Tattered page

I had a friend once tell me that after a gut wrenching heart break she sat down the next morning in the middle of her classroom after a night of tears and that deep pain that only arrives when the deepest of heart strings have been torn and when you feel it, you know it's in town for a while. She pulled out her green crayola marker and tore a piece of highlighter yellow butcher paper from the rack. She had enough. Enough being the one to keep everything in line. She was tired. She was ready. 

She took that marker and wrote all the things that she no longer wanted to do...Who she married. What her future held. What was important to her. She wrote out what she earnestly prayed for and left aside those things that didn't matter. She couldn't do it anymore. She was empty. 

As the clock approached the arrival of 22 smiling faces waiting for her love, instruction, and energy she put her marker away and folded her yellow paper with torn corners into her cabinet. She wiped her eyes, took a deep breath and got ready to face the day. She had to be here with them. They needed her. Her heart could wait. 

Fast forward 4 years. She shares her story as I see this yellow crinkled, faded paper framed in her 1912 comforting home. To me, I was confused what a shabby piece of paper was framed for as though it were a family photo. When I asked her she gently smiles and her eyes twinkle some. She looks away as though she forgot herself. She finally shares that four years later, she looks at this daily and sees every prayer answered. From the details of her husband to the healing of things in her life. She holds this here to remind her daily of the time she let it all go and got everything she wanted back. We serve a God who relentlessly pursues our heart. We fight it hard. We think we can. Then we hit the classroom floor, rock bottom where all we have is a tattered paper and a green marker. We have no where to turn but to our father. He doesn't say I told you so. He doesn't give you that look, he just welcomes you in. He wants it all. He doesn't relent until it's all. When he has it all,  He gives us more than we could imagined. 

Don't forget to frame those crinkled moments where we were at rock bottom and he pulled us up. Don't throw away that butcher paper and forget. The next time you're waiting for a breakthrough, look to those to remind you that we have a God who always comes through...that's my God.