This Is My Awakening
As I was thinking about what to title this blog post, the words “This is my awakening” came to mind. For those of you who have not heard the song “Awakening” by Amanda Cook, some of the lyrics say, “This is my awakening - That while my heart was fast asleep - You were resurrecting me - I thought that I would never breathe - I thought the pain would never leave - But You’re redeeming everything - Now there’s a dawn at every turn - You speak to me in new beginnings - A ray of sun to heal the hurt - The music stops but You’re still singing - This is my awakening - I’m never going back to sleep - How could I after what I’ve seen - This is my awakening - There’s color now in everything - Color now in everything”
Transparently, the last two years have held a lot of tears and have required much healing. They have incubated more doubts and reconsiderations than I have had collectively my entire life. There have been long lasting effects that I am still working through and have had to learn how to have patience for. There were multiple pieces of my life that I thought I had lost for good, and it has taken a lot of strength and effort to change my mindset from loss and tragedy to excitement for the future. Some days, I feel like I’ve “completed” what was needed to move forward into the next phase of my journey, and other days it feels like I’m back to Day 1.
I share this because I know that there are others…there are others who feel that the things they were so sure of before, are now the most unsure things in their life. I know the depth of grief and pain that it can cause. Uncertainty is complicated and exhausting. At times, I know it can be easy to question if you’ll ever feel that joy and delight again.
If you have ever read my previous blog posts (the ones I’m talking about sadly got lost in transfer), I generally come to a point in my posts where I say, “But God.” Today, I want to say it again. After years of processing, grieving, healing, dreading, wishing, etc. I’m moving into a new stage of this process. When everything first happened a couple years ago, I thought that this grief would be my new normal and that I would never blossom beyond that point. I thought that everything I had sown was gone and shattered — but God. God stepped in as He always does and has been walking with me this entire time.
Today as I was visiting a close family friend’s church, I decided to go up for prayer. They shared with me that they saw an image of me as a young girl standing in front of a door. The door was closed and I was looking through the peep hole to look at what was on the other side of the door. Every once in a while, I would open the door a crack in order to see more, but the door was still closed. They then shared that they felt Jesus was on the other side of the door and He was there for whenever I was ready to open the door. Once I was ready to step into the next room, they felt that Jesus wanted to tell me plans of a hope and a future that would prosper. I had someone else share with me that they felt it was a season of discovery. One of getting to know more about God and more about myself with Him.
For a while, there has been a conflict in my heart of wanting to open the door and walk through, but also feeling the need to stay put. Heartache can do that to someone. Taking small steps (sometimes big steps) and feeling the tough emotions that can go along with that isn’t easy. Healing in general, whether physical, mental, emotional, etc. takes work. Think about the level of work required in physical therapy after an accident. Movement, even the smallest movements, after a tragedy can be very painful; but it’s required to heal.
For those who are scared to move forward for whatever reason — me too. I know it isn’t easy. But just as the song says, we’ve been on a journey of resurrecting even before we knew it. Maybe for some, there are dreams that have been buried deep for too long. Things that seemed would never come to a place of fulfillment, that got covered in years of dirt. What are those things or “seeds” that have been buried for you?
For me, it has been songs, books, travel plans, etc. that have been hidden away in the “West Wing” (Beauty and the Beast reference). It is time for them to be discovered again. Friends, this is my awakening. I say that not having all of the answers and still knowing that my journey of healing has not ended, but the position of our thoughts, heart, and eyes set the tone for our next steps. As someone so wisely reminded me today, “If nothing ever changes, nothing ever changes.”
I pray that those seeds, whatever they look like for you, have been buried to grow. I pray that this would be an opportunity for an awakening for you, if you’re ready, too. If your heart has been heavy and searching for answers — no matter what stage of this process you are in — there will always be SOME level of an answer…it’s Jesus. We may not always understand why things have happened or why the process afterwords is as complicated as it is, but Jesus is always faithful — no matter what.
You’re not alone. We’re all in this together.