Thursday, May 4, 2017

That Fire Inside

Deep in the core of my being is a fire...

... Out of that fire life has come, 

.... out of that fire love has come,

...... and into that fire is where I go when pain is hard, when life hurts, when I want to quit. 


This fire did not come from me. 
It is not even of me - the substance is different, yet not incongruent. Yet we mesh, the fire and I. 

I look at the world and it makes me sad. 
I look at my life and sometimes that makes me sad too.... 

You may not see it, 
but I have felt pain. 
I have known hurt - hurt that makes my insides want to come out, that makes my blood scream and my heart bleed. Hurt of body, hurt of heart - I have felt them both. 
Hurts from others, hurts from myself - I have felt these two. 

But I don't give up. 
I haven't, and I won't. 
And I don't think you should either. 

I'll fight for it. 
I'll fight for your life, I'll fight for your hope. 
I'll fight until the fire in me comes to you too. 

Why would I fight for you? Why would I fight you - over your own life? 
Because the fire in me IS life. 
This life is not my own. 
It is not of me - yet it is within me. 
This life calls me to love, it calls me to see. 

And I see you, dear heart, hurting. 
There's pain in you too- and anger, hurt, rage, frustration, despair.... All these things can be there. 
Sometimes it seems like it is too much. 
But life is calling. 

YES. It is HARD. 
It hurts. 
It hurts so much sometimes you wonder if it is worth it. 
BUT IT IS. 

The fire inside of me attests to this. 
The LIFE inside of me.... can be in you. 
Because my LIFE is not my own - it was bought with a price. 
Yet that price freed my soul like nothing else could. 
My darkness became light, and lightness was a feather. 

With fire in my heart and hope in my hands I will fight. 


Out of this fire comes a conviction, and this conviction runs through my veins. 
Life is not done yet.



..... In....

........Out...In....
.....In......
...........Out....In....


Like an athlete after a race, 
like a swimmer coming up for air.... I breathe. 
Dear friends, breathe with me. 
Don't give up on life - not now, not ever. 
Not when the rain comes, not in the hurricanes, not at the very end. 
From start to finish we run, we breathe, we struggle, we love, we cry, we laugh.... 

LIFE.

No - the suffering was not meant to be. The hurt, the pain, the struggle - you are right to say it's unnatural. It is. 
Yet life has still come - it has come hard and fast, or slow and painful, or for some it seems it hasn't come at all, or it was gone too soon.  


But when i struggle, I go back to that fiery place in me. 
Take heart, for there is ONE who has overcome the world


I cannot make you see it. 
For me, Life came at a young age - before the hurts came.  
Life came and asked -- Will you believe, Dear Heart? 

I'll admit. I have at times felt forsaken. I have been hurt - oh so hurt. I have even lost my hope for a bit, like a child wondering through a store, afraid of being abandoned. I have walked away from Life in anger. 

I have raged at Life. Me- the optimist. Believe it, it's true. 

Yet Life has not left me

Like a little child I have raged at God -- "YOU LEFT ME!" "WHY?" "WHERE WERE YOU?"
Weeping, I have asked, looked... 

...at times feeling forsaken.... 

Yet LIFE has never left me

It started when I was a child. Little - trusting, untouched by pain. 
You see, there is life- that which comes and goes, that which hurts and burns and gives you all the feelings you wanted and those you never did, too. 

Then there is LIFE. LIFE that brings hope. LIFE that brings love. LIFE that is a safe place to go when all seems lost. 

But not a place. This second kind of LIFE - a person. 
I met Him when I was a girl. 
I believed He was good. 
I believed He was God. 
I believed He died to save me - and rose again. 

And here's the thing...
That fire? 
It's still there - 
because I chose to walk with God. I keep choosing
And He - He named Himself Emmanuel - God with US. 

So through all that pain, all that "life" (first kind), His LIFE, His Son 
-- Jesus has never left me. 

And I still believe. 
                                                                                                          


.....Want in? Romans 10:9-10 says that if you "declare with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." 
I promise it won't be easy. "In this world you will have trouble" -- He said that. But He also promised this -- "Take heart, for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). 

And get this -- You don't have to be alone.