Grace Upon Grace

Snow flurries mix in the sweet blue sky. Today is cold, but tomorrow—tomorrow—should be promising. Full of promises hoped for decades from an innocent heart that beat to know the face that would one day find its way to me. From a heart that cried long and lonely for long stretches through nights, disillusioned by years spent in singleness, no longer certain its desire would come to pass. From a heart wrung with pain and brokenness, splintered and shattered from unmet longing and misplaced trust, worried it was wounded beyond repair.

I fed myself lies to ease the disappointment, played into the charade that my singleness made me strong, prepared my mind to spend life solitary while pushing the desire for love deep into the unseen corners of my heart. I pretended it was all okay. It was all okay.

But my broken heart kept beating, kept keeping time for the right time, over days and weeks and years and soon it was a decade and a half and somehow breath still poured from love’s lungs. Until my heart broke into my brain and struck me down to see that God was at work doing something new. New life, new light in the silhouette of a man with gentle hands and eyes who came to fix my ceiling, who really came to fix my heart. The literal holes in my heart exposed the emotional holes, and in my slow recovery, word by word, kindness by kindness, he showed me who God was and how He saw me, has always seen me, the hopeful girl with wonder at the world, with a brightness at what would come. He revived my dreams, restored the jaded pieces and healed such a scarred and skittish heart.

There is a God who sees and knows. Who dreams, cries, and tries with us again and again, who leans down when we are so tired and whispers, “Let’s keep going. It’s okay, dear one. You can try again. First one step, and then another.” And we walk into such unexpected answers to the prayers we wished many years ago; God remembers, He does not let them go.

Tomorrow will be blue skies, outwardly, but also within. My soul is split wide open and I am ushering in the sun. Promises fulfilled, promises given, glorying in Him who strung this all together. This life is a wonder. This life is a gift. And this forever grateful heart has found its home, grace upon grace.