Our Song of Grace

I’ve been sitting here for a good hour, typing, deleting, typing, deleting, typing again, deleting again.  I’m convinced that I’ve lost the ability to write.  This past year writing has become my release, my way to process and release all the fear, anxiety, anger, confusion that have defined the year.  This release began on November 7, 2016 when I completely let go and surrendered my ED to God and when God picked me up and carried me through those 16 days at Melrose.  Release into God’s hand released me into joy unexplainable in the middle of what should have been despair.  Thanksgiving marks my first day home with my family, the first day God set me back into the world that ED had ruled for 17 years.  I want to release into words all the emotions this day encompasses for me.  This blog was supposed to be a beautiful and powerful culminating story of God’s grace.  And here I sit, writing and deleting and struggling to find which words will tell my story the best.  For the first time in a year, writing isn’t working for me.  The third time I deleted, I felt fear.  What if I can’t write anymore? What if I can’t release my words onto this page?  What if I can’t tell my story?

And that is when I realized my problem.  This is not my story to tell.  This is God’s story.  I”m trying to tell “my” story, trying to be the star in my own production, taking the limelight and being the center stage of the “Story of Me”.  When did pride creep in?  When did I become the writer of my own story?  All the words I’ve written this past year, every sentence, every word, every syllable – none of them have ever been mine.  They were always God’s.  I wrote from the deepest place in my heart where God moved in on November 7 when I finally let ED go and allowed God to have His rightful place back.  My words came from releasing the gunk, the dustballs, the cobwebs, the mold and mildew from every dark corner in my heart.  Every time I released a new set of words, I made more room for God to move in.  Every time I wrote it was God flipping the lights on in a new room in my heart.  Every blog I wrote was God opening a new window to the fresh air outside.  Every word pushed the darkness and shadows farther away.  The words released Satan’s hold on my heart and gave my whole heart back to God.

So today, I struggle to write because I tried to take all the credit from God.  He brought the broom, he moved in the new couch and chair in which we sat for so many hours searching for the truth of his redeeming love.  If you’ve followed my words this past year, than you shared in my conversation with God.  Do you remember the time I ate a Pizza Ranch cheese stick in the faculty lounge, on my birthday no less, and I let ED take back a room?  Do you remember the time I tried to wear jeans for Homecoming week at school and almost had a nervous breakdown?  Do you remember the times I second-guessed my motives and couldn’t tell if ED or me was calling the shots?  Do you remember the time I jumped off the treadmill because I realized ED was running on it right behind me?  Do you remember the time I went for a walk on a Sunday morning and had to let everything go to God again? Do you remember the time I ran a 5K and hated every minute of it?  Do you remember all of this with me?  Do you remember how hard, how many times, ED tried to get back in my heart’s door?  Because I remember.  I remember this year.  I remember banging my head against the shower wall in anger, frustration, and fear.  I remember the fear.

But guess what?  Guess what?  That memory of fear is fading.  It’s not the strongest memory of this past year.  What stands out to me above all else is God’s grace.  I remember and know above all else God’s saving grace.  I know now that I can’t write my own words.  I’m no good at writing when I try to write my own words because my words are flat.  God’s words are like a song that floats on the air in perfect harmony with my heart.  When I write God’s words from my heart, his song plays and people stop in their tracks to listen in awed silence.  God’s words do that to us.  His pure words from the heart speak truth that we can’t help but fall to our knees in complete and total awe and humility.  His words are power in the Holy Spirit’s wind rushing through our souls.  And the best part – we all have those words in our hearts because we all have a story.

We all have a story.

The key is to let go of our flatness so that God can orchestrate his harmony.  It took me 17 years to be silent, 17 years to stop trying to override God, 17 years to put myself aside and allow God center stage.  And all it took was one moment of desperation and complete surrender.  And now he sings!  We’ve all heard him this year!  In my heart, in your own, in others.  God sings in all of us our own notes, but when he plays all of our notes together, unbelievable music echoes through time and space.  We are God’s music!  Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8).  God speaks and my heart is bursting with his joy!  Absolutely bursting!  It’s Thanksgiving and he’s given me a year of singing his song of joy with promise of music forever and ever amen!  How can I not sing the words he speaks into my heart?

A few minutes ago I was scared that I couldn’t write anymore, but the truth is, I never could write.  What I can do is share God’s story for my life for the world to hear, to know, to share, to celebrate.  And in that celebration of each other, we all sing God’s song of grace together!  I am ALIVE and I am full of JOY and GRACE because I TRUST in him and HOPE in the future he’s moved into my heart.  He is my story of redeeming love.  I can’t write, but because of him, I can SING!  Sing with me today!  Celebrate his song in all of us with me!

Tell your story too – let’s be the orchestra of God for a world longing to hear his story of grace!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
from The Van Donge’s