a loving Father?

Every day I search for Him, I am more amazed by His wonders.

I am continually speechless by His Love.

I am in awe knowing I will one day stand in front of the mighty and fearsome God.

His unimaginable Power consumes my heart like a fire.

How will YOU feel, standing before the Throne: before the One Who resembles the most exotic jewels?

Will you be able to sing or will you be able to speak at all?