31 May 2014

Crashing Waves and New Life

“Sometimes the crashing waves don’t wash you away, but wash you alive.” - Ann Voskamp



These last months the waves have left me battered and beaten against the rocks of heartache and sin and self-hatred, threatening to drown me again and again. And drown me they very nearly did. But I am typing these words as I stand safely on the sandy shore watching the sun rise on my life.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
-Psalm 18:16
The waves threatened to engulf me. But as I sputtered and wailed through the crashing pain he reached down and held me tight. When I could not get the air to breath, he filled me with the breath of his Holy Spirit. The crashing, battering waves broke me. Broke me and washed me all clean of the lies that have clung to me for as long as I have memories, living water washing away the sticky mud of my doubting sin nature.


Watching the sun rise is a beautiful thing, a gift from God to be savored. Before this winter storm of my life much of me was dead. I had no hope. But like the gardener who trims the seemingly dead vine down to the ground in order to bring about new growth, God has pruned me back and the new shoots of hope are pushing upward toward the sun. Fresh excitement bubbles like a spring deep within me and I see the buds of my dreams beginning to form as I am bathed in the warm sun and nourishing, gentle spring rain of God's love. I have been washed alive.