I peer into her soul, past the slight and fragile frame that was never meant to carry this load. Into her ravaged and raw emotions, past the ruminations locked in worry and looping with the same questions that never get answered. When is enough actually enough?

“When I reach that proverbial fork in the road, I will always choose to climb the rugged path of resistance that leads me into the awe and wonder of my gracious God. I will stop and overlay God’s template on my past and discipline myself to remember how good, faithful, and just my God has been. And without traversing the deepest valleys shadowed with death and darkness…I would not have seen the dancing hand of God marvelously working on my behalf.”

I was driven by this wild fear. The longer that it consumed me, the more complex the matrix became in my heart and mind. The unknown and the uncertainty of what it would look like to have my heart walk out the door on a visitation with an abuser who I was tragically familiar with was unbearable. So I kept convincing myself that staying was better than leaving.

I can’t tell you that this overcoming was without a high cost. Friend, it was desperately costly. But, it was also radically freeing. This didn’t have to live only in my mind and heart for tormenting purposes. It had a way out through my voice. And with uncovering the private pain came the public and private freedom. The truth was exposed and with it came the reveal. And with everything laid bare, came responsibility, ownership, and consequences.

Every time that I attempted to stop the hemorrhaging another bludgeon was waiting. What I thought I was using to overcome and persevere - my faith, my hope, my beliefs, my values, my integrity, my character - all became the very targets of control for further destruction. When I forgave, I opened myself up to his misperception that those forgiven behaviors were acceptable. Forgiveness equated acceptance and a new baseline was created becoming the platform for advancing escalations. The same pattern occurred with every genuine attempt I made towards restoring the relationship. More chances meant more control. More counseling meant more gaslighting and weaponizing of the very tools meant to bring life, hope, and trust into the relationship. More love meant a consent and endorsement for the abusive actions and behaviors that ravaged my soul and threatened my life. And every time I gave, I had less and less of me left.

Nothing is ever for naught in the Kingdom of God. When we bring our precious praise full of everything broken and spilled out for our King, we are pouring out the priceless worth within our treasure wrapped earthen vessel. Bring your own alabaster box and lavish it upon the King without caution, without hesitation or reservation. Even the disciples were offended by Mary’s sacrificial offering, but Jesus saw her value far exceed the computations of men. You serve an audience of One. It would be a ghastly error to believe that there is someone other than our Jesus who can hold the magnitude of our entirety with such tender grace that extends a knowing to contain it all.

Secluded living robs us of the opportunity to interact with God and others on an honest level. It blockades the chance for true connection and intimacy. It prevents us from creating healthy boundaries to allow the right things in and keep the wrong things out. Instead, we opt for keeping everything out. If pain is louder than truth, than I will always believe the lie that self-reliance and self-protection at the expense of everything is the right choice. And this also places me in a central role with a responsibility I was never designed to hold. I’m not here to self-actualize into a god-like position. I’m here to keep God at the center of my world in His rightful position of first place. I don’t own the cattle on a thousand hills. I can’t throw open the storehouses of heaven. I cannot answer my prayers. I cannot know and knit babies in their mother’s wombs before they are even born. I cannot deliver myself from evil. I cannot pay the price of my own sin. I cannot speak the world into existence. I cannot keep the world in orbit or claim to know the stars by name. My position is to humbly and respectfully serve the God who can.

I have been through hellish times where the darkness is suffocating, where breathing indicates life, but the light has left the eyes and an emptiness so vast squanders the life force left. I’ve been both dead and alive at the same time.

One death to self can increase and accelerate your life into more abundance than you can humanly imagine.

So when you find yourself feeling buried in this life, flip your perspective to acknowledge the potential of your planting and yield yourself to the surrender that can bring forth more than enough.

God’s love never fails. Our human love devoid of Christ will fail until we enter into Heaven. It’s God’s love through us that never fails. And in fact, every time grace was extended to lend another opportunity for change in the marriage- that was love that didn’t fail. Every time forgiveness was exhausted for the atrocities inflicted- that was love that didn’t fail. Every time a kingdom position was held to align with heaven’s agenda despite natural feelings for the other person, that was love that did not fail. Every time the standard of God was raised up and war was waged against untruth and injustice, that was love not failing. Every time advocacy and protection was embodied as a barrier between the babies and destruction - that was love not failing.