Valleys to Doors

I've started a few posts in the last few weeks, and then stopped a few lines in with each one of them. Sometimes I didn't know how to put it into words what I was thinking... sometimes the words came out wrong... and sometimes I realized, like Caroline, that what I was chewing on was just meant to be between me and God. But some things in my life are coming to a close, so I'm kind of in reflection overdrive and have to get some of it out, coherent or not.

I looked at myself in the mirror last night and had one of those moments that happens towards the end of calendar years, when it just hit me that the year was ending in a way SO different than how I would've imagined it. This happens to me EVERY YEAR! I come to the end and think, "Wow! That is not at all what I would've imagined!"

This year, I look back and see where He's physically brought me (DC) and where He is physically leading me back to (Jackson), and that in itself is enough to cause me to wonder. But what is even more incredible to me is what He's done in my heart and in my walk with Him...

I can't get the language of Hosea 2 out of my head- because it is what God has done for me this year and what I PRAY so so hard that He continues to do, faithfully- to ALWAYS remove the Baals from my lips and the idols from my life in order to show me that I am HIS completely.

 ¹⁴ “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
   I will lead her into the wilderness
   and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
   and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
   as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

 ¹⁶ “In that day,” declares the LORD,
   “you will call me ‘my husband’;
   you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
   no longer will their names be invoked.
¹⁸ In that day I will make a covenant for them
   with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
   and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
   I will abolish from the land,
   so that all may lie down in safety.
¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever;
   I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
   in love and compassion.
²⁰ I will betroth you in faithfulness,
   and you will acknowledge the LORD.

 ²¹ “In that day I will respond,”
   declares the LORD—
“I will respond to the skies,
   and they will respond to the earth;
²² and the earth will respond to the grain,
   the new wine and the olive oil,
   and they will respond to Jezreel.
²³ I will plant her for myself in the land;
   I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’;
   and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” 

That passage just WRECKS me. 

What a loving God we have who would turn the Valley of Achor- literally the Valley of Trouble- into a door of hope!

I am just overwhelmed by how faithful He is to bring us back to Him, and by how much it really matters to Him that we are His completely. We- who don't even deserve to LIVE, much less be betrothed to the God of the universe- we are precious enough to Him that He leads us into the desert to remove the idols from our lips and our hearts and bind us to Him.  We are worthy of none of that redemption, but Christ made it possible- that He would give His son to make that possible for us STILL causes me to be overwhelmed with awe and wonder, and I pray that never ceases. 

I pray that that sense of wonder continues to grow every day of my life until I see the One I'm in awe of.

I find myself at the end of this year being just overwhelmed by His love for me and so thankful that He's let me see it so clearly and just rest in it.  I know He's calling me to show that radical, RIDICULOUS, doesn't make any kind of sense, love to people in my life now and people I've yet to meet and I am SO excited, but honestly, scared of what that will look like this next year. I have no doubt that I will come to the end of next year and realize how little it looked like what I would've thought, and that has sort of a freeing effect on my desires and "wish list".  I still have desires and things I'd LIKE to happen- but God has proven time and again that His plans are always better than mine, and I want to rest in the complete peace that comes from letting Him choose. I know that my desires will bubble up, full force, at some point in the days to come- probably tomorrow morning, ha!- but for now I'm resting in the peace that comes from trusting in Him- 

the peace that comes from trusting that the one who sacrificed His son for us, has the power to turn our valleys of trouble to doors of hope.